One group of Americans is marching and shouting in protest against perceived excesses of the “nanny state.”

My rantings against the “nanny state” arouse the neighbors’ dogs, cats and chickens, a quarter-mile distant from my yard, where the rantings take place.

The anti-nannies focus on too-strict lockdown terms intended to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

My screamathon focuses on my riding lawnmowers.

Both sets of protests have two things in common: They invoke the Constitution, and they require yelling, not just speaking.

The anti-lockdown protesters cite the Constitution. They shout, “Land of the Free!” “Restricting our Movements is Tyranny!” and the like, and plaster similar slogans on signs.

I cite the Constitution, too. I shout, “Making the blankety-blank mower blade shut down when I throw the blankety-blank gear into reverse is Tyranny!”

The same Big Brother that confines us to our homes mostly without benefit of booze from state-run stores nonetheless allows beer and wine sales from distributors, distilleries and retail stores.

That is tyranny.

Big Brother also requires mower makers to install mandatory speed-limiting governors, and mandatory blade reverse gear shutoffs.

That, too, is tyranny.

Damn the government, anyway! The damnation is bipartisan. Anti-nannies rant against governors, Democrat and Republican alike. I rant against Presidents: Clinton, Obama, the Bushes and Trump.

Tyranny, that’s what it is/are!

The TV-grabbing protesters say that they have a God-given right to risk becoming infected with the coronavirus, even though it can kill us.

I say that I have a God-given right, too. I have a right to use my God-given intellect and my own common sense to not chop to pieces our chickens, dogs, or cats while backing up my mower.

I know how to back up a lawnmower!

We all know how to avoid getting sick, risk getting sick, or even deliberately get sick with COVID-19 to acquire (potential) immunity.

Up to that point, this geezer protester agrees with the lockdown protesters.

Here is where we differ: I do not extend the COVID-19 protesters’ right to get sick or die from sickness into an ability to make me sick or dead, or use my money to mitigate their bullheadedness.

If some boozer/gambler types choose to meet in a private home to play poker and chortle, cheer, curse and cough, pushing their exhalations and COVID-19 droplets onto each other, fine — with a limitation.

Anyone who does that, or stuff like that, should be required to carry a card right next to a driver’s license. It should say something like:

“I assumed the risk of this. Just let me lie here. No ambulances, hospitals or care paid for by other people via taxes or insurance. I am my own person, by Gawwdd! I’ll live, suffer or die by my own resources, by Gawwdd! Ah love the Yew-Nighted-States and its Consti … Consa … Consumpshushion, by Gawwdd!”

I just might fire up my handy-dandy computer printer and print myself one of those cards. First, though, I have to figure out how to bypass the governors on the riding mowers and disable the back-it-up blade killer.

If I run over myself while backing up the lawnmower, that would prove to me that I had become senile enough so that I ought never to mow grass again.

(Dear Spouse: Mowing is all yours from now on! Me, I’ll sit on the front porch and sip wine.)

But unlike the anti-nannies, who attack the rest of us with their unmasked, closer-than-six-feet breaths, I do not drive my mowers into neighbors’ yards and pollute their air with my curses when the mowers quit cutting while backing up.

And let’s not even get me started on “no global warming fumes” gasoline storage cans. I spilled more gasoline trying to use those no-emission spouts than I ever did with the old-fashioned metal Quaker State cans and their straight-pour, gurgle-gurgle spouts.

Note to Big Brother enforcers: I said, “I spilled….” I did not say, “I now spill.” Did I modify your “safety spouts”? Hah! That same Consumpshushion guarantees my right to remain silent.

The Trump administration wants to stop sending federal money to “sanctuary cities” that refuse to help enforce federal laws and regulations regarding illegal immigrants.

I agree.

Actions have consequences, for sanctuary cities, for lockdown protesters, for geezer mowers of grass.

The COVID-19 lockdown protesters ought to stick their outstretched hands back in their own pockets, relying on their rugged individualism and not my tax-paid or insurance-paid treatments if they get the virus.

As for me, I promise to return my $1,200 COVID-19 stimulus money — just as soon as Big Brother repeals its castrations of riding mowers and gasoline tank spouts.

Hmm. Maybe not “just” as soon. How about I send the money back “sometime” soon? “Eventually?”

Or just as soon as this year’s candidates for President and Congress actually do balance the budget and reduce the national debt.

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.