Independence Day: 19 times when Americans were confused about freedom

In 1941, Franklin D Roosevelt's state of the union address laid out the 'four freedoms' not just every American but everyone in the world was entitled to: of speech, of worship, from want and from fear. Today, as Americans gather to wish each other a happy Independence Day, we ask: where did it all go wrong?

1.

People in the queue at a Sarah Palin book tour in Columbus, Ohio in 2009, were asked to explain why they supported the one-time Republican vice-presidential nominee.

She stands for what America is: Freedom, our liberty, the right to speak. [What about particular issues?] Oh gee, help me out here guys.

Another supporter, when asked to explain what freedoms she believed had been taken away, articulated: "Well I really think the fact that I am a Christian, I think that the government, and the mainstream media has been playing a role, and, gosh, not only Christian, freedom of religion, here... it's a slippery slope."

2.

Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson (pictured, centre, below) served a brief suspension from the reality TV show for an interview in GQ in which he tried to define sin, and quickly moved on to offer his view on homosexuality.

It seems like, to me, a vagina - as a man - would be more desirable than a man's anus. That's just me. I'm just thinking: There's more there! She's got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I'm saying? But hey, sin: It's not logical, my man. It's just not logical.

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, where Ducky Dynasty is based, commented: "I don't agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views. In fact, I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended."

3.

Sarah Palin herself this time, writing after the Washington Navy Yard mass shootings in September 2013, said: "The first thing politicians ask after these tragedies is essentially: 'What can we do to limit the freedom of the people?'

"And that is the wrong question. The question we should be asking is: 'What can we do to nurture and support a people capable of living in freedom?'."

So, Sarah Palin's solution to gun violence in the US is... actually, we're not sure if she's saying anything at all.

4.

After he was banished from Fox News for being too emotionally-radical, Glenn Beck pitched to his internet-only audience - where Jon Stewart notes "laws have no meaning and cats can haz cheeseburgers" - a new freedom-topia named Independence where lovers of liberty could seek refuge from the liberal storm raging in DC.

It is is an entire city developed around patterns. I believe that if we are ever going to build something like this, it needs to leave the message, you will literally have to wipe us off the face of the Earth and wipe us off the map, before you could erase the truth that is America. Everything should be embedded in our architecture.

Beck even promised that Independence, USA would "break the class barriers", meaning he was inadvertently proposing a Marxist Disneyland.

5.

Mitt Romney, addressing the National Rifle Association in 2012, got the world 'rifle' confused with the word 'freedom'.

It's great to be with so many friends from the National Rifle Association. This fine organisation is sometimes called a single-issue group. That's high praise when the single issue is freedom.

6.

Mike Huckabee, he of the worst educational DVDs ever conceived (see video below) and seemingly perennial presidential candidate, told the excellently-named Freedom Summit last year, that were was "more freedom in North Korea sometimes than there is in the United States".

"When I go to the airport, I have to get in the surrender position," the one-time presidential hopeful said.

"People put hands all over me. And I have to provide photo ID in a couple of different forms and prove that I really am not going to terrorise the airplane."

Waiting in line at the airport is undeniably annoying, but it doesn't quite compare to a murderous regime of torture and the gulag.

7.

The inimitable Chase Whiteside of New Left Media interviewed people at a Mitt Romney rally in November 2012, weeks before the presidential election.

One man in Ohio told him: "This land is born for the freedom of everybody, we welcome anybody into our country, which is great... but with that we're paying the consequences because we're letting them tell us 'you're going to follow my religion because I don't believe in you'."

When asked to clarify who he meant by "them", he replied: "The Buddhists. They're there."

Another lady was strangely prescient about the NSA affair, however.

I want out freedom back. I want to change the last four years. I don't even feel like I can go outside without somebody watching me. It's just everything feels like we're being closed in, we just don't have the freedoms we used to.

8.

This is Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, telling an audience of DC conservatives that freedom grows out of the barrel of a gun:

"We don't trust government, because government itself has proven unworthy of our trust. We trust ourselves and we trust what we know in our hearts to be right. We trust our freedom. In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption everywhere you look, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive and protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns, and handguns we want. We know in the world that surrounds us there are terrorists and there are home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters, and campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse our society that sustains us all."

The strange thing is, this is LePierre in one of his more rational moments.

Also, in case you didn't realise, the NRA logo is of an eagle brandishing two assault rifles.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

9.

Harry Binswanger, writing for Forbes after Barack Obama's speech that the market was to blame for the financial crash:

Capitalism means freedom. Government means force.

10.

Glenn Beck again, addressing his Restoring Honour Rally at the Lincoln Memorial, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream Speech:

Let's get a couple of things straight. What MLK and Gandhi did was not progressive or new. It was an ancient idea. Hollywood, Woodstock, nor the hippie culture was [not] the source of power of the 1960s freedom movement. God was.

11.

Another returning Republican nominee hopeful, former Texas governor Rick Perry, after signing a new law that students and school officials have the right to use greetings like 'merry Christmas', noted: "I'm proud we are standing up for religious freedom in our state. Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion."

Note that Perry's warm-up act for his speech is an eight-year-old boy named Reagan.

12.

Christine O'Donnell wanted to replace Joe Biden as senator for Delaware in 2010. But it took a debate with Democrat rival Chris Coons for her to discover what was in the US Constitution.

During the debate, she asks: "You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"

Coons recites it, to which O'Donnell replies "That's in the first amendment?" [cue stunned laughter form the audience].

Coons then drinks from a tall, cool glass of ice water, and (probably) puts on his sunglasses.

13.

Megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, before Easter:

The other problem is a lot of Christians have bought into this perverted idea of the First Amendment. They don't understand the First Amendment simply says Congress can't establish a state religion, it has nothing to say about Easter Egg hunts. I mean, the Easter Egg hunt is not a state religion.

14.

Louisiana state representative Valarie Hodges initially enthusiastically supported governor Bobby Jindal's overhaul of the public school system that meant private and religious schools could get taxpayer backing.

"I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school," she said having reversed her support when it emerged "religious" did not mean "Christian" and Muslim faith schools could be funded in this way as well.

15.

New Left Media also spoke to Tea Party supporters as they staged a last-ditch attempt to scupper Barack Obama's flagship healthcare reform bill. One man summed up the crowd's feelings on the bill by saying: "Three words: Not good for the country."

Another man explained the Constitution in succinct terms: "The Constitution gives you rights, but they are inalienable rights from God. Did you realise that?"

When being told by the interviewer that some Americans did not believe in God, he replied: "That's correct, so if you removed God, you have no rights." [drops mic]

16.

The official US government name for the war in Afghanistan? Operation Enduring Freedom.

The official US government name for the war in Iraq? Operation Iraqi Freedom.

17.

Bobby Jindal again, on the Supreme Court effectively legalising gay marriage in the US last month, seemed to be advocating a freedom from actual laws.

He also said that the decision would pave the way for an "all out assault" on the religious freedom of Christians.

The Supreme Court decision today conveniently and not surprisingly follows public opinion polls and tramples on states' rights that were once protected by the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. Marriage between a man and a woman was established by God, and no earthly court can alter that. This decision will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians who disagree with this decision.

18.

In the aftermath of the murder of nine black churchgoers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, an editorial in the Salt Lake City-based Deseret News argued that the mass shooting was "an assault on all Americans as well as on a bedrock principle of American liberty - the right to worship freely".

Really.

19.

Finally, in 2015 so far, 45 people have dialled 911 seeking medical help only for police to arrive and kill the person who called.

Those four freedoms again? Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear.

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