I personally want to continue to live in a country where I can think as I please, go to any church I please, or to none if that is my desire; say what I please, and within the limits of any free society, do what I please. I want the right to work, and I want that opportunity to be extended to all my fellow citizens. I want them to have an equal opportunity for educational development, for health and for recreation, which is all part of the building of a human being capable of coping with the modern world.
— Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, July 4, 1940
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president a third time, in November 1940, the country was in trouble. Economic insecurity gripped most Americans, and imperial armies threatened the nation from abroad.
The president thought it necessary to deliver a State of the Union Address the following January that would sound an alarm. Too many Americans, he felt, were caught up in make-believe. If every citizen just minded his or her own business, they said, the country could weather the storm.
So FDR turned to his top advisors and speechwriters and, after seven drafts, hammered out an address as famous as any in American history, the "Four Freedoms Speech."
America had to steel itself, the speech went, for the sake of four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Important ideas.
This July 4, think about the four freedoms while you enjoy the day. And steel yourself for an assault.
We're under the thumb of a psychotic pack of robber barons, both elected and appointed. And, with help from their lapdogs, they're hell bent on stripping you of all four freedoms.
Why? To shore up their unhealthy egos and feed a biblical lust for wealth and dominion.
Steel yourself.
