Cass Sunstein is a borderline seditious man, and I don't think he should be given nearly the amount of respect he is. His papers, from his younger days up until today, are rife with unconstitutional and blatantly globalist views. I will admit his views are not drivel, and should be evaluated on their own merits, but they are the same views largely held by the supranational oligarchical aristocracy, which is exactly the reason I find him to be so dangerous.
This is a man that has, amongst other things:
1. Advocated the use of sock-puppets (aka persona mangement) to conduct cognitive infiltration of dissent groups, primarily targeting "conspiracy theorists".
3. Has argued (very subtly) against the founders vision of the Constitution, seeking to reinterpret it outside the setup mechanisms.
"Now, it is alarming to people who want to believe in the unitary executive, like me, that the 19th-century writers thought this was self-evident. [The unitary executive theory holds that a powerful president controls the entire executive branch.] That's the policy recommendation and the conclusion that the Constitution is largely, not entirely, but largely irrelevant. Now, I say what I've said about the Constitutional matter with considerable regret. I wish it weren't so. The executive department's vision of the Constitution, with the president on top and the administration below, has elegance and simplicity and tremendous appeal. It would make much more sense, I submit, given our current situation, to have a Constitution in which the president is on top of administration is below. But that was not the founder's original conception. The Constitution does not speak in those terms…. Because the conclusion that I've reached seems to me so unfortunate, I'm trying hard to figure out what can be done about it…. One thing that perhaps can be done about it is to say, well, we shouldn't really be originalists about the meaning of the Constitution. Maybe Judge Bork had wrong. Maybe we should think that the Constitution has a high degree of flexibility. Maybe it's a changing and living document. Now, under that conception of Constitutional interpretation, maybe we can have the ingredients of a new unitary executive idea."
5. Was appointed as one of the people to the "independent" NSA review panel, which then prepared a report to James Clapper (who should be tried for blatantly lying to congress), who then would report about the report to the president about his own organization...
Not exactly the kind of guy I want everyone taking cues on for policy decisions, and definitely not the kind of guy I would expect HN readers to support, particularly given his involvement in "cognitive infiltration" groups.
This is a man that has, amongst other things:
1. Advocated the use of sock-puppets (aka persona mangement) to conduct cognitive infiltration of dissent groups, primarily targeting "conspiracy theorists".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OIiOztc52g
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
2. Encouraged the censorship of the internet via changes to libel laws.
http://www.amazon.com/On-Rumors-Falsehoods-Spread-Believe/dp...
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1966:
3. Has argued (very subtly) against the founders vision of the Constitution, seeking to reinterpret it outside the setup mechanisms.
"Now, it is alarming to people who want to believe in the unitary executive, like me, that the 19th-century writers thought this was self-evident. [The unitary executive theory holds that a powerful president controls the entire executive branch.] That's the policy recommendation and the conclusion that the Constitution is largely, not entirely, but largely irrelevant. Now, I say what I've said about the Constitutional matter with considerable regret. I wish it weren't so. The executive department's vision of the Constitution, with the president on top and the administration below, has elegance and simplicity and tremendous appeal. It would make much more sense, I submit, given our current situation, to have a Constitution in which the president is on top of administration is below. But that was not the founder's original conception. The Constitution does not speak in those terms…. Because the conclusion that I've reached seems to me so unfortunate, I'm trying hard to figure out what can be done about it…. One thing that perhaps can be done about it is to say, well, we shouldn't really be originalists about the meaning of the Constitution. Maybe Judge Bork had wrong. Maybe we should think that the Constitution has a high degree of flexibility. Maybe it's a changing and living document. Now, under that conception of Constitutional interpretation, maybe we can have the ingredients of a new unitary executive idea."
http://www.amazon.com/The-Partial-Constitution-Cass-Sunstein...
4. Has proposed that conspiracy theories be banned outright, taxed, censored, and subverted.
"Our main policy claim here is the government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585
4. Actively interfered with various regulatory proposals.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/03/cass-sunsteins-resi...?
5. Was appointed as one of the people to the "independent" NSA review panel, which then prepared a report to James Clapper (who should be tried for blatantly lying to congress), who then would report about the report to the president about his own organization...
Not exactly the kind of guy I want everyone taking cues on for policy decisions, and definitely not the kind of guy I would expect HN readers to support, particularly given his involvement in "cognitive infiltration" groups.