00:00They're hard. And that's especially true in a big, raucous, diverse, argumentative democracy
00:12like the United States of America. Everybody's got an opinion. And that means getting stuff
00:22done involves reconciling the demands of a couple of hundred million people. Democracy
00:32can be frustrating. It can be slow. It can be inefficient. And yet more than anything,
00:42I hope this center will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy
00:50truly is and remind us what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities
00:56as citizens. And since we're a few weeks away from America's 250th birthday, it is worth
01:10remembering just how radical the whole idea of self-government really was back in 1776.
01:21To that point, human history was a tale of conquest and caste and rigid hierarchies, a world where
01:32the strong dominated the weak, where power and wealth and status flowed through lineage, and
01:41the many were ruled by the few. But out of the fire and steel of a revolution, a different
01:51story took flight. On this continent, a declaration that we are all created equal, endowed by our
02:00creator with certain unalienable rights, and that in the newly independent United States, there
02:06will be no kings or lords, no serfs or subjects, but only citizens, each of us free to pursue our
02:16own version of happiness and able to determine our collective fate to an elected representative
02:23government. It had not been done. And because it hadn't been done before, the success of this experiment
02:33government was never a given. And now please welcome former First Lady Michelle Obama, Malia and
02:41Sasha Obama, and our 44th President of the United States, President Barack Obama.
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