Cass Sunstein Supports an Internet ‘Fairness’ Doctrine
(Source: Creative Commons)
You may have already been aware that Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), is an animal rights extremist who even opposes hunting and thinks animals should be able to file lawsuits.
(Well, you might say, how do you top that?)
But did you know that Sunstein believes you can’t be trusted to think for yourself?
Sunstein apparently believes we can’t hear too much of a particular view or source of information; that might “fragment” public discourse. So, in typical ultra-liberal fashion, he believes government needs to do something about it (after all, who needs that silly First Amendment, anyway).
From Business Week:
All of this worries Cass Sunstein, author of Republic.com. A First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, he fears that the Internet is contributing to a fragmentation of public discourse that is undermining democracy. For democracy to work, Sunstein says, it’s important that citizens be exposed to many alternative viewpoints, occasionally encountering information that is unexpected or even jarring. They were more likely to get that exposure, Sunstein says, when they read the same newspapers and magazines, watched the same TV news, and spent more time in public spaces like parks, where they met people with contrasting viewpoints. On the Net today, he says, “many people are mostly hearing more and louder echoes of their own voices.” He cites studies showing that people become extreme in their leanings when they spend time with people who feel the same way.
Sunstein thinks the danger to the republic is great enough that he favors government intervention, such as subsidies for Web sites that encourage deliberation by diverse citizens, or requirements that Web sites provide links to other sites that promote opposing views. While some Netizens look forward to a day when legislatures won’t be necessary–because citizens will vote instantly on every issue via the Internet–Sunstein says Net plebiscites would short-circuit deliberation, permit tyranny of the majority, and be “a grotesque distortion of founding aspirations.”
So under Sunstein’s “wisdom,” any time I say anything to expose how bankrupt liberal ideas are, any time I point out how blatantly unconstitutional and un-American his ideas are, I should have to provide links to some idiot who thinks anti-American fascism is great.
How does intellectual trash like Cass Sunstein manage to get a job above dog catcher (my apologies to any dog catchers out there–at least yours is honest work)?
Someone like this would fit in well in the old Soviet Union, or maybe Cuba or North Korea. He could be allowed to sit at home and persecute his wife with such prattle , or even stand on a street corner and assault people’s ears with this nonsense.
But it has no place in the government of the people of the United States.
Sunstein’s nomination was stalled until yesterday in the Senate, and as we come to know more about this dangerous radical, the more apparent it becomes that his nomination should not only stall, but should be put out of it’s misery.
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