Four Fundamental Freedoms

When President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) gave his famed Four Freedoms speech, America was emerging from the great depression and looking at war in Europe. In his speech to Congress, he tried to tell Americans why our country needed to support England in its battle against the Nazis. In his discussion of them, he spoke about basic human rights. He defined these rights by calling them the four freedoms. He described them as below, stating that freedom means the supremacy of rights everywhere:

Freedom of speech and expression, everywhere in the world.

Freedom of every person to worship God in their own way, everywhere in the world.

Freedom from want, economic understanding which will secure for every nation a healthy    peacetime for its inhabitants

Freedom from fear, worldwide reduction of armaments …..to the point at which no nation will be in a position to commit physical aggression against a neighbor.

Decades later, our country faces another crisis. A crisis where the Rule of Law and the exercise of the freedoms above are in jeopardy. We now have an administration that wants to create a climate of fear to reduce the opposition. Rusell Vouight, currently the director of the Office of Personnel Management, (OPM) and one of the authors of Project 2025, said this about Federal employees and the reductions currently happening across the federal workforce: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected.”

Do you wonder why all Republicans seemed to be mute as they are not critical of the chaos in our midst? They know that Elon Musk along with right-wing PACs, can, at DJT ‘s bidding, fund an opponent who will go along. I think they need to get a spine, stand for something, and fight for what is right, putting the needs of the country above their personal wants. (I know, Mr Smith came to Washington a long time ago.) One Republican who opposed many nominees, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, recently stated she felt threatened and spoke of the climate of fear now prevalent in Congress. She felt that Senators and other Republicans in Congress could no longer freely speak. Even Senator Joanie Ernst, a seasoned military veteran, backed down and supported Nominee Pete Hegspeth, even though she knew he was unqualified after the right-wing PACs made threats to find a primary opponent should she vote wrongly on any nominee for the cabinet.

The freedom of speech is also stifled when a climate of fear is created, negating the intent of two freedoms. Vouight is also a Christian Nationalist and a proponent of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. That is untrue. Early settlers came to the New World to seek religious freedom and free expression. Puritans and Pilgrims, Quakers, Huguenots, and others came to the colonies because they were persecuted and driven from their homelands in many cases. The Caroll family, a wealthy Catholic supporter of the English King, was given a royal grant to establish a Catholic colony in the  State of Maryland.

Among the founding fathers, there was no consensus to define a state religion. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin famously voiced no support for organized religion. Jefferson voiced support for nature and Unitarianism, although he supported the Anglican church in his Virginia community. Franklin was raised as a  Puritan but considered himself a deist. The Declaration of Independence purposedly declared no state religion.

But the Christian Nationalists (CN) want a state religion; they want to force their values on the rest of us. They reject the wider freedom of how to worship. They do not respect common values but instead try to make it more difficult for a woman to divorce her husband, or obtain an abortion. They are trying to ban contraception and IVF, all of which allow women to control their bodies. They are working to overturn same-sex marriage laws, ban books, and remake accurate portrayals of history. They want to defund public schools or control the agenda where they can't. They do not support democratic values such as the right to vote for all or respect the principles of the Rule of Law. Many CN members participated in the January 6^th insurrection.

They must feel pushback from the rest of us that this is not the American Way.

FDR saw a nation that was just finally clawing itself back from the Great Depression and was hurting. This country saw the Dust Bowl decimate farmers in the 30s, bank failures, foreclosures, poorhouses, and child labor. He set out to try to fix this and created a social safety net to keep his countrymen from the fear of Want. Unions were strengthened, child labor was restricted, and the Social Security program was initiated for vulnerable people and seniors. Some want these safeguards removed.

Some people now are calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme ignoring the fact that it goes mostly to workers who paid into the Treasury for years. Officials are trying to make it more difficult for beneficiaries to ask questions, or have problems resolved by closing community offices and demanding in-person meetings at distant sites. Seniors are facing a climate of fear about the security of their payments and personal data. Health Centers, Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and school nutrition programs are being curtailed or cut. But they think you don’t care about old people or children and won’t protest.

So, what can we do now? This is not the government we expect, so we must speak out about the excesses, the disregard of Civil Service regulations, the belittling of federal workers, the defiance of Congress by usurping its authority and ignoring the firestops built into appointments such as for the positions of Inspector General.  Our workers, who for years were proud of their federal service, are now wondering if they will have a job in 60 days. This administration is being surly toward the federal courts and defying or slow-walking court orders. Such actions, to my knowledge, have never been taken before. But they lie about federal workers and think no one cares.

Our country is being cut off from our former world allies, who are now being maligned. Instead, our ‘dear leader’ wants to play footsie with a murderous dictator, Putin. A man who has committed war crimes kidnapped children, invaded other countries, poisoned or otherwise killed opponents, and murdered journalists in the street.  The issue with the USAID program funds p is stark. The abrupt and cruel denial of food and medicine to populations around the world will kill thousands, more in the long term if the loss of anti-virals to prevent HIV/AIDS is discontinued. The likelihood of drug resistance and the spread of this disease to the rest of the world is now possible through these poorly considered actions. Children are already dying of malnutrition in famine-stricken areas of Africa. But they think you won’t care about black and brown people and won’t protest.

In this country, actions are being taken in attempts to portray our history as one of macho-men, white men, who are dominant.  The achievements of women and people of color are erased or minimized as indicated by all of the senior women in the military who have been fired or demoted and our civil rights history whitewashed. Folks, in case you haven’t noticed, these actions are Propaganda 101. We all know better and should say so. We still do have the freedom of speech, though that is also under fire. The administration, under the ruse of fighting anti-semitism, started by going after the speech of green card holders or those with student visas. But don’t pause, you might be next. As former Congresswoman Liz Cheney recently said when the president ordered an investigation into his former cybersecurity head Chris Krebs since he declared the 2020 election was fair.

“In a special mix of incompetence and evil, Trump has combined his disastrous implementation of 1930s tariff policies with Stalinesque targeting of political adversaries. The 2020 election wasn’t stolen and speaking the truth is only a crime in countries ruled by tyrants.”

Cheney said she regretted voting for the president the first time. I’m sure Senator Ernst already regrets her vote for Hegspeth. This is what hyperpartisanship from both sides created. While Republicans Cheney and Kinzinger served on the House committee investigating January 6^th they subsequently lost their seats. I was pleased that the House ousted George Santos and investigated Matt Gaetz in a bipartisan way, I just wish there was more cooperation between parties. After all, we have to live together. But as long as people have more interest in promoting division than unity, I guess this will be a problem.

There is so much more going on as this administration is bombarding everyone with so many actions, orders, and traumas, judges are deciding against so many that it is confusing, The issue with the immigrants and students being thrown into jails or sent to another country is that it ignores due process, as even visa holders and undocumented immigrants have some rights. So they think you won’t care about immigrants and foreigners and won’t protest.

With the courts striking back and millions of people in the streets, it is possible we are making a difference. These actions, along with the tariff snafu have worked to reduce the presidents’ approval numbers to high 30s or low 40s, the worst first-hundred-day drop ever.

The Pew Research Center lists overall the president's approval as 40%, but 39% when tariffs are queried. The question of what respondents liked least was how the president is governing. So what’s next? I guess we wait, but I don’t expect rapid fixes to this chaos. But we must keep our voices out there because we are starting to see some rollback. (They backed down on closing all SS offices, modified some tariffs, put Jackie Robinson back on the website, and Harriet Tubman in the museum.) Keep up the pressure!

Temporary restraining orders are being formalized, and despite delays, courts are speaking back. Even the Supreme Court recently made an emergency midnight order to stop a deportation. So maybe, just maybe, we slowed this down and autocracy is not on our doorstep yet, but it is around the corner and we must remain vigilant. Keep those calls and letters to Congress up, keep making those signs that speak to the issues, and keep marching, calling friends, and making noise, We will take our country back!

Til next time-peace!

Addendum…personal note..I started developing this line of thought a couple of weeks ago and was quite surprised to see, that in his final message to the world, Pope Francis said the following:

There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and respect for the views of others.

Amen