Remembering Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms as a Political Compass in Today’s Environment

Lately I’ve been reflecting on the way Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined freedom in his January 6, 1941 address to Congress. While Roosevelt’s purpose in that address was to move Congress from its foreign policy position of neutrality, he did so by enumerating what he understood as the four pillars of freedom to which, in his view, Americans were entitled and exhorting Congress to endorse entering World War II to spread these freedoms around the globe.

It is well worth remembering how Roosevelt so astutely identified the core essentials of freedom, those being freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

The first two of these, freedom of speech and religion, are perhaps widely recognized among Americans, even if not always honored. Trump’s Muslim ban and his endorsement of anti-semitism implicit in his refusal to condemn the protestors in Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us” have become such controversies precisely because most Americans value and understand these basics of freedom.

Freedom from want and freedom from fear, which bear some relation to one another, strike me as much less understood, intuitive, and accepted, and maybe even less orthodox. I’m not sure most Americans, if polled on the…