Cass Sunstein, who wrote a white paper calling for "conspiracy theories" to be banned, wants to legally force Americans to "do what's best for our society" and dilute their own free speech
Obama Czar Wants Mandatory Government Propaganda On Political Websites
Cass Sunstein, who wrote a white paper calling for “conspiracy theories” to be banned, wants to legally force Americans to “do what’s best for our society” and dilute their own free speech
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, May 17, 2010
Disturbing audio has emerged of White House information czar Cass Sunstein, who in a previous white paper called for banning “conspiracy theories,” demanding that websites be mandated by law to link to opposing information or that pop ups containing government propaganda be forcibly included on political blogs.
In an audio excerpt of an interview which was posted on the Breitbart.tv website today, Sunstein discusses how conservative websites should provide links to liberal websites and vice versa or even how political blogs should be made to include pop ups that show “a quick argument for a competing view”.
Sunstein said that if this system couldn’t be implemented voluntarily, “Congress should hold hearings about mandates,” which would legally force people to dilute their own free speech. The Harvard Professor also said that blogs should be forced to list a random draw of 25 popular websites, such as CNN.com.
Listen to the clip below.
“The best would be for this to be done voluntarily,” said Sunstein, “But the word voluntary is a little complicated and people sometimes don’t do what’s best for our society,” he added (emphasis mine).
“The idea would be to have a legal mandate as the last resort….an ultimate weapon designed to encourage people to do better,” Sunstein concluded.
As we previously reported, in a January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” the Harvard Professor who is currently President Obama’s head of information technology in the White House called for “conspiracy theories,” that is any political opinion which didn’t concur with the establishment view, to be taxed or even banned outright.
In a set of proposals designed to counter “dangerous” ideas, Sunstein suggested that the government could, “ban conspiracy theorizing,” or “impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories”.
So-called “conspiracy theories that Sunstein said could be subject to government censorship included beliefs held by the vast majority of Americans, such as the notion that the JFK assassination occurred as part of a wider plot.
In his white paper, Sunstein also cited the belief that “global warming is a deliberate fraud” as another marginal conspiracy theory to be countered by government censorship.
Ludicrously, the Harvard Professor even characterized as “false and dangerous” the idea that exposure to sunlight is healthy, despite the fact that top medical experts agree prolonged exposure to sunlight reduces the risk of developing certain cancers.
Essentially, Sunstein wants it to be written into law that the government can dictate the very nature of reality to Americans and that their opinions can only be voiced at best when accompanied by mandatory federal propaganda or at worst that Americans can be silenced entirely by federal decree.
This callous disregard for the First Amendment represents a fundamental threat the very fabric of the country and is even more alarming considering the position of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan with regard to free speech. During the Citizens United vs. FEC case, Kagan’s office argued that the government can ban books and political pamphlets. In separate writings, Kagan argued that the government could “disappear” free speech it deemed to be offensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_SunsteinBooks by Cass R. Sunstein:
click on (picture or info) to see Amazon.com's image of the book and other information
- Behavioral Law and Economics (editor, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2000) (info)
- One Case At A Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court (picture or info)
- The Cost of Rights (with Stephen Holmes) (picture or info)
- Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning (with Martha Nussbaum) (picture or info)
- Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict (1998) (picture or info)
- Free Markets and Social Justice (picture or info)
- Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (picture or info)
- The Partial Constitution (picture or info)
- After the Rights Revolution: Reconceiving the Regulatory State (info)
In the twentieth century, American society has experienced a "rights revolution": a commitment by the national government to promote a healthful environment, safe products, freedom from discrimination, and other rights unknown to the founding generation. This development has profoundly affected constitutional democracy by skewing the original understanding of checks and balances, federalism, and individual rights. Cass Sunstein tells us how it is possible to interpret and reform this regulatory state regime in a way that will enhance freedom and welfare while remaining faithful to constitutional commitments.
Sunstein vigorously defends government regulation against Reaganite/Thatcherite attacks based on free-market economics and pre-New Deal principles of private right. Focusing on the important interests in clean air and water, a safe workplace, access to the air waves, and protection against discrimination, he shows that regulatory initiatives have proved far superior to an approach that relies solely on private enterprise. Sunstein grants that some regulatory regimes have failed and calls for reforms that would amount to an American perestroika: a restructuring that embraces the use of government to further democratic goals but that insists on the decentralization and productive potential of private markets.
Sunstein also proposes a theory of interpretation that courts and administrative agencies could use to secure constitutional goals and to improve the operation of regulatory programs. From this theory he seeks to develop a set of principles that would synthesize the modern regulatory state with the basic premises of the American constitutional system. Teachers of law, policymakers and political scientists, economists and historians, and a general audience interested in rights, regulation, and government will find this book an essential addition to their libraries.
- The Bill of Rights and the Modern State (co-editor with Geoffey R. Stone and Richard A. Epstein) (info)
- Feminism and Political Theory (editor) (info)
Casebooks:
- Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy (with Stephen Breyer, Richard B. Stewart, and Matthew Spitzer) (info)
- Constitutional Law (with Geoffrey R. Stone, Louis M. Seidman, & Mark Tushnet)
- The First Amendment (with Geoffrey R. Stone, Louis M. Seidman, & Mark Tushnet) (info)
http://home.uchicago.edu/~csunstei/
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