The Most Dangerous Man in America

A few weeks ago, I would have called the President the most dangerous man in America, but just yesterday, the Senate approved the appointment of a new guy that I think will put this president in the shade.  This guy doesn't worry me because of his charisma, his public leadership of his ability to lead.  It's his invisibility that is most troubling. It's the deceptively innocuous appearance of his job in the administration - Regulatory Czar.

Cass Sunstein, the president's appointment for Regularoty Czar would preside over a wide range of regulatory mechanisms.  This would make him arguably one of the most powerful figures in Obama's Wonderful World of Czars.

For one thing, he'd have regulatory power over the Internet.  About that, he said in his 2001 book, Republic.com, that the Internet may "weaken democracy".  Why?  Because it "allows citizens to isolate themselves within groups that share their own views and experiences".  Sunstein argues that these people cut themselves off from information that conflicts with their own preconceived notions and beliefs.  He even has a term for it - cyberbalkanization.

Sounds bad doesn't it?  Listen, I hang with conservatives a lot on the Internet, but I also read and hear from the other side of the fence as well.  Those people constantly come into our yard and throw poop on porch and run off laughing.  We may get together to share ideas, but there is plenty of give and take in a free market modeled Internet.  Sunstein thinks we ought to be "encouraged" to hear the full range of ideas (like the dozens of books he churns out on every subject known to man.  Sunstein would eliminate all such bunching up of like minds and artificially force us to spend equal time listening to the public debate.

On first blush, it sounds like something that would be a healthy thing, but unfortunately, when you get these intellectual guardians of public opinion going on what sort of things they want to do, they start out by eliminating sources of information that conflict with their own preconceived notions.  In Sunstein's media utopia, the debates would be controlled by regulation so that everyone would get a balanced view and extremist elements would fade away.  It's been described as a sort of, fairness doctrine for the Internet.

Isn't it lovely how these guys just want to make sure we get the "whole argument".  You have to wonder how that works when the first thing they want to do is eliminate the loudest and most effective debaters from the other side.  May God protect us from such politico-nannies.  They firmly believe that if everyone just heard their argument clearly without any effective noise coming from the right, that we would all just fall in line and accept what's best for us - like nationalized health care, gun control, animal rights, cap and trade and militarized civilian "security" forces just for starters. 

Even some of Obama's supporters are getting a little jittery about this guy - especially the guys who make their living blogging! If you put such a regulatory stranglehold on the Internet as it appears that Sunstein advocates, you better not hope we EVER elect another conservative to office.  What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  The same regs that silence conservative bloggers can also be used to silence liberal bloggers.  I think that's a mistake and so do some of my liberal colleagues.

The Wall Street Journal says that Sunstein's obscure job “wields outsize power”. In that job, Sunstein will be a key player in Obama's efforts to regulate financial services, implement global climate change "controls" and in implementing nationalization of American industry and business and the deployment of universal health care. You've heard the expression "The devil is in the details." Well Cass Sunstein is now Obama's guy in charge of the details.

What to do?

It's too late.  He's been approved.  We're stuck with this guy unless we turn a spotlight on him so bright he can't make a trip to the can without an audience.  At the risk of being branded a right wing "wing nut", I think we dog this guy till we can elect a new president.  By the way, I've always found wing nuts to be very handy and versatile fasteners.  If things get loose you can increase the pressure without having to drag out your tool box every time.  Wing nuts are great little gizmos for controlling the level of pressure you need to put on a big old screw!

Oh, well, if the Internet goes away, maybe I'll get more work done of the type my wife approves of.  If I can't blog anymore, maybe I can get in a little more of that manual labor my wife says I'm avoiding.  I've been wondering how long I'll last before I spontaneously combust!  Hey, if the news media suddenly goes 100% unicorns and flowers over the political news, maybe it will relive my blood pressure.

As it is, my long term survival may depend on whether we re-elect the Czar Maker on the next go-round or not....

Just one man's opinion

Tom King