New Poll, New Useful Idiot!

Not for much longer!

As I covered the other day, Cass Sunstein is the new appointee as the messiah’s “regulation czar.” And what a czar this guy would be! We covered at bit of his looneyness in the other post, but I thought taking a deeper look would be hilarious. He was recently interviewed by Salon Magazine. Here are some excerpts.

What inspired you to write this book? What sounded the alarm for you that there was a danger to democratic discourse?

What sounded it was all the excitement about personalization and customization, hearing people saying, “This is unbelievably great that we can just include what we like and exclude what we dislike.” At the same time I was studying jury behavior. The empirical finding was that like-minded jurors, when they talk to one another, tend to get more extreme.

You mean, we shouldn’t get to choose what we read, what we watch, what we hear? You mean we shouldn’t get to change the station or hit the “off” button? Or, do you mean that no matter what we watch or listen to, we’ll hear the same thing…liberalism?

There’s a book, “The Long Tail,” by Chris Anderson, which celebrates the “niche-ification” of the world. I like the book — I should say, I think it’s a very good book — but what’s amazing to me is the extent to which Anderson and the Internet enthusiasts really can’t even see a problem and can’t see the individual and social benefits of being exposed to stuff you didn’t choose.

Or, not being able to talk to or relate with people that have the same beliefs as we do?

Where do you see evidence that “niche-ification” is a problem?

I don’t like that Rush Limbaugh listeners call themselves “dittoheads.” It’s funny, but it’s kind of horrible. Fox News is a self-identified conservative outlet. The more extreme elements on the left treat their fellow citizens as if they’re idiots, or as if they’re rich people who don’t care about anybody. So, I look at some of our culture, I see demonization, and I think, where does that come from?

Demonization? Hmm, where does the demonization come from?

This is good! He’ s trying to paint with a broad brush here and make all extremism look bad. That way, he can appear to be “balanced” when he tries to regulate free spech out of existence. However, he makes no mention of Moveon, ACORN, the SPLC, the recent DHS report, the left’s ridicule of the Tea Parties, and the left’s vilification of anyone who is the slightest bit concerned withe the gay rights agenda. That’ll just keep on going.

The Clinton impeachment, I think, had an impact on the book. The impeachment was, it seems to me, constitutionally ridiculous. And yet a lot of people, at least publicly, seemed to agree with it, such that President Clinton was actually impeached. Where did that come from? Bush v. Gore had an impact: the fact that all Gore voters pretty much thought [the decision in] Bush v. Gore was wrong and that all Bush voters thought it was right.

The impeachment ridiculous? I would expect to go to jail if I committed perjury. Might I remind everyone that Clinton plead guilty to that, paid a fine, and lost his law license.

The studies that you’re talking about show that self-isolation breeds polarization on both the left and the right. A liberal might argue, though, that liberals are by definition more diversity-minded and more tolerant of the views of others.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Thug intimidation tactics by ACORN, Move on, and the gay rights crowd? Temper tantrum protests that destroy property and result in multiple arrests, people being shouted down, threatened, followed to their homes, and forced to leave their jobs? Yup, the left, as I’ve documented many times here, is VERY FREAKING TOLERANT!

In your book you observe that conservatives tend to congregate around an outlet like Fox News, while liberals tend to congregate around an outlet like NPR. Don’t those outlets treat their ideological adversaries differently?

Air America maybe is more like Fox News, while NPR is not. It’s too simple to say that NPR is a liberal outlet — agreed entirely. I mean, Sean Hannity, who seems to me particularly mean and dumb — and I’m happy to be quoted on that — there’s nobody like that on NPR.

NPR isn’t liberal? I remember during the Clinton impeachment, I had ABC news on the TV, and NPR on the radio (we didn’t have Fox News at the time). The NPR feed was on a delay of several seconds. I would hear one of the Republicans speak on ABC, then several seconds later, an NPR commentator would TALK OVER the Republican speaker! It wasn’t occasional either, it was nearly constant!

I should say, I have a soft spot for O’Reilly, though. I’ve been on his show, and he’s been fair and likable to me. I don’t watch the show very often, so whether that’s generally the case, I don’t know.

Again with trying to be “balanced.” Pick on Hannity, be kind to O’Reilly. Make it look like you’re just after mean people. Then, won’t we all be surprised when any regulation you propose will silence anyone who isn’t liberal?

OK, I could go on. This guy really is dangerous though. He would be the smiling, kind, face of censorship. He has stated that it would be unconstitutional to try to regulate the internet. A liberal invoking the Constitution usually means that they are going to try something that goes completely against it. Combine that with the messiah now being able to nominate a justice to the SCOTUS, and we have the ground work for something pretty bad.

He’s a useful idiot, he’s on the poll, and he’ll likely be confirmed. Let’s have some fun with it until this blogs reads as follows:

CENSORED FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE! Why don’t you read over at the Hushtoeveryonebutus Post, they’re fully government approved!!! ALL HAIL THE MESSIAH!