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This might inspire some discussion on the subject of hunting and gun control..

Senate to Vote on Anti-gun Kook for 'Regulatory Czar'
-- Nominee favors bringing an end to hunting

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org


Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Just when you thought the news about the Obama administration couldn't get any worse, gun owners find themselves needing to rally the troops once again.

This time it's the proposed "Regulatory Czar" who will be coming to a vote this week in the U.S. Senate.

His name is Cass Sunstein, and he holds some of the kookiest views you will ever hear.

For starters, Sunstein believes in regulating hunting out of existence. He told a Harvard audience in 2007 that "we ought to ban hunting." And in The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer (2002), he said:

I think we should go further ... the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments, entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering. It is easy to imagine a set of initiatives that would do a great deal here, and indeed European nations have moved in just this direction. There are many possibilities. (Italics are his emphasis.)

If that's all Sunstein believed, he would be dangerous and extreme, but not necessarily kooky. Unfortunately, when you look at WHY he wants to restrict hunting, this is where he goes beyond extreme.

In Sunstein's world, animals should have just as many rights as people ... and they should be able to sue humans in court!

"We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are persons, or that they are not property," Sunstein said on page 11 of Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (2004).

Well, that's a relief ... he is at least willing to concede that animals are not persons! But he would still have animals suing humans, apparently, with more enlightened humans representing the cuddly critters.

Imagine returning from a successful hunting trip ... only to find out that you've been subpoenaed for killing your prize. Who knows, maybe Sunstein would have the family of the dead animal serving as witnesses in court!

By the way, if you're wondering what he thinks about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, you won't be surprised to know that Sunstein is a huge supporter of gun control.

In Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Wrong for America (2005), Sunstein says:

Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine.... [O]n the Constitution's text, fundamentalists [that is, gun rights supporters] should not be so confident in their enthusiasm for invalidating gun control legislation.

Hmm, what part of "shall not be infringed" does Sunstein not understand?

Imagine the power that Sunstein could have as the Regulatory Czar -- the nickname for the person heading the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the White House.

As the Regulatory Czar, he could bring about changes in the regulations that affect hunting, gun control and farming. In short, he could make your life ****.

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) objected to his nomination several weeks ago, preventing him from being unanimously confirmed.

That means that the Senate will now need to garner 60 votes to confirm this radical, kooky choice to the OIRA.

No doubt, many of the people our President wants to associate with are radical kooks. First, there was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ... then there was the self-avowed communist (Van Jones) who was nominated for the Green Jobs Czar ... now, there's an extreme animal rights activist who wants to take away our guns and get Bambi to sue us in court.

It's time to take a STRONG STAND against this radical administration.

ACTION: Please contact your Senators right away and urge them to vote AGAINST the Cass Sunstein nomination. You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your legislators the pre-written e-mail message below.



----- Pre-written letter -----

Dear Senator:

I urge you to vote AGAINST Cass Sunstein as the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, as I am very concerned about the impact this "Regulatory Czar" would have upon firearms and hunting.

Sunstein told a Harvard audience in 2007 that "we ought to ban hunting." If that were all Sunstein believed, he would be dangerous and extreme, but not necessarily kooky. Unfortunately, in Sunstein's world, animals should have just as many rights as people ... and they should be able to sue humans in court!

Moreover, he is a firm supporter of gun control. In Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Wrong for America (2005), Sunstein says that, "Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine."

I wouldn't be surprised if Sunstein is part of the small minority -- 11% of Americans, according to a Zogby/O'Leary poll in August -- who opposes licensed concealed carry.

I hope you will understand that Cass Sunstein's views are WAY OUT OF THE MAINSTREAM of American thought and that you should vote NO on this radical, kooky nomination.

Sincerely,
 
Great info chee-to. I'll take advantage of the link and then some. Public pressure is the ONLY way to keep these "apointed" anti-americans out of power.
 
Great info chee-to. I'll take advantage of the link and then some. Public pressure is the ONLY way to keep these "apointed" anti-americans out of power.

Ya know we gotta stick together what ever our political affiliation is, left or right, if "who ever" starts steppin' on the 2nd Amendment we need to step on them..........:monty:
 
This is classic nut-jobbery at its best. Ban hunting? Farming? How can we be at the point where Americans will accept this kind of insanity. Even from the leftist Democrat side, these kinds of policies are WAY out there.

We cannot allow this garbage come to pass...

I fear there are some dark days ahead, and not just for the second amendment.
 
Google's first 5 or 6 pages show this quote as listed by hunting and gun groups. Rightly so. Does anyone have this speech and others in context? Perhaps there are more gems. How would I search out the original speeches?
 
Much more at this link;

http://www.stopsunstein.com/media/pdf/Sunstein quote file.pdf

Cass Sunstein Quotes
Second Amendment
Consider the view that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns.
The view is respectable, but it may be wrong, and prominent specialists reject it on
various grounds. As late as 1980, it would have been preposterous to argue that the
Second Amendment creates an individual right to own guns, and no federal court
invalidated a gun control restriction on Second Amendment grounds until 2007. Yet
countless Americans politicians, in recent years, have acknowledged that they respect the
individual right to bear arms, at least in general terms. Their views are a product of the
energetic efforts of meaning entrepreneurs – some from the National Rifle Association,
who have press a particular view of the Second Amendment.
--Cass R. Sunstein, A Constitution of Many Minds, Princeton University Press,
2009, p. 172-173
Hunting & Animal Rights
"We ought to ban hunting"
- Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University
“[Humans’] willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen … as a
form of unconscionable barbarity… morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination
of human beings.”
- Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University
But I think that we should go further. We should focus attention not only on the
“enforcement gap,” but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In
short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments,
entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering. It
is easy to imagine a set of initiatives that would do a great deal here, and indeed
European nations have moved in just this direction. There are many possibilities.
--Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,” John M. Olin
Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157, The Law School, The University of
Chicago
If we understand "rights" to be legal protection against harm, then many animals already
do have rights, and the idea of animal rights is not terribly controversial... Almost
everyone agrees that people should not be able to torture animals or to engage in acts of
cruelty against them. And indeed, state law includes a wide range of protections against
cruelty and neglect. We can build on state law to define a simple, minimalist position in
favor of animal rights: The law should prevent acts of cruelty to animals.
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). Introduction
“We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are
persons, or that they are not property. A state could certainly confer rights on a pristine
area, or a painting, and allow people to bring suit on its behalf, without therefore saying
that that area and that painting may not be owned. It might, in these circumstances, seem
puzzling that so many people are focusing on the question of whether animals are
property. We could retain the idea of property but also give animals far more protection
against injury or neglect of their interests.”
--Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum. Animal Rights: Current Debates and
New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 11
 
Do you see the irony in this crowd calling him a "kook"? He's a Harvard Law School professor, constitutional law scholar, and author of well-respected books on law and policy. And he's called a "kook" by people who see a presidential speech promoting hard work to school kids as a socialist plot? You can disagree with him (as I do), but for YOU guys to call him a "kook" is perfect.

Do you not see the irony? Probably not. Anyway, I gotta tell you: It's hilarious. You guys crack me up.
 
Do you see the irony in this crowd calling him a "kook"? He's a Harvard Law School professor, constitutional law scholar, and author of well-respected books on law and policy. And he's called a "kook" by people who see a presidential speech promoting hard work to school kids as a socialist plot?

Do you see the irony? Probably not. Anyway, I gotta tell you: It's hilarious. You guys crack me up.

Actually the "kook" moniker was first applied by Gun Owners of America, I just happened to agree with it. Given his views on the Second Amendment alone I’d question his credentials as a “constitutional law scholar.” He seems to apply constitutional law the way a mafia accountant applies financial principles – or a mafia lawyer applies the legal code. Furthermore, his views on animal rights and hunting are offensive and insulting to many Americans as well, so I believe calling him a “kook” is perhaps generous...

I’ve got a Ph.D., have authored several technical papers, and hold several U.S. and foreign patents, but if I start spouting nonsense about “plant rights” I fully expect I’d be called a kook in turn.
 
I've seen some of your posts. I'd be careful about loosely throwing around the term "kook." Ph.D's are available online, and a patent is just a matter of filing an application and paying a fee. Harvard Law professorships and lifelong reputations as scholars, not so much. And I'm sure that you are the preeminent judge of when someone is a constitutional scholar, since you have written "technical papers" on something. There are people who think Mozart didn't know crap about music too. They write blogs and "technical papers" too for all I know.

Let me repeat: For people in this thread to call Cass Sunstein a "kook" is irony of the first order.

Just say you disagree with him, oppose his nomination, and spare the hysteria. It's the same old stuff we keep hearing about how Obama is going to take all our guns, brainwash our kids with exhortations to work hard in school, and impose death panels to kill grandma. When one lie is exposed, people just move on to the next lie. It's one way to be, but it's not honest.

Keep the powder dry folks, or at least be honest in your discussions.
 
I've seen some of your posts. I'd be careful about loosely throwing around the term "kook." Ph.D's are available online. Harvard Law professorships and lifelong reputations as scholars, not so much. And I'm sure that you are the preeminent judge of when someone is a constitutional scholar. There are people who think Mozart didn't know crap about music too. They write blogs too.

Let me repeat: For people in this thread to call Cass Sunstein a "kook" is irony of the first order.

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and founder of both the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society, teaches courses in interpretive and qualitative research, urban school change, and teaching and the modern predicament. A graduate of the University of Michigan, the Bank Street College of Education, Bennington College, and Teachers College, Columbia University, Ayers has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the cultural contexts of schooling, and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. He is currently the vice-president of the curriculum division of the American Educational Research Association, and a member of the executive committee of the UIC Faculty Senate.

He also writes for Harvard Education Review, New York Times, Cambridge Journal of Education plus many others and he is a kook and very much so. Education means nothing at least that is what they said about Bush but how easily people forget. You can't be an idiot if you go to Harvard or Yale? What does that have to do with the way someone behaves or acts? I would judge a person on charactor more than what school they attended. Plus when someone thinks an animal should be able to sue a human something is wrong with their logic. Plus his thoughts on taxes and government are not even close to mainstream. I say we need a czar to oversee Obama's 30 czar's that are not even needed and for that matter this cite needs a czar.
 
I've seen some of your posts. I'd be careful about loosely throwing around the term "kook." Ph.D's are available online, and a patent is just a matter of filing an application and paying a fee. Harvard Law professorships and lifelong reputations as scholars, not so much. And I'm sure that you are the preeminent judge of when someone is a constitutional scholar, since you have written "technical papers" on something. There are people who think Mozart didn't know crap about music too. They write blogs and "technical papers" too for all I know.

Allow me to clarify...

I have a Ph.D. in a hard science from a top 10 university - have several issued patents in the semiconductor industry filed by my employer - and several publications approved by employer. My employer is a leading company in its field and doesn't spend its patent or publication dollars idly.

All that aside - I'm also a student of American history... I've read the Federalist, Blackstone, and others. I'm familiar with many different schools of thought when it comes to Constitutional Law. Sunstein clearly falls in the "how can I circumvent intent" crowd on Second Amendment issues. It doesn't require a law degree to discover that fact. Those views alone would disqualify him from a regulatory post in my mind.

The “kook” label, again first applied by GOA, refers to some of his more “colorful” viewpoints on animal rights and hunting. Such a moniker, and its application by the individuals posting on this board, is no less appropriate and certainly no less ironic than Pelosi, Garofalo, and a host of others referring to their political opponents as “racists” and “Nazis.”
 
Yeah, well, I've got degrees too from top 10 schools and have published books and articles in my field. But I don't purport to be an expert OUTSIDE my field. I've read lots of science books but I don't go around calling respected scientists "kooks" when I disagree with them. Unless, of course, they spout nonsense outside their field....

The University of Chicago and Harvard University both thought Sunstein's views were worth granting tenured professorships. But you disagree; you know better than either university; you write a blog; so he's the kook.

Got it....

Here's an idea: Instead of wasting all this energy tilting at windmills, how about waiting until Sunstein or someone in the administration actually threatens to DO something harmful to our gun or hunting rights? I know it's more fun to be in permanent hysteria mode, but it's not very persuasive or useful.

P.S. Threatening to tell kids to work hard in school doesn't count.
 

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