Sunstain believes in “libertarian paternalism.” This phrase means that statists plan to do to the word libertarian what they did to the word liberal. Here’s how Buttstain explains it:
The idea of libertarian paternalism might seem to be an oxymoron, but it is both possible and legitimate for private and public institutions to affect behavior while also respecting freedom of choice. Often people’s preferences are ill-formed, and their choices will inevitably be influenced by default rules, framing effects, and starting points. In these circumstances, a form of paternalism cannot be avoided. Equipped with an understanding of behavioral findings of bounded rationality and bounded self-control, libertarian paternalists should attempt to steer people’s choices in welfare-promoting directions without eliminating freedom of choice. It is also possible to show how a libertarian paternalist might select among the possible options and to assess how much choice to offer.
In other words, our authoritarian masters will be “libertarian” by letting us decide if we want our cot on the left side of the cell or the right side.
Cass Sunstein truly is the most dangerous man in America-possibly the world
“libertarian paternalism.” = “Okay, we’ll let you smoke a little weed if you’ll shut up and let us finish what we’re trying to do here”.
So, "Buttstain", YOU and those like you will shoulder the huge burden of telling us what our preferences SHOULD be, so we can avoid the "ill-formed" ones.
Right. We get it completely.
(BTW, good post...I particularly liked the "Buttstain" monkier...:)