The Four Freedoms

In 1941, way long ago, a President of The United States of America laid out four basic freedoms every human being must have in order to feel and be whole. He prefaced his list of freedoms with the following words; “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms”. The fateful words were spoken in his State of The Union address to congress in January 6, 1941.

“The first is freedom of speech and expression-everywhere in the world” We tend to make much of freedom of the press; and from time to time people have gone to prison to defend this freedom. But freedom of speech goes well beyond this; it applies to our use of the internet to speak our minds on any subject that energizes our imagination. Books, lectures, blogs and even arguments in a supermarket all are supported by the freedom of speech. The fundamental tenet for peaceful human interaction is this first and great freedom.

“The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world.” The freedom of religion is one all humans must have; because within the makeup of every human being is the need to reach out to something larger than the self. We often feel incomplete and find that a religion helps to complete us. This completion applies to all religions and is not the sole property of any one of them.

“The third is freedom from want-which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.” This is where the rubber meets the road for our country; especially in the current squabbling going within the congress over ‘entitlements.’ If as country we accept this freedom as the bare essential, then Social Security should not be even questioned. Those among us who do not have the resources to live free from ‘want’ should be helped by the community at large.

“The fourth is freedom from fear-which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-anywhere in the world.” What if we had taken this freedom into consideration before going to war in Iraq, perhaps we may have chosen a different path. That war, based on it was on faulty intelligence, has cost our country treasure and lives that could have been spent making this a better country for everyone.

President Roosevelt concluded his list with this statement: “That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.” Franklin D. Roosevelt January 6. 1941. Let us add his thoughts to our remembrances as we emerge from the 9/11 tenth anniversary.