Four freedoms

We went to the Norman Rockwell Museam today, and there was an inspired paring of a MAD exhibition. Did you know that MAD Magazine still exists? Me neither.

American Ideals at their finest.

One thing that I didn't know about was the Four Freedoms:

1. Freedom of Speech
2. Freedom from Want
3. Freedom from Fear
4. Freedom of Worship

These images captured something that is embedded in my psyche – especially Freedom of Speech, which I think of everytime someone posts to the local town mailing list with whatever their take is on something. Freedom from Want – which is a picture of a large thanksgiving turkey is probably the reason why I think we need to have turkey on thanksgiving. On any other day I'm not sure I'd ever order turkey.

The other funny thing about this is that I'd only heard of "four freedoms" in the context of Freedoms of Free software:

Freedom 0: The freedom to use the program for any purpose.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.