OK, now that I've started on this political kick, it's going to be real hard to get me to stop. Once I get on a tear about politics, I am up on the soap-box telling it from the mountain like it is - and people will just have to put up with it until they've finished letting me have my say! So: The Bill of Rights: Pretty Straightforward? Or...Widely Misunderstood? Sharp-eyed readers know already, from the post title. The Bill of Rights is one of the most widely-misunderstood bulwarks we have. We can't properly apply the Bill of Rights without an understanding of what the Founding Fathers meant by that, what they were getting at, what their intentions were. And it's pretty obvious to me from a close reading of the biographies of the Founding Fathers involved, a perusal of their private letters, and my general assessment of the mood and character of the times as reflected in the language of the Bill of Rights itself, it ought to be clear to anyone that the Bill of Right