Taking a break from our regularly scheduled activities to be mindful about what this holiday weekend represents. I came across a great tweet from Tim Cook reminding me “our work as a country is not finished until every American shares fully in the promise of the Declaration of Independence.” In case you need a quick refresher from your US History class (as I did), here’s the excerpt from the Declaration of Independence we all need to remember and strive to achieve every day –
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
So on this holiday weekend, wear a mask, wash your hands, practice the Golden Rule, and toast to what it truly means to be an American.