In the Czar's Sights

American Thinker has this story on the targets of the latest book from new Regulatory Kommissar Cass Sunstein; opening grafs:

***
... meta-message: A term, widely credited to Gerard Nierenberg, used to refer to messages that are not directly delivered but emerge from between the written or spoken lines.

The meta-message of Cass Sunstein's new book delivers a warning to those who would spread Internet "rumors" about Barack Obama.

The Regulatory Czar's latest book is entitled Rumors. It purports to be about how rumors spread. To that end, it's full of remarkable insights such as "Many of us accept false rumors because of either our fears or our hopes." (p. 6) "Your willingness to believe a rumor will inevitably depend on the information with which you start." (p. 19) "Sometimes people believe rumors because other people believe them." (p. 28) Plus the shocking revelation that "Many rumors spread conspiracy theories." (p. 7)

The subtitle of the book is "How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done." The answer to "What Can Be Done" harbors the book's meta-message. For Sunstein, "part of the answer lies in recognizing that a ‘chilling effect' on those who would spread destructive falsehood can be an excellent idea." (p. 5) (His meta-message raises its head.)

Most of Sunstein's examples of rumor sources are directed against the Right. "If the National Rifle Association spreads a rumor that a political candidate wants to ‘confiscate guns,' or if an environmental organization spreads a rumor that someone believes that climate change is a ‘hoax,' many people will be affected, because they tend to believe the National Rifle Association or the environmental organization." (p. 8) (Notice the upside down logic in the climate change example. In Sunstein's world why would an environmental organization ever start a "hoax" rumor in the first place?)...
***

Read the rest of the article, please.

As the Era of the American Kommissars progresses, remember your Solzhenitsyn always.