This is a very sophisticated question.

Are you sure you don't have some kind of law degree heaten?

I've even lied.

Are you lying? Are you lying? Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for Puckie Misfits and

problem solvers. I'm your host Andrew Heaton and I'm not an attorney but by God I dress like one and today

you lucky listener you are going to get some high octane premium constitutional law from one of America's

foremost legal minds, Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University.

We're going to cover a lot of ground, but it's going to pivot around

one central philosophical distinction within the law. Can the government do anything,

create any agency at once, pass any law at likes, so long as that action is not

explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. Or is the shoe on the other foot?

The operations of government are narrowly limited to whatever the Constitution prescribes,

and that's it.

The flip side of that question pertains to us, the people.

We know we have specific rights listed in the Constitution, like freedom of speech or freedom

of assembly.

Can the government regulate other things, your business, your house, your relationships,

if it concerns itself only with activities not expressly protected by the Constitution?

If it's not mentioned in the Constitution can the government

regulate it. Simple enough, but it's a concept that goes back through the

annals of history to the very root of the nature of law.

For much of Mary Old England's history, common law worked such that you are presumed to do whatever you liked

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