I don't generally post about new blawg reviews, though others do so regularly.  But today's, hosted by Marc John Randazza and the Satyriconistas, is special.  Today is Bill of Rights Day, and Randazza and the Randazzettes have made it their theme.  As it's a theme on mine on a rather regular basis, I realized whilst reading Blawg Review #190 why it's so important that we have a Bill of Rights Day, and how much I appreciate Marc's choice.

The reason I say this is that despite my continual reference to the Bill of Rights, there are a few of them that I rarely think about.  The founding fathers ended up including ten of them in order to push the Constitution through the colonies.  Had Publius not been so persuasive (and avoided being indicted for using a false identity on MySpace), things might have been different.  But we, the descendants of people with far greater intellect and guts than we can muster from the couch in front of a big screen, flat-panel, hi-def television, came up with ten.

Many of the people who read this post are well aware that there are ten amendments in the Bill of Rights.  Many are very familiar with the first, second and fourth, as well as the fifth, sixth and eighth.  Notice anything missing?

We need somebody to spell out the Bill of Rights from time to time.  Even those of us who work with it regularly, who think we're pretty aware of constitutional issues and generally on top of things legal, forget that there are those quiet amendments, the ones that lawyers never mention and courts never consider.  The sad truth is, they are the forgotten amendments.

We need to read the Bill of Rights from time to time.  No, I don't have any particular issue to raise with most of them, though I really can't get excited by the 7th no matter how hard I try.  The 9th and 10th, on the other hand, present a certain nagging sense that they ought to come into play far more than they do, and I wonder whether the federalists today ought to spend more time thinking about why they don't.

So a big shout of thanks to the Randazza team for giving me a reason to read through each of the first ten amendments, to remind myself why they are there, and for coming up with a 3d Amendment post, a rather miraculous feat. 

And if you're wondering why the water is always warm when you dive into the First Amendment, that would be because Randazza keeps the heat turned up.