Fairness & Defending the Constitution | Montse Alvarado & Mark Rienzi | Constitutional Conversations

0:00 mark you sound pretty hopeful Montse as you look across the country what do you see in in kind of the rising generation and just generally in the culture that gives you an indication of some hope that that were kind of aware of this thing that we get it as a people and that were protecting the freedom and the pluralism that this amendment was designed to preserve I think it’s a what

0:22 makes me hopeful is an interest in history people are very much interested in role models who they were how they lived what they believed if you think about being brave enough not to abuse power George Washington is a great example of that deciding that he had built something that didn’t need him anymore I think focusing on that and thinking about and leaning into that

0:43 really discovering who they were and what they were thinking and what their their view of our country was was and is for us and feeling that charge feeling that weight on your shoulders as an American because we are privileged and we do live in the greatest country in the world and we have to understand why we live here what it means to live here

1:05 and what our Constitution actually says so that we can defend it when the time comes and I think this generation is very much equipped for that and and should be looking for opportunities to learn more and I think one thing that this generation seems keenly interested in is fairness right is making sure that it’s not the big powerful guy stomping out the poor little person right that’s

1:25 that’s something I hear about a lot from my students well you know if you think about the First Amendment as basically a question of fairness of not letting the majority decide that somebody else is too different is too small as two-week is too undeveloped to get your protection right instead saying no we’re gonna treat all people the same we’re gonna give all of our brothers and

1:46 sisters in humanity equal protection they all have the same rights to life liberty and pursuit of happiness I think that commitment to fairness from the younger generation is very important it’s something we all need to work on how we live it out but I think it’s something that bodes very very well for a strong protection for freedom and diversity even for people who aren’t quite like you or smaller and less

2:07 defending you have less strong defenses than you do