New Hampshire has changed what was perhaps the most recognizable state mottos—”Live Free or Die”—to something slightly less catchy: “Live Free or Protect Me From a Cough.”

The new motto spurred by the overwhelming fear induced by the coronavirus pandemic replaces the old one instituted in 1945.

A possible source of such mottoes is Patrick Henry’s famed March 23, 1775, speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses, which contained the following phrase: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

“The whole freedom thing is overrated,” said one New Hampshire resident on a teleconference from under blankets in his secure locked down home. “I want to be free for sure, but I also don’t want to get a bad cough.”

Recently, an esteemed scholar has discovered an asterisk negating the Bill of Rights in case of a really bad cold.

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Exavier Saskagoochie

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