A blupete Essay

Introduction, Part 1 to blupete's Essay
"On Liberty"

In 1941, F. D. Roosevelt said something that was to spur on the American soldier in his fighting efforts. Roosevelt held out that they would receive the complete support of those at home; and, upon their return to America, better times were in store for all.
"In the future days we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear."1
Highflown notions to which Aldous Huxley, in 1950, responded:
"To talk about the Rights of Man and the Four Freedoms in connection with India is merely a cruel joke."2
These notions, as gushed from Roosevelt's mouth, set the stage in what was to be, like so many freedom stealing programmes of government, temporary, a measure to ease ex-soldiers back, with sympathy, into an economic way of life supported on "the newly-painted pillars of the four freedoms."3 Roosevelt made a mess of the classic notion of freedom; and so has most every other western politician who has followed in Roosevelt's steps, since. For, the notion of freedom, as held by the ancient Greeks, as will be readily seen, was not so much "freedom from want"; but, rather, "freedom from men."
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Peter Landry

2011 (2019)