The language used in the Bill of Rights of the USA is 200+ years old. It is not clear that everyone in the present day would understand what some of the terms even means, and then we need to understand the background and the context as well.

This is my attempt at doing just that. I stopped caring after Amendment XVI.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Congress should not endorse a religion; Congress should be secular in nature. Therefore, there shouldn’t be any favourtism of religions at play. Tradition might include God, but one can argue that tradition would be counter to the will of the Constitution.

Congress should not prohibit the exercise of somoene’s religion. Whether that’d be Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, etc.

The consequence of both of this statement is that the government should be secular in decision making skill while not preventing people from practicing thier religion. So something like banning the hijab or religious symbols for public servant positions would be against the constitution, while at the same time the public servants would not be allowed to put forth laws to be pro their religion.

abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

It is very important to note that abridging is barred by Congress rather than allowing abridging and nothing else. This key distinction means that the amendment should be applied very liberally. The right to free speech should be absolute as long as it isn’t violating the Bill of Rights of other people. For example, speaking very loudly at 3am disturbs your neighbours and thus their security of their house is being violated.

As for the hard questions, since it is to be applied liberally, spewing hate is allowed as long as the other person’s right to security isn’t being harmed. You are allowed to critize people but when you start calling for their death unironically or whatever, you would be violating their right to security.

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Canada Nitbit

Another conseuqnce is that something like the Sikh exemption for motorcycle helmets in Canada would be respecting an establishment of religion since it allows Sihks to not wear a helmet because they practice a religion that says not to cut their hair. If the goal is to force people to be safe, then a religious exemption implies that the government is fine with putting riders in danger because they are part of a religion! Hair is not going to protect you if you fall! People will argue that no exemption would be discriminatory, but safety protocols don’t discriminate. IF someone’s religion tomorrow says to keep uranium in their house, is the government going to let them do that? No, that’s unsafe, and same goes for this scenario. I only found out about this because I was interested in getting a motorcycle license in Canada.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This is such a controversial amendment. We’ll split it up into two parts.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State

A Militia (American Revolutionary Wars):

groups of able-bodied men who protected their towns, colonies, and eventually states

Modern translation: Groups of people without health complications who are capable of using modern weapons to defend their town or state.

This job usually falls into the hands of the municipal police or the state police, except that the state and municpal police enforce the Federal governments laws rather than defending their town/state.

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

One can see from history that Arms included (semi-automatic): pistols, muskets (modern day shotgun because of range), long-range rifles, swords, axes.

Putting it together, people need access to guns in order to form militias to keep a nation secure. Semi-automatic guns are a given due to this amendment, for able-bodiied people that is.

When it comes to autmatic weapons, this is wear prudence is required. Should city police forces even be allowed to hold automatic guns? No. A militia is for the state rather than the town, so the authority over automatic guns should be given to the state and distributed to various areas in the state in case the weapons do need to be distributed.

The problem in America (generally speaking of course) is that “able-bodied people” is not relevant to Red States and “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is not relevant to Blue states.

These great blunders cause polarization which only hurts the freedom and security of the entire country since each side limits the freedom or security of the other.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

This is very vague and probably has to do with the context surrounding the American Revolutionary War. If somone owns a house, soldiers can’t just use it how they please with the justification being that they represent the state. That’s why soliders would need to follow laws, and the constitution makes it clear that the laws should balance property rights with the security of the nation. That is, the owner’s lifestyle and property should be respected.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

A person should feel safe existing, their autonomy should not be threatened, and neither their freedom nor lifestyle unless, unless a Warrant was issued for probable cause.

This doesn’t really protect abortion rights as people may think. This is one of the amendments that needs to be elaborated or split into two since it doesnt’ specify property rights or what security even means.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

No person shall be punished without a grand jury indictment unless public danger or war is at play where waiting on a grand jury would result in more casulties. You also can’t indict a person for the same crime (action), force them to testify against themselves, nor be deprived of life (e.g. not given food), liberty (can’t do activites normal people could do), or property, without due process of law;

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The government can’t nationalize things without compensating the owner of said property.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

• Forces the government to prove that the accused were criminals in a timely manner, otherwise there is room for abuse.
• The accused has a right to legal representation

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

You could use inflation and you’d get $671.94 today, but this is way too small. We need to take into account how much $20 was worth (divide by median wage) and compare the same to today. Even this calculation is not perfect. In 1776, the median household income for free colonialists was $377 src. Presently (2020), the median houshold income is $67,521 src. Therefore, a more accurate number would be $4,000 (20/377 * 67,521 rounded up to nearest single digit with 0s).

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Bail should be an amount that is significant to people. A poor person cannot afford thousands of dollars in bail. Excessive fines meaning that a person should not have to sell things to pay a fine. A fine is meant to deter but not harm. Cruel and unusual meaning that punishments should not be becomes worse over time and cruel meaning that the punishment fits the crime. Subjecting humans to a lifetime of cell is cruel. If you want to isolate someone from society for the rest of their life, then make a prison that isn’t cruel but only allows them to interact with people who consent to them. I believe that if we’re going to just put people in cells for the rest of their lives, we might as well sentence them to death and avoid all the complications. White collar crimes are the worst. Why bother giving a prison sentence, just hit the restart button on their lives. Why take away their tax contributions? Just take away 90-95% of their assets. Some people might see this as being more cruel or even unconstitutional, but taking away freedom is much worse than taking away someone’s materialism.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This is a hard one to comprehend but essential means that you cannot use the constitution to contradict other parts of the constitution and so each right is not ranked but rather balanced among each other.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Basically any powers that Congress was not explicitly given the right to govern over by the constitution, should be left to the states to govern. This is so incredibly important and basically means that State government plays a bigger role than the federal government when it comes to daily life.

Intermission

So far we went over the original Bill of Rights, but we still need to go over the later amendments which could be considered as a bill of rights. Not to mention that we didn’t talk about the original constitution itself. That is over my pay grade to go over.

I will take my time in going over the amendments.

Amendment XI

Skip

Amendment XII

Skip

Amendment XIII

Right to not be involuntary be put to work unless it is punishment.

Not sure why slavery is allowed for the punished. The punishment of criminals is that they don’t get to enjoy freedoms. To force them to work, is beyond cruel. Criminals shouldn’t be forced to work but rather volunteer their efforts to climb up the prison heirarchy or something.

Amendment XIV

Citizenship procedure formally defined, as well as:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

This is so important and goes beyond slavery and black Americans. This constitution imposes restrictions on not just the USA but also its States in terms of regulating the life, liberty, and property.

This ammendment can be used to argue for abortion rights, gay-marriage, and etc. since they are issues concerning liberty and life and not the harm of other people. Those arguments are not mine to make, as I don’t even live in America.

Amendment XV

The right to vote for every citizen no matter their demographic. I guess the 14th wasn’t clear enough so they had to explicitly say it. This is one of the amendments that tell us that explicit is better than implicit and that issues like: gay marriage, inter-racial marriage, and abortion should be amendments. There is no harm in redundancy.

Amendment XVI

Income tax. The context of this situation is that the government was previously funded via tariffs and to lower these tarrifs income taxes were used. Nowadays tarrifs still exist and income taxes are a much higher percentage and they are also applied on much higher salaries. The USA is simply lucky with regard to its sheer mass size and population. A larger middle class population means higher innovation incendence, which means competitive advantages and etc.