Across history, many sets of rules have been made in order to establish justice and peace among different groups of people. One of those sets of rules has been the Bill of Rights of the U.S Constitution. The purpose of this document is to prevent the government from having excess power. With this document, the United States has been kept organized and has been able to provide justice to all. However, in current times, the legitimacy of the Bill of Rights is being questioned and many of its concepts are being threatened. As sad as it is to say, due to the evolution of the United States, the Bill of Rights no longer reflects American values in the twenty-first century.

Furthermore, the Bill of Rights no longer reflects American values in the twenty-first century because of its evolution. Recent shootings and massacres have proven to be a way to elicit immediate responses from the government to punish the shooters with the death penalty. One amendment that should be altered is the eighth amendment that says that cruel and unusual punishment should be done to the criminal. Instead, the amendment should say that death is not allowed as a punishment for the criminal’s actions. When a criminal knows that they have committed a crime, they tend to think that the death penalty will be the easy way out. Instead, they should be put in jail for long times as their punishment.

Secondly, another reason that the Bill of Rights no longer reflects American values today is what has become of the press and the public’s reaction towards what the press says. In recent years, the press has been inveighed by political figures as well as the public. President Donald Trump has harshly accused and criticized CNN and other news networks as relaying fake news to the public. However, the first amendment clearly states that the press has a right to speak out against what they believe is wrong. What Trump is doing is trying to extinguish the burning flames of a press that seeks to report the truth of him - an ugly truth that he certainly does not want to be revealed to the public. Trump has shown his distaste for the press in baffling ways. He photoshopped the face of a professional wrestler with his own face and did the same to his badly losing opponent by replacing his face with CNN’s logo. Need I give a better reason to prove that the Bill of Rights no longer reflects American values than through the example of our own President harassing the press when the Constitution, the highest law of the land, says not to?

In conclusion, the evidence speaks for itself. It has become appallingly logical that the amendment that is important to most Americans today is the first amendment. It speaks of how we all have the right to choose how to live our lives. These are rights that are granted to us, and therefore, we must use them correctly. in a time when America is becoming more and more separated, we must unite for our own prosperity and welfare.