Reflection on Four Freedoms by Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Four essential human freedoms” according to Roosevelt are “the freedom of speech,” “the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way,” “the freedom from want” and “the freedom from fear.” Roosevelt was talking about “a world founded upon” these four freedoms, and if one thinks Taiwan is a reasonably free, safe, and good-to-live place compared with others, are Taiwanese, in 2023, implementing these four freedoms? In Taiwan, there is freedom of worship, we accept most religions, and we do not mind even if one is an agnostic or atheist. Often one can find in one family, each member has their own gods to worship. Generally speaking, the Taiwanese have the freedom of speech. We are almost always able to speak whatever they want, even those that hurt people. That is, this is kind of violating the fourth — the freedom from fear; while Roosevelt discussed this in “world terms,” he might have been amazed at how Taiwanese can fight against their own people. Still, the fear Taiwanese may be facing domestically is not to the degree that one may lose his or her life when he or she is walking on the street. Finally, lots of Taiwanese are not free from want. They suffer economically. Various reasons cause this freedom not realised; however, this should be the topic for another day. We are generally free, free in form, however. We are blind, easy to be manipulated by media, in the slavery of freedom. Just saying...