"Its a different world today" is a common comment.

"Its a different world today" is a common comment. Yep. It is, which is why they allowed for the ability to amend the constitution, yet made it difficult, so it wasn't done at whim without careful discussion and consideration. The Constitution consists of three parts: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the subsequent Amendments. This was the framework designed to run and restrict our Federal government. Unfortunately, a number of people claim it's outdated, vague, or allows greater power than stated because it doesn't specifically say "no". Others claim we don't know what they said, even though they left huge amounts of writing clearly stating most if not all the points.

Unfortunately, too many people who take oaths to "Uphold and Defend" the Constitution, choose to reinterpret things their way, and excuse violation when it's convenient or doesn't favor their own views. Freedom of Speech doesn't mean just what you want to hear. It also means the vilest, foulest, most offensive imaginable.

Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights contained two proposed amendments dealing with freedom of speech. One proposed amendment said "The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."

Freedom of Religion doesn't mean just your faith, and the ones you accept. It means the rock worshipers, the sky dancers, the polytheists, the no-theists, and those people over there doing the weird stuff.

"Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is that... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to John Thomas et al., 1807. ME 16:291

Right to Bear Arms means that every freeman had the right AND responsibility to own, train with, be experienced with, and understand arms. Arms isn't just a .22. It's a machine gun, it's an RPG, it's an M60, its an MP5.

"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." -- Zacharia Johnson, delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention, Elliot, 3:645-6

And so on. Unfortunately, today we have a government that continually usurps more and more power, seeks to disarm it's citizens, to criminalize dissent, to create dependence, so that like children we are forever glued to the tit of government. Sheep, here but to be serfs under the illusion of free will. So yes, it is a different world. One which our Founders would be ashamed of, and disgusted that we have let it fall so far from what they created for us.