On January 6th, 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his famous, ‘Four Freedoms’ speech.

“In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms... freedom of speech and expression... freedom of every person to worship God in his own way... freedom from want... [and] freedom from fear.”

Norman Rockwell produced a series of paintings representing these four freedoms, and this weekend, one of them has become well known on the Internet.

At an event for President Bush in Charlotte, NC, Harry Taylor stood up and said, “What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington”. Numerous people have noted how similar the picture of Harry Taylor is to Rockwell’s ‘Freedom of Speech’.

Over on LamontBlog, thirdparty notes this image:

also seems Rockwellian. To me, it reminds me of the folks at the dinner table in freedom from want.

Over on FireDogLake, Jane asks, “Who Will Be Joe Lieberman’s Harry Taylor?” Well, according to My Left Nutmeg, someone was there to ask Sen. Lieberman about loyalty.

Many of the apologists for Sen. Lieberman say that we should support him out of loyalty. Yet Joe, saying that he’ll ‘wait and see how the primary comes out’ before making any sort of decision about whether to run as an independent does not give us a good example of loyalty.

FDR ended his famous speech this way: “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. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

We do need to fight for the supremacy of human rights everywhere, and part of that battle is embracing freedom from fear and rejecting the fear-mongering of Bush and his supporters.