http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/your-mild-mannered-speech-therapist-cass-sunstein
Cass Sunstein, director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will not like this column. He may be offended by it. Feel insulted. Cry “not fair!” He may recommend that I be taxed, or financially penalized somehow for expressing unapproved speech, or even incarcerated for having said such awful things about him. He endorses these ideas. Works assiduously for them. Has written extensively on how unbridled free speech imperils society and social stability, and so ought to be checked and even licensed.
So, sue me.
Well, he hasn’t yet. In September 2009 I penned, “Cass Sunstein: ‘Czar’ in Wolf’s Clothing,” in which I excoriated him for sanctioning censorship and the manipulation of “public opinion” on the occasion of regiment of government arts-grantees being turned loose on the public by the National Endowment for the Arts. (I have written numerous articles on the perils facing the First Amendment and freedom of speech, including “‘High Noon’ for the First Amendment” in September 2009, which indict Sunstein, as well, including several articles for the Journal of Information Ethics and The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science.)
Sunstein has published thirty-seven books to date, and a mountain of articles and papers. A man who has written so much may have a faulty memory and have difficulty remembering what he’s written. On April 30th, for example, during a lecture at New York University Law School, an attendee asked him if he still endorsed an idea he proposed in a paper he wrote in 2008 while still fully employed at the University of Chicago Law School, “Conspiracy Theoeris” (before joining the faculty of Harvard Law School; Working Papers Nos. 08-3, 199, and 387).
In the question and answer portion of the lecture, We Are Change founder Luke Rudkowski confronted Sunstein concerning his avocation of a “provocateur” style program to silence what have become the government’s most vociferous and influential critics.
With tongue firmly in cheek, Rudkowski introduced himself as “Bill de Berg from Brooklyn college,” before directly asking Sunstein to explain his comments.
“I know you wrote many articles, but I think the most telling one about you is the 2008 one called ‘Conspiracy Theories,’where you openly advocated government agents infiltrating activist groups for 9/11 truth, and also to stifle dissent online,” Rudkowski stated.
“Why do you think the government should go after family members and responders who have questions about 9/11?” he asked Sunstein.
“I’ve written hundreds of articles and I remember some and not others,” Sunstein replied, denying that he has a firm recollection of the paper.