Gag The Internet! An Obama Official's Frightening Book About Curbing Free Speech Online

New York Post ^ | 07/11/09 | Kyle Smith

[Behind Liberal Lines]

When it comes to the First Amendment, Team Obama believes in Global Chilling.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them.

"Although obscure," reported the Wall Street Journal, "the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases."

Sunstein was appointed, no doubt, off the success of "Nudge," his previous book, which suggests that government ought to gently force people to be better human beings.

[raybbr]

I guess he's changed his mind!

Really interesting coming from a guy who wrote this in 2003...

Review Why Societies Need Dissent...shows that demands for lock-step conformity are wrong and uninformed thinking. Sunstein's important new study is filled with empirical evidence of the significance of opposition, found in his compelling explanations of the need for, and benefits of, disagreement. Sunstein reveals that, in fact, the influence of dissenters is for the better, be it with courts, juries, corporate boardrooms, churches, sports teams, student organizations or faculties, not to mention 'the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court...during times of both war and peace.' --John W. Dean (Los Angeles Times Book Review )

[Steel Wolf]

"A demagogue is a man who preaches what he knows to be false to men he knows to be idiots." H.L. Mencken

[CDFingers]

I've read some of his essays:

- Thinks we should celebrate tax day.

- More government power in the name of protecting new freedoms and rights, like the 'right' to social security, welfare etc.

- In favor of a 'Stakeholder society' in which everyone with a clean record gets $80K at age 18, and everyone pays back the $80k with interest before they die enforced by the death tax.

Cass(andra) Sunstein: Marxist salesman about to become the Marxist speech Czar.

[CDFingers]

We're about to be Czarred and fettered! Great catch phrase. If you don't put it on a bumper sticker, I will.

[Fred Nerks]

In favor of a 'Stakeholder society' in which everyone with a clean record gets $80K at age 18, and everyone pays back the $80k with interest before they die enforced by the death tax.

he sounds like a very dangerous idiot.

[CTyank]

“We could also imagine a future in which those who spread false rumors are categorized as such, discounted and marginalized . . . people would approach rumors skeptically even they provide comfort and fit their own biases.”

So we’d “marginalize” nearly all of the mainstream media?

[Fireone]

“Sunstein calls for a “notice and take down” law that would require bloggers and service providers to “take down falsehoods upon notice,” even those made by commenters - but without apparent penalty. “

This will not apply to altered documents such as FORGED
Birth Certificates, COLB’s, college records, letters from hospitals where duplicate births of the same person were
published.

[GladesGuru]

WAAAAH ! ! !

That Cass Man offends me!

Gag him! Do It NOW ! ! !

I’m offended by him.

[Jemian]

“things” should be put in place to “gently force” women to have fewer children.

Does that mean they'll thoroughly dope up the women during forced abortions and sterilizations? Give 'em lots of pain med for the recovery period?

[ROCKLOBSTER]

government ought to gently force people to be better human beings.

In fewer words: RATs admit being control freaks.

Just like everyone says.

[dennisw]

In January 2009 President Obama appointed Power to the National Security Council, where she will serve as director for multilateral affairs.....

Cass Sunstein is married to leftist kook Samantha Power

[6SJ7]

The return of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

There was a column posted recently called, Czarred and Feathered.

They did the hard part, I just changed it to fettered for this application.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

GAG THE INTERNET

Obama has hired an outspoken enemy of free speech, and to me, that’s RED ALERT.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07112009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/gag_the_internet__178749.htm

Czar is too mild a world for what Sunstein is about to become. How about “regulator in chief”? How about “lawgiver”? He is Obama’s Obama.

“We hardly need to imagine a world, however, in which people and institutions are being harmed by the rapid spread of damaging falsehoods via the Internet,” he writes. “We live in that world. What might be done to reduce the harm?”

Sunstein questions the current libel standard - which requires proving “actual malice” against those who write about public figures, including celebrities.

- - - -

A little googling of Sunstein brings up this.

Also author of “Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech”

U.S. regulatory czar nominee wants Net ‘Fairness Doctrine’

Apr 27, 2009 ... Cass Sunstein WASHINGTON Barack Obama’s nominee for regulatory czar has ... in his book “Nudge,” written with Richard Thaler, ... Get the book that exposes the secret blueprint for ending free speech in America. ...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.phpfa=PAGE.view&pageId=96301

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

“We hardly need to imagine a world, however, in which people and institutions are being harmed by the rapid spread of damaging falsehoods via the Internet,” he writes. “We live in that world. What might be done to reduce the harm?”

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

It is very seductive to desire an end to slander and character assassination. Both sides of the aisle believe that we are being wronged. But for one partizan element to limit the other side’s free speech, that is DANGEROUS.

[Montfort]

We were required to read articles by Cass Sunstein when I was at University of Virginia Law School.

And UVA is one of the more conservative law schools in the top ten or twenty.

I guess if they ever strayed too far from liberal orthodoxy, they would lose their reputation in the eyes of left-leaning organizations such as the ABA.

[william clark]

[Montfort]

I realized this morning that the enemies of liberty should simply be thought of as the "controllers." I think it really comes down to those who want to control us and "bind us together in a common cause" and improve us and take care of us versus those who care about freedom.

It really is not a partisan thing. There are many controllers who are Republicans. There have been countless controllers who were religious conservatives. There are controllers on local HOA boards. Controllers may start out as smart, hard-working class presidents in their schools.

Controllers look at the world and see the waste and ugliness that results from individuals choosing the houses they will live in and the cars they will drive and the business they will build and run. They see strip malls and think that no one should have been allowed these to built. They see pickup trucks and SUVs and believe that only those who absolutely need these vehicles should have been allowed to buy them. They see the money we waste on junk toys from China, and ATVs and golf clubs and nice vacations, and dream of taxing or banning these things. After all, government would spend that money better (even if it means sending Social Security execs to a luxury retreat)..

They hate personal liberty. They believe that we need to be managed and herded, for own good and for the good of the world.

I may decide that I will not partake of some of the things that the controllers deem wasteful or ugly, but that is MY decision. Just as it is my decision what charities I will give money or time to. I care not that liberty does reach the "optimum" result, or the greatest good for the greatest number or whatever goal you may think is worthy. Liberty in itself is not just a goal. It is a necessity -- a sine qua non.

[Yooper4Life]

I care not that liberty does reach the “optimum” result, or the greatest good for the greatest number or whatever goal you may think is worthy. Liberty in itself is not just a goal. It is a necessity — a sine qua non.
******

True dat!

BTW, way back in 1997, I, along with my Wayne State University Law School (Detroit, MI) teammates, participated in the National Law School Softball Tourney held at the UVA. We had a blast.