It is time to live up to our ideals

  Written by: Matthew Deevers, PhD – Executive Director 

We celebrated July 4^th this past weekend. Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. I think of picnics and games, of watching fireflies twinkle over dewy grass at dusk and waiting for the first crackle of fireworks in the darkening sky.

July 4^th is the day we celebrate America’s greatest ideals, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence: 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.

I love this country, but we have never done a great job of living up to our ideals.  Women were conspicuously excluded from those first conversations. Thomas Jefferson himself owned 180 slaves when he wrote the Declaration. A full paragraph describing slavery as “cruel war against human nature” was deleted from his original draft. More than freedom and equality, personal self-interests, and the preservation of power were likely driving forces behind most of the earliest decisions made in our country.

Many of us – as individuals, organizations, and communities – have issued declarations recently. We have demanded justice and equality. We have affirmed that Black Lives Matter.

Like others before us, we have made commitments. We have stated our ideals. It is my sincere hope that all of us, together, have the courage and strength to live up to them.