Kids Are Americans Too Read Free Page B

your cell phone while I’m trying to read? Your happiness, in that case, causesme unhappiness. And the reverse. My happiness—seeing to it that you shut the heck up—would cause you unhappiness.
    To put it simply, a great deal of the Constitution and everything based upon it in American law is an attempt—constantly changing and constantly challenged—to figure out how we can both be happy.
    And there are only two of us in that scenario! What about the other three hundred million Americans?
    The key to resolving our differences on the train involves asking this question: What policy is best for the majority of the people riding the railroad? Is it allowing everybody to shout? Of course not. That would create chaos.
    So the train company has the right to make rules that override your right to shout into your phone. The train company has an obligation to think about the “greater good” of its passengers and to provide public satisfaction and safety. The train company is in business to make a profit, and your screaming will not further that cause.
    Get it? Your right to free and loud speech is trumped by the train company’s rights because you chose to get on the train. Once you make that choice, you sacrifice some personal freedom. If you don’t like it, start your own train company. Call it the Screaming Eagle.
    As you read, America is adding thousands of new citizens every day. Does each one of us get our own set of rights to make certain that we’re always happy?
    Of course not.
    Then how does it work?
    Let’s look at the quick answer.
    The Constitution does not exactly list all of your rights. Instead, it sets up the process for doing that and serves as a general reminder in all situations that your rights leave off at the spot where mine begin, and vice versa. But what does that mean?
    I’m going to explain in one pithy paragraph something definitely worth knowing…something that many too many adults don’t understand, and something that is really very simple!
    The Constitution sets down basic guidelines,
but it also opens the door for additions in
response to specific changes in our country.
Remember, every time a new invention
appears in stores, it brings with it new questions
about “rights.” Seven-hundred-watt car stereo
amps did not exist in 1789. And loud music played
by you can violate the rights of someone else.
Right? I mean, who wants to hear 50 Cent at
midnight being blared throughout the neighborhood
streets? Give us a break, please.
    Back in 1789, the Philadelphia gang themselves added ten ideas, or amendments, that we know as the Bill of Rights. (Howmany adults know the phrase, but don’t really know what it means? Plenty, let me tell you from my experiences on the air.)
    The truth is, most of your rights as a kid today are based upon those first ten amendments. That’s the first thing to know here.
    Second, the Philadelphia guys made it possible for the states to add (or deny) new changes, or amendments, to the original ten. Among other things, these amendments have given women the right to vote and have established full citizenship for members of racial minorities.
    That’s why, 220 years later, we’re still coming up with new ideas about rights, still arguing with one another. Like, should there be an amendment guaranteeing equal rights between men and women in all things? Like, should there be an amendment denying gays the right to marry? (That would be the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.)
    See, an amendment to the Constitution is a valuable, powerful instrument in national law. It should not be treated as just another ornament on the Christmas tree, especially when new laws passed by Congress or the state houses can address and remedy (we can hope) an issue more speedily and efficiently than yet another constitutional amendment. (Right now, for the record, there are twenty-seven of them.)
    So, summing up: You have