—Special Guest, Mrs. Begonia Contretemps Reporting—
The Council, in its infinite capacity for assigning impossible tasks to unsuspecting correspondents, has directed me to explain today’s Words in the Wild expression:
“Afforded Appurtenances.”
According to our Editor, John St. Evola, these two words unexpectedly surfaced during that peculiar hypnagogic interval between sleep and wakefulness. He immediately wrote them down, then spent several minutes wondering what on earth he could possibly have been dreaming. Unable to determine the answer, he did what editors have traditionally done throughout history. He gave the problem to someone else.
I was delighted to accept the assignment.
Some phrases are so magnificently highfalutin that one is inclined to applaud them before discovering what they mean. This one positively jingles with legal dignity. It sounds as though it ought to be read aloud by a bewigged barrister while everyone else nods solemnly and pretends to understand.
Our topic for today consists of a phrase :
One rather likes the sound of a phrase before one has the slightest notion what it means.
Appurtenances, as it happens, are the things that accompany something else—the odds and ends that come bundled with the principal article.
Which brings us, rather inconveniently, to freedom.
As the Republic celebrates its two hundred and fiftieth birthday, everyone appears eager to remind us what freedom has afforded.
Very well.
Permit me to speak briefly of the appurtenances.
Freedom afforded us the right to speak our minds.
It also afforded us people who never stop.
Freedom afforded us the liberty to pursue happiness.
It also afforded us an industry devoted to explaining happiness to strangers for a monthly subscription.
Freedom afforded us enterprise.
It also afforded us telemarketers, junk mail, extended warranties, reality television, and approximately three hundred breakfast cereals, none of which appear capable of producing an actual breakfast.
Freedom afforded us newspapers.
It also afforded us the comment section.
I rather enjoy this free-for-all when it is allowed. The comments remind one that intelligent people still exist. It is merely the bots I objects to. They seem to have mastered the art of expressing certainty without first troubling themselves with consciousness.
Freedom has afforded us elections.
It also afforded us campaign consultants, political action committees, billion-dollar advertising campaigns, and the curious discovery that some citizens possess considerably more freedom to influence public affairs than others—not because their liberty is greater in principle, but because their bank accounts are.
An intriguing appurtenance, that.
The law assures us that every citizen may speak.
The practical world quietly observes that some may purchase a much larger microphone.
The law assures us that every citizen may seek office.
The practical world notes that some may also purchase sufficient advertising to become unavoidable.
I have long suspected that we recruit our public servants from the wrong end of the queue. Those most eager to govern are frequently the least suited to the task. As insult to the injury they appear to enjoy governing too much. A proper public servant ought to regard election as an unfortunate interruption to a perfectly satisfactory private life, complete the necessary paperwork with admirable efficiency, and then hurry home in the hope of never being re-elected.
The law assures us that every citizen may enjoy freedom of association.
Mrs. Begonia has observed that government is forever exercising someone else’s freedom in ways that determine with whom the rest of us shall associate.
Mrs. Begonia has never pretended to be a worshipper at the altar of liberty in its purest form. Every political arrangement carries its own appurtenances. The American variety has the charming habit of announcing theirs with fireworks.
Several versions of this illustration were rejected until the Council’s LLM wranglers in frustration prompted, “Try the bombing of Gaza. Apparently that’s acceptable.”
The machine agreed at once.
Voilà.
The point is merely this: freedom has never been available without its appurtenances.
Some of those appurtenances are magnificent.
Some are merely noisy.
Some become so expensive that only a fortunate minority can fully enjoy them, while everyone else is assured they possess precisely the same freedom.
It is an elegant arrangement.
One final observation.
Every Fourth of July, rockets burst overhead while speakers proclaim FREEDOM! with admirable enthusiasm.
I, Mrs. Begonia Contretemps merely wonders whether anyone has thought to read the attachments.
Freedom never arrived by itself.
It afforded us appurtenances.
The invoice, as always, was enclosed.
The Further Writings of Mrs. Begonia can be found HERE
The Appurtenances of the word Wrangler :
COUNCIL-OF CONCERNED-CONSERVATIONISTS…..Between Jest And Earnest….. 
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