FDR's Four Freedoms on the 4th of July 2023

In his State of the Union speech on Jan. 6, 1941, FDR famously offered up "the Four Freedoms" to explain why the United States was at war abroad and on a war footing at home. He introduced the Four Freedoms with this eerily familiar list of goals for the country: 

[T]here is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.

As examples:

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care. [emphasis added -- this is a HealthLawBlog, after all]

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

Then FDR got to the part of his speech that made it so enduring:

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. 

As the Smithsonian has noted:

The public response? Crickets. Congress barely applauded. The next day most newspapers didn't even mention the “Four Freedoms.” Those who were still talking about the phrase in the weeks and months that followed did so to lambaste its “hollow, empty sound.” The government hired [E.B.] White and other A-list scribes to drum up some buzz, but White’s boss called his pamphlet “dull.” The “Four Freedoms,” in the words of one federal administrator, were a “flop.”

Ever the optimist, FDR concluded the list with this: "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." Eighty-two years later the Four Freedoms are still aspirational, not real, for much of the world and for many of our fellow citizens.