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Four Freedoms

  

Four Freedoms


The Four Freedoms are a set of freedoms United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously outlined in his State of the Union Address delivered to the 77th Congress on January 6, 1941 (the address is also known as the Four Freedoms speech). He outlined the following four freedoms, which he stated were fundamental freedoms all humans "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:

  1. Freedom of speech and expression - worldwide
  2. Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - worldwide
  3. Freedom from want - individual economic security - worldwide.
  4. Freedom from fear - world disarmament to the point that wars of aggression are impossible.

    The Declarations


    The speech delivered by President Roosevelt incorporated the following section:

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world.


The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world.

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.


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.


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.

United Nations


The concept of the Four Freedoms became part of the personal mission undertaken by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt regarding her inspiration behind the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

Postage Stamps


President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech inspired a set of four paintings by Norman Rockwell which were reproduced as postage stamps by the United States Post Office.

Awards


The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute [1] honors outstanding individuals who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to these ideals. Among the laureates have been:
  • Harry S. Truman;
  • John F. Kennedy;
  • James Earle Carter;
  • Averell Harriman;
  • Coretta Scott King;
  • Elie Wiesel;
  • Thomas P. O'Neill;
  • William Brennan;
  • Mike Mansfield;
  • H.R.H. Princess Juliana of the Netherlands;
  • Vaclav Havel;
  • Mikhail Gorbachev;
  • the Dalai Lama;
  • H.M. Juan Carlos of Spain, and
  • Shimon Peres.
    Medals are awarded at ceremonies at Hyde Park, New York and Middelburg, the Netherlands during alternate years.

    Media


    During the 1980s various activities which promoted the Four Freedoms were conducted in the name of Four Freedoms Federation as part of the initial attempts to revive Wonderful Radio London as an offshore station. Later these activities expanded to promoting freedom from political bias which denied the premise of the "Four Freedoms" within school text books, to assisting free radio stations outside of the USA to stay on the air in response to governmental control of broadcasing content. In Dallas, Texas, KZEW FM became the "flagship station" of 4FWS during the Rock & Roll Alternative weekly program hosted by George Gimarc which was also carried on shortwave by KIWI Radio [1] based in New Zealand. 4FWS programs were also heard on stations such as PCRL in Birmingham, England.

    Parody of the Four Freedoms


    The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell presents four ministries in which each one is utterly antithetical to its name. The Ministry of Truth is concerned with lies, an idea that Orwell seems to have gained by his work at the BBC which at the time of his employment was under the control of the Ministry of Information. Roosevelt spoke of "freedom of speech". Orwell wrote of propaganda.

    His "Ministry of Peace" concerned itself with war, but Roosevelt spoke of the fourth freedom as being "freedom from fear" as a result of world disarmament.

    Orwell's "Ministry of Love" was about torture, but Roosevelt who had met with Churchill to form the Atlantic Alliance, did so on a ship which celebrated a church service where they sang of God's love following Roosevelt's own claim to freedom of worship for a God of love.

    Finally Orwell described his "Ministry of Plenty" as being concerned with starvation. The third of Roosevelt's four freedoms addressed the issue of freedom from want.

    See also

  • Liberalism in the United States

    External links

  • Full text and audio of the Four Freedoms speech. An excerpt of the Four Freedoms section is also available.
  • Full text of the Four Freedoms speech.
  • Four Freedoms Democratic Club
  • Complete text of Second Inaugural Address by President Bush on January 20, 2005


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