Obama: Freedom of speech? Who needs it?

"'Freedom from Fear' (left) and 'Freedom from Want' are two of Norman Rockwell's 'The Four Freedoms' series inspired by FDR's rousing wartime State of the Union address in 1941," we captioned these images from a 2004 post. "Reproduced in four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post in 1943, the original paintings by America's favorite illustrator toured the United States, raising over $130 million for the war effort. (Norman Rockwell Museum photos)"

"Who would have thunk it? George Bush turns out to be [Actually always was. –ed] the truer proponent of freedom," twitters Fred Thompson. Joshua Muravchik explains:

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. No administration has ever made these its primary, much less its exclusive, goals overseas. But ever since Jimmy Carter spoke about human rights in his 1977 inaugural address and created a new infrastructure to give bureaucratic meaning to his words, the advancement of human rights has been one of the consistent objectives of America’s diplomats and an occasional one of its soldiers.

This tradition has been ruptured by the Obama administration. The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear."

"'Freedom of Speech' left and 'Freedom to Worship' complete the series," we wrote in 2004. "We remember having reproductions of the illustrations hanging on the walls of our grade-school classrooms in the fifties and thinking even then they seemed quaintly old-fashioned. In today's world, again at war with those who would stomp on our freedoms, we see them with fresh eyes. Because Rockwell's subject matter was usually on the corny side, serious art critics tended to look down upon the artist's accomplishment, but beyond the anecdotal component — much loved by the average American — his compositional and painterly skills were quite remarkable.

Contrast Obama's anemic assertion last January that democracy is less important than "freedom from want and freedom from fear" — not to mention his tepid response to earth-shaking events in Iran and his ongoing "sledging strategy of intimidation" designed to discredit domestic dissent, from Fox News and talk radio on down to us bloggers and anti-statist tea partiers — with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's rousing State of the Union January 6, 1941:

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.

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. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

As we twittered in response to Fred Thompson's observation above, "How telling Obama left out 2 of FDRs 4 freedoms: freedom of speech & freedom of worship!"

Comments

[Gayle Miller]

Americans will exercise their civil rights in a most civil manner, unless and until, The Won makes it difficult for us to do so, in which case we will veer into incivility and downright rude disregard of Obama's wishes! That's what we do. That's why this country is such a treasure. Never, ever underestimate the power and strength of the American people as a whole. Many have done so to their dismay! We're amiable people; don't push us beyond our own, self-imposed limits, however.

[Teresa]

Obama has already managed to anger the gay community so much that they are organizing in NYC (according to my sister who lives there). If he manages to anger a few more groups who voted for him because they heard what they wanted to hear, he'll have a much more difficult time "changing" America. Let's hope he disenchants his base quickly.

[Gayle Miller]

Maybe that's because the gay community has finally wised up to the fact that if Obama's Muslim pals gain any power in this country, their butts are on the line! Big time. The Islamofascists make it a point to kill gays.