Freedom from...
I was thinking about the famous speech of Franklin Roosevelt, where he speaks of a future where we will all be free from many of the unpredictable pitfalls of life. I realized that this marked a critical transition in the history of the United States, when freedom became replaced by "freedom from." It represented a shift of focus from the citizenry and the sovereignty of the individual, to the preeminence of the state and its role as caretaker. The principles of natural rights - which weighed heavily with Enlightenment thinkers and America's founders - were eclipsed by the concept of entitlements. While it's true that the first two of Roosevelt's "four freedoms" are anchored in the Enlightenment and the US Constitution, the intent was to present the 'new freedoms' - or New Deal, if you will - as a natural extension of the constitutional ideals. Interestingly, property rights receive no mention among the essential freedoms. Instead, the emphasi