Presidential election, 2016

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-31-2016, 03:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The Four Freedoms didn't include healthcare. The Freedom from Want  focused on the basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. Evidently, progressives WANT more than just them today. Progressives appear to always want more and expect everyone else to pay for what they want as well.

In 1941's State of the Union speech, FDR declared the Four Freedoms, not quite a year before the US became active in World War II.  In 1948 Eleanor made them more specific in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, otherwise known as General Assembly Resolution 217 A.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25 Wrote:(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

While FDR in 1941 was too busy getting the nation ready to enter World War II to go into the same level of detail that Eleanor later achieved, Article 25 seems to me to be a pretty good summary of 'Freedom from Want'.

Do you not believe the above to be reasonable goals?  Are there any of the above that you do not believe necessary for yourself?  Does it matter to you that we technically are bound by treaty to strive towards these goals?  At any rate, while you can quibble on whether the above ideals and principles should be attributed to Franklin or Eleanor, they remain important to me and to many progressives.

Anyway, the thought at the time was that if the Universal Rights could somehow be provided, that there would be a lot less violence in the world. Today, we Boomers are thought of as idealistic.  The Missionary and GI generations had us beat in that department.  The GIs aren't called the 'Greatest Generation' for nothing.  They were really really ambitious, and would throw themselves and their government at any and all problems, all at once.  That was the time that America was Great.

Today, their dreams and goals are forgotten by many, everywhere in the world.

FDR Wrote: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.