Favorite Poem Project

Four Freedoms

Background: Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in New York, on January 30, 1882. He received his bachelor’s degree in business from Harvard University, and he then went on to study law at Colombia University. In 1905, Roosevelt married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a distant cousin and the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the 32nd President, from 1933-1945. In 1921 he was diagnosed with polio and was paralyzed from the waist down.  He still was able to be president in a wheel chair, and this is something that is truly amazing. I thought it was also cool that he was the president during Pearl Harbor.

Connect: The four freedoms really stood out to me because I am very grateful for those freedoms. One thing that I am grateful for in my life is my religion. I do not know who or where I would be in my life if I were not a part of my religion. It is very special to me that we have the freedom to worship whomever in this country. I think of countries like Islam and it saddens me that they do not have some of the great freedoms that we have here in America.  I am also grateful that we can have freedom of speech. Could you imagine a place where we got in trouble for voicing our opinion? It amazes me that America has so many freedoms. I think that so many of the freedoms are taken for granted and people don’t really think about them a lot. I think that it is very important to be grateful for our freedoms

The Four Freedoms

The general argument made by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his work Four Freedoms, is that there are four essential human freedoms that the US needs to guarantee to its citizens and the world.  More specifically Roosevelt suggests that we need to always follow and keep these four freedoms as American citizens. These freedoms include: freedom of speech and expression, Freedom of worship, Freedom of want, and freedom from fear.  Roosevelt said that it was up to us whether or not we ensured these freedoms. He writes “This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads, and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. (p.739)” In this passage, Roosevelt is only suggesting that in order to keep our freedoms we also need to do our part as a citizen to ensure those freedoms, that we are so blessed to have.  In conclusion, it is Roosevelt’s belief that we should do our part to keep the four very important freedoms.

                In my view, Roosevelt is right because he talks about how we should always be allowed these freedoms. He also says that these freedoms aren’t just something that are and were easy to come by. These freedoms are something that we need to work for and do our duty as citizens as well.  For example, if we do not follow the law, that is violating our duty as a citizen. We can only earn these freedoms by using them as well. These freedoms are important to us and therefore we should be able to defend them and do all that is right to keep them around. Therefore I conclude that we should always do our part to ensure those freedoms. We need to make sure these freedoms are always guaranteed toward us as citizens.