bman618 wrote:
I wouldn't call Sunstein a libertarian. He is a hard core environmental radical. He has expressed anti-first amendment sentiments about alternative media. He said animals should be able to bring suit in court. That hunting should be banned.
Which articles of his have you read?
He's known as the father of libertarian paternalism, which is fairly ground breaking and interesting. Why wouldn't you call him a libertarian? He believes in limiting the power of courts to make broad changes. He believes in limiting regulation. He strongly affirms the ability of individuals to make choices for themselves without the gov't doing it for them.
He's a prolific scholar who floats lots of interesting ideas out there and provokes good discussion. A non-lawyer reading his work probably misses out on the
arguendo aspects of it and can draw really erroneous conclusions. He isn't a "hard core environmental radical." He's a HUGE proponent of cost-benefit analysis in environmental matters, and much of his work specializes in the nuances of administrative procedure and appropriate regulation of catastrophic risk. How can you draw from that that he's a "hard core environmental radical"? What of his work have you read? It's unfair to pull legal arguments out of context, paint with a broad brush, and make sweeping generalizations about him.
Re 1st A: he has raised some extraordinarily good arguments about technological changes from the 1770s to today, and raises the question of whether our current system needs to be reevaluated in light of technology. E.g., the abstract of his article on Private Broadcasters:
The communications revolution has thrown into question the value of public interest obligations for television broadcasters. But the distinctive nature of this unusual market--with "winner- take-all" features, with viewers as a commodity, with pervasive externalities from private choices, and with market effects on preferences as well as the other way around--justifies a continuing role for government regulation in the public interest. At the same time, regulation best takes the form, not of anachronistic command-and-control regulation, but of (1) disclosure requirements, (2) economic incentives ("pay or play"), and (3) voluntary self-regulation through a privately administered code. Some discussion is devoted to free speech and antitrust issues, and to the different possible shapes of liability and property rules in this context, treating certain programming as a public "good" akin to pollution as a public bad.
Is that really something you find terribly offensive? He's anti command-and-control "top down" regulation. instead, he focuses on gov't enforcement of privately negotiated contract rights. That's the libertarian party line.
Re animals bring suit: look up his article "Standing for Animals." He points out that there are current loopholes in our environmental regulations inasmuch as many situations can arise in which no human has standing to confront something that everyone agrees is wrong. E.g., someone can clearly violate the law and do something we all agree is wrong, but there are many times when no particular person can establish standing to do anything about it. Rather than completely rewriting the standing rules (which would have enormous impacts in other contexts), he suggests revising animal standing so that if you burn down a forest that wasn't regularly visited by anyone, you can still be held accountable for it. Again, his arguments (whether or not you agree with them) are solid and clear, and they make a lot of sense.
