Nudging our way to Utopia

This missive has been months in the planning stages. I sought to coalesce my thoughts before I put them into a tangible format but that proved pointless as the subject and it's ultimate goals were ever changing and shifting. When the health care law was still an idea, I read about a man who would eventually have incredible control over it and every other government program, regulation and law that is currently in play in the country. I was simply doing my own independent research about the people who were shaping the legislation as it made it's way through congress. I wanted to know who those people were and if they might have a personal agenda that would come into play. I read about Dr. Ezekiel Immanuel (special advisor to the President), John Holdren (science Czar), Kathleen Sibelius (Dept. HHS) and one other person who would play a pivotal role in the health care bill's application and enforcement. His name was unknown to me but he is a brilliant academic and a prolific author. Of all the people involved in the process of writing and shaping the bill, he seemed to be more of a dark figure in the background than a prominent player.

Cass Sunstein is a legal scholar and the current head of the Office of Information and Regulatory affairs (OIRA). This position puts him in place to make decisions on budgetary items regarding the cost of a government run health care plan. Let's leave aside his radical views on animal rights, he actually believes that animals have a right to sue for grievances, and delve deeper into his thoughts on how government plays a role in our lives. He has written in the past his belief in the celebration of tax day this way,

"In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency."

This line of thinking presupposes that every thing we have is the result of a generous gift from government. The money in our pockets, the cars we drive and the very lives we lead are all extensions of the government. Now, I may not be a thinker at any level near Mr. Sunstein's but the idea that I owe my very existence to the government scares me more than just a little. This is just a taste of the philosophy he believes and we've barely scratched the surface so far. Let's hear Mr. Sunstein in his own words on the subject of "life years", a controversial idea in which he proposes that some humans are inherently more valuable simply because of their age,

"I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people."

Gone will be the days when we honor the elderly in our society for their past contributions if Mr. Sunstein has his way. All that matters to him are future contributions. I wonder if he could be so callous, so unfeeling if it were his own mother or father suffering needlessly because a government bureaucrat decided that a life extending treatment has been deemed "not in the best interest of the collective". One other vital bit of information about Professor Sunstein is his admiration for noted philosopher, Peter Singer, a bio-ethicist. Singer, a far left-wing animal rights activist, has said that a border collie has more intrinsic value to the collective than does a child with developmental disabilities.

It's the "final solution" without the ugly connotation of fascism.

Of all the appointees to have taken residence in our current President's cabinet, this man is without a doubt the most powerful. His very job is to tweak regulations so as to more effectively control costs our ultimate outcomes of an associated program. The very real problem of his appointment is the ideological baggage he carries into the office. A man who believes that animals have rights might "tweak" regulations for hunters that would eventually make hunting a thing of the past. Now, before you call me an alarmist or even worse - paranoid, listen first to more background on this man.

Of all the books written by Sunstein, the one I find has the darkest undertones is a book written with economist Richard Thaler called "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness"

I'll give you a peek into the ideas behind the book by using Sunstein's own words,

"People often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself."

The upshot of the book is that we can be nudged into making the right choices in life if the right people are in charge of "altering the choice structure" to prevent us from making mistakes. What does Sunstein mean by "altering the choice structure"? I'll give you a few examples that should make it all clear. Recently, a war on trans-fat has been fought by the FDA against restaurants that have menus that offer, shall we say, less than healthy foods. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said in recent months that he would like to see salt removed from prepared foods in restaurants and would even like to see salt shakers removed from their tables. This is the basic idea behind altering the choice structure. If we remove the salt, no one will have high blood pressure, right? Wrong. We are still able to purchase salt at our local grocery store and season to our overworked heart's content. How long until that choice is removed?

Still another example of having choices removed is in the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offered by the government. On the surface the program is a good one offering financial assistance to low income families with pregnant women and young children. It promotes healthy eating by only allowing participants to purchase certain foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and juices that contain mostly fruit and little additives. I happen to think the program is an admirable one and when used properly does provide healthy alternatives to the usual fast food and junk food that children are often given as a substitute for a healthy meal. Days ago however, the program's administrator removed potatoes as an acceptable vegetable. Why, you might ask, would the noble and life sustaining potato be cut from the list and made to hang out behind the gym with the "bad" foods? It seems potatoes can be fried. They can also be covered in sour cream and butter and doused with unhealthy levels of salt. Imagine for a moment a world without potatoes. No mashed, baked or golden fried heaven ever again.

That's Sunstein's dream of the nudge. Altering the choice structure in such a way that we end up as bland automatons devoid of the ability to think for ourselves. Unable to discern what we need from what we want. Ask yourself how long Sunstein would allow us to eat meat when he holds the view that animals have rights? How long before an entire industry disappears in a puff of well meaning smoke?

Could a man who holds such radical views about animal rights and the benevolence of the government truly not allow his own personal agenda to influence how he does his job? Can he be trusted to do what is best for safeguarding the freedoms of the American people or will he instead use his position to "nudge" the country to the perfection he believes is attainable.

Stay tuned for part two of Cass Sunstein when we explore his views on the first amendment and freedom in general.