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You
protect and defend the Constitution of the United States every day by how
you live and interact with others and with your environment. You stay
informed, you stay conscious, you maintain your dignity and become someone
who can be trusted — trusted to deal fairly with others, trusted to tell
the truth, trusted to maintain a level of intellectual integrity and
compassion that allows you at once to be humble, flexible, steadfast,
helpful, and brave. You
understand the rights and privileges guaranteed you under the Constitution
and you speak up and stand up if and when you see those rights being
degraded or denied to others. You
do not work simply to make a living; you work to make a contribution, so
that civilization, as you know it, advances for everyone in it.
You realize that life isn't fair, but that doesn't stop you from
trying to make it fair. You
do not use what you have... whether it be education, money, or influence
to exploit others who have less. Instead,
you use your education, your money, and your influence to extend the
rights and privileges that you enjoy to those who are denied them. You
know that you are not perfect, that you have made mistakes, that you have
sometimes failed... but you do not let the fact that your past is flawed
or that you have stumbled, invalidate your right to stand up and try
again. You are, in short, an honest, decent human being, even if being
that way does not make you rich and powerful, and even if it does.
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