[cripplecreek]

Probably one of the single most dangerous Obama associates there is because people don’t know how he works.

[faithhopecharity]

look around, they’ve let their Inner Fascist out already.....,

[Billthedrill]

Plato also had a place for slaves in his Republic, one reason that work is a topic in Karl Popper's The Open Society And Its Enemies. I've yet to encounter a utopian who didn't imagine himself in his fantasy world's ruling class. Sorry, Cass, but even in Utopia somebody has to sweep the streets and if you're not willing to be a member of the lowest class in your Brave New World, it isn't a utopia.

While Sunstein ponders free will, it never occurs to him that perhaps the dream team of Sunstein and Obama is not as smart as it thinks it is and the paternalists are not an elite, they are arrogant buffoons whose power is second only to their incompetence.

True enough, but it would only be worse if they were competent. A paternalist with a thoroughly silly idea in his head and the power to pursue it is a walking disaster. Hitler was trying to create a wonderful new society, and his had slaves and a ruling class too. And labor camps. I'll pass, thanks.

[mjp]

The libtards who favor paternalism lose sight of the fact that the fundamental basis of achieving the individual's good is his guidance by his own judgment. They show absolutely no respect for the character of the consumers as rational beings, who must be persuaded by facts and logic, and not be compelled as though they were brutes, in the name of something allegedly more valuable than their free judgment and their dignity as rational beings.

Each human being, as the possessor of reason, is valuable and competent and should be free to run his own life and pursue his own happiness. The use of any specific case as the pretext for overturning this principle opens the floodgates to unlimited destruction though the use of physical force to overrule people’s judgment, and thus, to prevent them from achieving their well-being or to compel them to act against their own well-being.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I have a new tagline.

[andy58-in-nh]

The idea that the mandatory judgments of a handful of "experts" can substitute for those made voluntarily by billions of independent citizens is one that has persisted for over one hundred years.

The rise of Progressive social planning doctrine was predicated on the supposed "failure" of free market capitalism and a perceived need for government direction and control of people's economic decisions. The main fallacy underpinning such efforts is the Utopian Presumption: people are imperfect, but human action can nonetheless be perfected; such perfection is desirable as a primary social value; and government is the only agency by which perfection may be achieved, most directly through regulatory and behavioral control.

Aside from the obvious constraints on liberty that such a belief system (Progressivism) imposes upon individuals, a key unintended consequence of modern statism is not only a loss of the freedom to succeed, but of the freedom to fail.

Failure is a vital mechanism by which problems may be identified, mechanisms and constraints comprehended, and lessons learned. By substituting the narrow decisions and determinations of elite central planners for those of millions of people acting billions of times a day, the normal mechanisms of human comprehension, learning advancement and market discovery are utterly subsumed to sets of a priori assumptions and dictates, resulting in wildly misallocated resources, prices divorced from supply and demand, incentives delinked from effort, and often, much worse.

When individuals are allowed to fail freely, given the protection of their rights and property and equal opportunity, they tend to learn and move on. But when government bureaucrats fail, they frequently tend to blame those under their control and regulation, and seek to punish them. Cass Sunstein must be so very unhappy with us.

[dearolddad]

Question for Mr. Sunstein: When were you appointed God, and by whom?