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Ffk Freedom Speech Analysis

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Most Americans believe that all human beings deserve freedom and basic human rights. As the United States of America is commonly called “the land of the free,” most American presidents have strived to preserve the freedom of American citizens, but in different ways. While many people around the world still struggle for freedom and rights, U.S. presidents have contributed to and addressed the movement towards world peace differently. Two presidents that focused on the preservation of freedom were Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. The “Four Freedoms” speech by Roosevelt and Kennedy’s Inaugural Address both discuss freedom, but they contrast in historical context, the use of the word freedom and purpose.
To start, despite the fact that both presidents are delivering their speeches during times of war, the position of the U.S. in those wars, and the wars being fought, were entirely different. Roosevelt delivered his speech before the United States had joined World War II in 1941, whereas Kennedy delivered his speech during the Cold War in 1961. Throughout his “Four Freedoms” speech, Roosevelt attempts to persuade the U.S. to join the war to aid other democracies in the fight for freedom, before ultimately being forced into war by a surprise assault. Roosevelt used an emotional appeal to the American people by stating “the democratic way of life is at this moment being directly assailed in every part of the world . . . by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace” (paragraph 12). With this statement, Roosevelt puts the war into perspective for Americans by showing democracies, like their own, were being attacked. He explained that if America does not join the war, life as the American people know it will drastically change. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address is similar to Roosevelt’s speech in the sense that the United States is in danger. But in contrast to Roosevelt’s speech, instead of being in a position to join war, in the time of Kennedy’s speech the U.S. was already in the middle of conflict. In his speech, Kennedy addresses all enemies, specifically the Soviet Union, and requests that “both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of

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