You would be very interested in a paper that Sunsteing published that argued that all rights originated by state authority.

I know what he argued.

And of course I disagree with him. But that’s why he’s a liberal, believing that the expansion of government to do A is just as morally important as limiting the government’s ability to do B–as long as liberals want A and not B.

I didn’t say Cass Sunstein wasn’t a liberal. I said that from a doctrinaire liberal Administration, Sunstein is about as reasonable a liberal as you’re likely to get. If Beck succeeds in forcing Sunstein out, you’re liable to get someone even further to the left in that position–someone who believes in banning guns or whatnot.

Obama isn’t going to hire men who think like Scalia or even like Roberts. He’s going to hire left-wingers only. So why not be satisfied with the more reasonable ones (like Sunstein), while continuing to denounce the real loons (like Van Jones)?

Besides, going after Sunstein won’t be easily understood by the public. They’re not going to get upset about some theories of constitutional rights, or about the fact that he advocates animal rights. Those aren’t hot button issues for the majority.

Let’s leave Summers, Geithner, Bob Gates, Biden, and Cass Sunstein alone. Let’s even leave Hillary alone. They’re the only reasonable ones remaining in a left-wing Administration. The proof is that Obama’s “netroots” can’t stand most of them.

You would be very interested in a paper that Sunsteing published that argued that all rights originated by state authority.

Has Huckabee or Schlafly or any other social conservative railed against animal rights?

The ONLY possible concern I could see here is whether supporting animal rights would ever translate into bans on hunting or ranching. And IIRC, Sunstein was asked about that at his congressional hearings, and he specifically said no. In fact, Sunstein said he’s a supporter of the Second Amendment.

What other issue is there that conservatives are up in arms about? Animal testing of cosmetics? Zoos? Aquariums? What???

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-cass-sunstein-has-secret-animal-rights-agenda

Your article clearly lies by omission. Sorry, I don’t believe you. Beck didn’t write those nutty articles and plant them on the Internet years ago to frame poor old Cass. The guy clearly has an agenda and excels at furthering it while staying true to the letter but not spirit of the law. Selecting someone who is good at using laws like weapons, thinks free speech is an inconvenience and that government and taxes are the center of the universe is dangerous.

http://www.aei-brookings.org/events/page.php?id=101

http://www.redstate.com/pejman_yousefzadeh/2009/02/12/well-we-cant-have-that/

But what has now alarmed the Sarah Palin faction of the Right, is Sunstein’s willingness to consider life years when allocating scarce government funds:

Professor Sunstein opened his talk by noting that in the current context cost-benefit analysis is only a pragmatic tool policy makers use to choose among various proposals. If it is too problematic, we could do away with it provided that an alternative method is developed to meet the needs of policy making.

Sunstein asserted that using statistical life years is a plausible way to assess the values of lives. He further justified this viewpoint on two grounds: equity and welfare. First, on grounds of equity, programs evaluated based on life years should not raise objections. Although a new program favoring young people might be unequal in that older people cannot benefit from it, in the long run such an approach would be equitable since all elderly people were once young and would have been helped by programs in effect when they were younger.

Secondly, valuing life years is also justified on welfare grounds. Although this argument is somewhat dependant upon the willingness to pay problem that Cropper discussed, people seem to value their lives more when they have more years left to live. Sunstein noted that this tendency is especially true between middle-aged people and old people.

Nevertheless, Sunstein suggested that it is unclear how we can convert life years into dollar values, which would facilitate policymaking in many regards. He pointed out that the U.S. has the most serious poverty problem among the top economies in the world. Thus, it is imperative that the government uses very pragmatic tools to address life-saving problems, which are commonly intertwined with poverty. Sunstein concluded by noting that life years is a good way to evaluate a policy’s benefits, but implementing this method would be vastly complicated.

And you know what that means to Sarah: DEATH PANELS!!!

I think it would be more productive if conservatives like Beck and Limbaugh asked Sunstein specifically if these cost-benefit ideas he’s kicking around would translate into denying health coverage to the elderly if they’re near the end of life anyway.