X-Message-Number: 27062
From: "Beth Bailey" <>
Subject: Re: Ordinary Men, to Peter Merel
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 14:39:24 -0400

Peter Merel wrote,
<But I believe there are just people,  
<no us and them. Each person is capable of good or evil as  
<circumstances dictate. In citing FDR's 4 Freedoms I propose we work  
<to change our circumstances, and thereby the cause of terror.

The "Four Freedoms"
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address to Congress January 6, 1941 
Chapter 36:

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. To that new order we oppose the greater 
conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world 
domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of 
our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful 
revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to 
changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the 
ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, 
working together in a friendly, civilized society. 


This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and 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 or keep them. Our strength is our unity
of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory. 

From Congressional Record, 1941, Vol. 87, Pt. I. 


I agree with you Peter, FDR was right. I wish the "Four Freedoms" were still 
part of the political debate taking place throughout the world. 

Peter Merel also wrote,

<We've done worse to them than they to us by orders of magnitude. If there are 
evil people, it's us.


Sorry Peter, I respectfully take umbrage with that statement. There is no "moral
equivalence" that can justify terrorism. By nature or nurture, there are evil 
people in the world who would kill you just as soon as look in your direction. I
refuse to accept what you say, "If there are evil people, it's us." No one in 
those airplanes (with the exeption of the Al Queda scum) and no one in the WTC 
towers or Pentagon deserved to die, or be maimed that day, for the crime of 
getting up in the morning and going to work. 


If , as you say, "there are just people,  no us and them. Each person is capable
of good or evil as circumstances dictate." This suggests that every person is 
responsible for his or her behavior and the fact of whether or not they go over 
to the dark side is a personal choice.  


Lastly, this has been an interesting debate, but I won't be able to post anymore
for a while. I am recovering from an eye infection, and I am not supposed to be
using the computer.

Kind regards,

Beth Bailey


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