Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Most Dangerous Man in the Obama White House is Cheering-On Elimination of Government Red Tape

Cass Sunstein, author of Nudge, believes in, well, "nudging" people in directions the government wants you to go in, through limited "choices". Think: "Do you want to get groped or go through a cancer causing naked body scanner?" 

Sunstein is out today with a an Op-Ed in today's WSJ hailing a President Obama initiative to cut government red tape. I find it hard to believe that Sunstein's main focus is on cutting government red tape. Rather, his nudge designed options of control can be spotted in many parts of government and appears to be where most his time is spent.

Thus, I am highly suspicious of his rather harmless appearing WSJ article. This guy is about expanding government and manipulating people through government policies. I'm not sure what's up with his article, maybe it is just a harmless piece of propaganda, but one should never relax around him.  I wouldn't trust this guy handing me an umbrella in a rainstorm.

10 comments:

  1. I am all for government bureaucracy when it impedes one department from coordinating too closely with another.

    That's what we want.

    That is the only thing saving us from some super-regulatory commission (with Papa Cass breathing in its ear) that operates in smooth coordination like one of those fusion centers, where every problem at the local level goes straight up to the Feds and Interpol.

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  2. Red tape to him is having to go through congress.

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  3. This man is a traitor to the Republic. Or in PerrySpeak - what he is doing is "treasonous".

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  4. He even looks like a psychopath/terrorist.

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  5. >I'm not sure what's up with his article, maybe it is just a harmless piece of propaganda, but one should never relax around him.

    I think you're intuition is right. What I bet regulators will do is rewrite old regulations in a more predatory manner. For example, the FTC will rewrite its merger and acquisition guidelines to give itself more control over private business decisions. And it will be done under the guise of "removing red tape" when what they're really doing is just replacing it, probably with something worse. That's why Sunstein uses phrases like "streamlining" and "identify[ing] new reforms" in the article: it's not about removing regulations but instead throwing out the old ones and replacing them with new social engineering schemes.

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  6. Reminds me of "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis. In that book there were propaganda writers who would use the term "red tape" to confuse the public and get them demanding that all of these restrictions on progress be torn down.

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  7. Several comments are on the right train of thought here. "Red Tape" is an anathema by most of the public--especially those who oppose the government the most. In the Orwellian tradition, all one has to do is get everyone on board with "eliminating red tape" and then gradually replace the meaning of "red tape" from "excessive regulations" to "limits on government powers". This process is well under way as you have documented, Bob, with the many calls for a more efficient government.

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  8. I'm suspicious of this as well. You can go to whitehouse.gov to read up on this. They claim $4B in savings and $10B in "monetized" savings (whatever that means). The reports are full of padding and the savings claims are optimistic estimates. There's devils in those details no doubt...

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  9. On a philosphical note, Sunstein believes (and has stated) that citizens' rights come from the state, and there are no "negative rights" that limit government.

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  10. I think the Anonymous at 8:37 has it pretty well nailed. Just like the call for the National Infrastructure Bank, "streamlining" and "eliminating red tape" in this case are code words meaning the administrative agencies should be granted more power and less Congressional oversight.

    This is exactly the same as the "unitary executive" that the Republicans sought for so long when they were in power. The names change, but the goals remain the same.

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