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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| The "Four Freedoms" |
| 2006-11-24 |
| H/T Pajamas Media. Franklin Roosevelt was elected president for an unprecedented third term in 1940 because at the time the world faced unprecedented danger, instability, and uncertainty. Much of Europe had fallen to the advancing German Army and Great Britain was barely holding its own. A great number of Americans remained committed to isolationism and the belief that the United States should continue to stay out of the war, but President Roosevelt understood Britain's need for American support and attempted to convince the American people of the gravity of the situation. In his annual address to Congress on January 6, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt presented his reasons for American involvement, making the case for continued aid to Great Britain and greater production of war industries at home. In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people possessed. As America entered the war these "four freedoms" - the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear - symbolized America's war aims and gave hope in the following years to a war-wearied people because they knew the were fighting for freedom. Text and Audio at Link |
| Posted by:.com |
| #2 The EU is also based on "four freedoms," which predictably bear no resemblance to ours: the free movement of goods, labor, services, and capital. Homo economicus, the New European Man. I can't forgive FDR's court-packing scheme. He threatened to expand the Supreme Court from nine judges who respected Constitutional limits on federal power, to fifteen who'd give a pass to FDR's massive welfare state "reforms." The threat alone was enough to make the nine see things his way, and that's how most of our bloated entitlement bureaucracy came into being. True to Democrat form, FDR employed threats and subverted the Constitution to get his way, with unintended (but foreseeable) consequences that did more harm than good in the long-run. FDR may have won WWII, he helped make it damn near impossible to win any others after that. |
| Posted by: exJAG 2006-11-24 18:31 |
| #1 I must say FDR was a briiliant leader. And, I've been a life long Pub. This man had all the qualities required to solve tremendous problems in the 1930's and 1940's. No wonder he was idolized by my parents and grandparents. They went through something beyond trying times. And FDR was out front cheering and leading. Too bad we don't have even a tinge of that today. We need some leadership too. |
| Posted by: SpecOp35 2006-11-24 13:44 |