Cass Sunstein quotes:

Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law.

As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race.

The U.S. is blessed with tremendously creative and imaginative law students at places like Chicago, Harvard, Columbia and Yale.

There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause.

I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense.

There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause

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.

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.

Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument.

I am a huge Red Sox fan.

I'm interested in how the Internet spreads information.

Wikipedia works because those who know the truth are usually more numerous and committed than those who believe in a falsehood.

The middle class is not doing well, and trade policy might have something to do with that, and so someone who is going to be fixated on those things, who has a business background, has some appeal.

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.

Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.

I think that every state in the union should recognize same-sex marriage.

It's hard to get me out of the office.

I am proud to say that the Federalist Society was founded in part at the University of Chicago, and one of its best characteristics has been an attack on liberal shibboleths by looking at real consequences and specific problems and by asking what law actually does.

There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day.

If there's a regulation that's saving 10,000 lives and costing one job, it's worth it.

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.

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 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."

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.

A well-functioning democracy has a culture of free speech, not simply legal protection of free speech. It encourages independence of mind. It imparts a willingness to challenge prevailing opinion through both words and deeds. Equally important, it encourages a certain set of attitudes in listeners, one that gives a respectful hearing to those who do not embrace the conventional wisdom. In a culture of free speech, the attitude of listeners is no less important than that of speakers.

I'll tell you an explanation that I find commonly overrated and speculative in the extreme: the idea that things that succeed in popular culture do that because they hit the temper of the times.

Those subject to capital punishment are real human beings, with their own backgrounds and narratives. By contrast, those whose lives are or might be saved by virtue of capital punishment are mere 'statistical people.' They are both nameless and faceless, and their deaths are far less likely to be considered in moral deliberations.

I think a lot of the Trump supporters think that the job situation is not good.

On reflection, some things do super well because they hit with the time. Some things do super well because they are able to activate a kind of echo chamber or bandwagon or cascade - they didn't particularly hit with the time. Some things are just too astonishingly good to not hit the top. Those three explanations, with respect to the Star Wars phenomenon, seem to me all to pass the plausibility test, and to explore them, with respect to Star Wars, I think casts light not just on the saga of our time, but also on everything about our culture.

The opening scene in A New Hope, when you see the huge ship, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on... that is like a joke of awesomeness.

Groups become more extreme and entrenched in their beliefs and polarized from others when members only exchange information that reinforces their views and filter out all else or never learn of alternatives. Thus they narrow their options, and magnify each other's prejudices and misconceptions. This trend leads to blind spots in decision making and to extreme behavior, even terrorism.

How do things, whether they are movies, or plays, Hamilton, or people, ideas - how do they become transformative or iconic? That is in some ways what the actual Star Wars saga gets at, with the tale of the rise and the fall of the empire and the rise and the fall of Republics.

The idea that Taylor Swift would become the giant pop icon of 2015, 2016 - she's really good, but I don't think it's written in the stars.

Rumors are nearly as old as human history, but with the rise of the Internet, they have become ubiquitous. In fact we are now awash in them. False rumors are especially troublesome; they impose real damage on individuals and institutions, and they often resist correction. They can threaten careers, policies, public officials, and sometimes even democracy itself.

Somewhat more broadly, I will suggest that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law.

A lot of people are focused on climate change as a defining challenge of our time. A lot of people think it is a non-problem, at least in the United States.

Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.

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.

A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.

There is no reason to believe that in the face of statutory ambiguity, the meaning of federal law should be settled by the inclinations and predispositions of federal judges. The outcome should instead depend on the commitments and beliefs of the President and those who operate under him,

I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.

Game Of Thrones is arguably the hottest thing on television.

Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them.

Presumed consent preserves freedom of choice, but it is different from explicit consent because it shifts the default rule. Under this policy, all citizens would be presumed to be consenting donors, but they would have the opportunity to register their unwillingness to donate.

There are bursts of things like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or same-sex marriage that change very much what we thought we were all about.

I would reject the distinction between a Keynesian moment and a behavioral moment.

I got into the genesis of Star Wars, and the tale seemed to me endlessly fascinating.

We might have new issues involving information technology for example, or new questions arising out of the war on terror, or new issues arising from natural disasters that can't be anticipated.

This is a very, very conservative judge who in his dissenting opinions is overwhelmingly likely to be more conservative than the majority.

I started to read as obsessively about Star Wars as I once did about Kant - and still do about behavioral economics and behavioral psychology.

There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft

It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid.

Donald Trump and Senator Cruz have occasional Manichean tendencies.

I dealt with people with diverse political views. If you find people who are your political opponents, and talk to them for an hour, chances are you're going to like them, and they're not full of hate.

I think it may be that the fans of your least-favorite political candidate, whoever it is, are much more likable and light-side types than you might think going in. One way to reach them is to talk about Star Wars.

I wouldn't call Trump supporters or Sanders supporters fanatical. One thing, I would say they're very discouraged with where things are. I don't think in either case they're fanatical.

Well, I've liked Star Wars since the late '70s. I liked it a lot.

For the Sanders supporters, there's a thought that the people who are well off are doing really great, and the system is systematically unfair, and that's a very deeply felt and serious objection to the current situation.

My own view is that institutions are a glory, and for all their imperfections, something really to be proud of. It is true that things can be a lot better than they are. It's okay to emphasize that.

And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it.

Those who believe in climate change, as I do, I think it's also fair to say that they are more receptive to confirming evidence than disconfirming evidence. They happen to be right, but their motivations are in play also.

I love The Matrix, especially the first one.

The fear of loss is an engine of horrors, but also a source of the greatest forms of heroism. There's not a lot of art that puts that in bold letters. It's psychologically very interesting and acute, I think. That's not the central reading, I think, of the New Testament.

Faust seems to have exerted a big influence on Star Wars. You know, the "give up your soul for immortality" or something.

It's deeply human to do both the worst things and the best things because of your fear of loss.

If Star Wars had been released in the late '60s, or late '80s, or late '90s, adjusting for technology, it fits spectacularly well.

We often see a temper of the times connection, and it's just like a fairy tale. It's not true.

The sky is always falling or the sky is always bright. In some ways, this is really morning in America and we don't see it. People are living longer, the economy is doing pretty well. On the other hand, there are some ways of thinking in the current situation that make it look not so good, including our Star Wars prequels - like legislature, meaning they're talking a lot, not doing a lot.

So, you could often say things are terrible and that accounts for what happened, or things are really bright, and that accounts for what happened. Often, the real explanation for what happened is much more subtle and interesting and involves maybe small shocks or what a couple people did on a Wednesday morning that changed the arc of history.

I'm also a big Bob Dylan fan. The songs on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - which is one of his best early albums - they grow out of some of his difficulties with Suze Rotolo, and "Hard Rain," people say it had to do with the Cuban missile crisis - probably not. He denied it. I believe him, but it certainly had to do with the time.

Probably, if we looked at Da Vinci or Michelangelo with care, we'd see a historical particularity that the work is not treated as having. It's certainly true of Shakespeare.

Great works - and I think Star Wars is a great work - are easily susceptible to multiple plausible interpretations. Some of them are pretty nutty, but the idea that we should see it as profoundly feminist, or as a deeply Christian tale, or as a Freudian exercise... I think all of those have some truth.

So, I subscribe to the following reading: Star Wars is an essentially Christian tale.

Some of the Hulk movies have been merely okay. I think the thing to do... there has to be some stab that makes it something we haven't seen before.

If you take anything that succeeded, just imagine it succeeding 10 years before or 10 years after, you could almost always make, with the same plausibility, the "it fit the times" argument.

If you have a regulation that's going to save hundreds of thousands of lives annually and not cost very much, that sounds like a very good idea.

My role in the government was not to think about narratives and consistency with narratives, but think of the human consequences of rules.

It's very common to say that Star Wars in the late '70s, that was kind of perfect for Cold War culture and the aftermath of Vietnam in the '60s to have an upbeat, hopeful, cartoonish tale of a hero's journey. I think those explanations are easy to offer and almost always wrong.