Cass Sunstein
Humility is of central importance; I think it's an underappreciated virtue in the contemporary discussion of law and politics.
One of the things 'Star Wars' is most deeply about is fathers, sons, and redemption. In its own way, it points to the indispensability of paternal love, and it has a lot to say about the lengths to which people - boys or girls - will go to get it.
In the end, 'Star Wars' insists that you can't be redeemed without attachment. That's the strongest message of the saga, and that's what makes it speak to people's deepest selves.
Rules are not improved by sloganeering, fact-free letter-writing campaigns, or special pleading from interest groups.
Usually, to promote a new work, I'll aspire to be published in the 'Columbia Law Review' or the 'Stanford Law Review' and to have at least five really enticing footnotes.
I would think that to say 'regulations cost jobs' or 'regulations create jobs' is too simple, and we need to look at the regulation.
No one should take away people's rights. But with respect to 'the right to arm ourselves,' we have lost sight of our own history.
Today's uses of the Second Amendment may invoke James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, but they have a lot more to do with interest-group politics.
It's one thing to make financial aid available to students so they can attend college. It's another thing to design forms that students can actually fill out.
If there's a regulation that's saving 10,000 lives and costing one job, it's worth it.
I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.
Many Americans abhor paternalism. They think that people should be able to go their own way, even if they end up in a ditch. When they run risks, even foolish ones, it isn't anybody's business that they do.
They call soccer the beautiful game, but if I had to identify just one sport to show members of some alien species what the human race is all about, I'd nominate squash.
Today, we are announcing that agencies are releasing their final regulatory reform plans, including hundreds of initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency.
I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense.
In a well-functioning democracy, people frequently encounter topics and points of view that they did not specifically select but from which they learn. Those encounters can change minds and, even, the course of lives.
There's a big difference between the role of an academic and the role of someone in government. That's a cliche, but in academic life if you say things that are common sense and people nod their heads, it's not very useful. You're not adding anything.
I confess I'm a big fan of Taylor Swift.
When like-minded people, talking mostly with one another, end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk... If you put a bunch of rebels in a room and ask them to discuss rebellion, they'll get more extreme.
For consumers, the lesson is simple: Genetically modified foods are safe to eat.
The habit I've developed is to write in any free half hour I might find.
We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn't a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It's time now.
There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause.
For business, government, and education, the lesson is clear: People ought to be relying far more on objective information and far less on interviews. They might even want to think about scaling back or cancelling interviews altogether. They'll save a lot of time - and make better decisions.
In psychology and behavioral economics, people have shown that if you just describe options in a certain way, or make some features of a situation salient, you can get people to do and even see what you want. You don't have to be a Jedi to manipulate people's attention.
As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race.
There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft.
This part of the 21st century is preoccupied with risk, and there's a lot that law can do to make lives longer and healthier.
The U.S. is blessed with tremendously creative and imaginative law students at places like Chicago, Harvard, Columbia and Yale.
Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument.
I think that every state in the union should recognize same-sex marriage.
Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtesy in the world, which is best handled through social norms, which are indispensable. But you wouldn't want the government to be mandating courtesy.
It's hard to get me out of the office.
I am a huge Red Sox fan.
I'm interested in how the Internet spreads information.
I would reject the distinction between a Keynesian moment and a behavioral moment.
The 'cash for clunkers' program was a big success in part because it gave people the sense that the economy was moving.
When I was an academic, I'd sometimes get a little feeling of excitement when I had an idea that was, I hoped, fresh. And whether anyone should act on that idea is a very different question.
Democrats want to use government power to make people's lives go better; Republicans respond that people know more than politicians do. We think that both might be able to agree that nudging can maintain free markets, and liberty, while also inclining people in good directions.
If I may discuss the idea of explosion. The number of regulations issued in the last two years is approximately the same as the number issued in the last two years of the Bush administration.
Donald Trump promises to impose, soon after his inauguration, a new requirement on federal agencies: If they want to issue a new regulation, they have to rescind two regulations that are now on the books. The idea of 'one in, two out' has rhetorical appeal, but it's going to be extremely hard to pull off.
As presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama have recognized, the real question is whether regulations, whether new or old, are justified. That requires a careful analysis of their costs and their benefits.
Republicans are right to express concern about excessive regulation, and they can do a lot to reduce it, above all by scrutinizing rules on the books and by putting all new proposals through a cost-benefit filter. There's room for plenty of creativity here.
Here's a more controversial idea: In general, Democrats and progressives ought to allow Trump considerable room to choose his own employees - far more room than Republicans allowed during the Obama administration. Tit-for-tat is a dangerous game.
Employers, like most people, tend to trust their intuitions. But when employers decide whom to hire, they trust those intuitions far more than they should.
Interviewers actively fool themselves, finding ways to learn from interviews even if there's actually nothing there to learn from.
Donald Trump has taken a battering ram to longstanding political norms - the unwritten conventions that make governance possible. But even before he decided to run for president, those norms were under assault.
On some issues, Republicans and Democrats disagree so sharply that compromise is nearly impossible. Republicans are not going to support a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gases, and Democrats won't support a 1,000-mile wall on the border with Mexico.
Concerned about re-election, interest-group reactions, the media, or fundraising, many legislators have found it in their interest to refuse to cooperate with members of the opposing party - or to treat them as enemies in some kind of war, in which the whole point is to defeat and humiliate them. But the American people have been the real losers.