JOHN TABIN: Free to Browse
Sunstein, Cass R.
b o o k s I n R e v I e W evolved into a political relationship as Clark became part of the new governor’s inner advisory council. Later Reagan appointed him to the California Supreme Court,...
...The state, of course...
...and] that public discussion is a political duty...
...Of course, most issues have more than two sides...
...I now think this was a bad and probably unconstitutional idea,” Sunstein admits in the press materials accompanying the new volume...
...But of course it can: That a western individualist conservative or a northeastern New Dealer could at one time vote for candidates they liked In celebrating brandeis’s high-minded warning and inadvertently thrust Rockefeller Republicans or southern segregationists into power is not a condition to be missed—but that was the state of politics on a depolarized political landscape...
...His 8 4 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 Free to Browse Republic.com 2.0 By Cass R. Sunstein (prinCeton univ...
...Nor, in his discussion of group polarization, does he consider that political polarization can have salutary effects in any but the most extraordinary circumstances (he does concede that extremism in favor of civil rights, among similar phenomena, was a good thing...
...The lefty bloggers who were so enthusiastic about Howard Dean in 2003-04 might have served their candidate better had they been engaged with the world outside their cocoon—but would they really have served the country better...
...To some, Reagan’s general unwill- lines of Netvibes, Google Reader, ingness to chastise or remove some his bickering and other customizable aggreadvisers and aides was seen as a weakness...
...Holmes’s view is self- evidently closer to the Framers’—the First Amendment, after all, says “Congress shall make no law” abridging free speech, not that the people shall be compelled to use their free speech in ways that please progressive legal theorists...
...It’s difficult to come up with any other Reaganaut of whom former President Jimmy Carter could say, “Under somewhat difficult circumstances, Bill Clark knew how to make friends—even with Democrats...
...But while there’s no doubt that portions of the blogosphere wall themselves off and filter out opposing viewpoints, it’s not clear that this is bad for those of us outside the walls...
...com 2.0 is given over to caveats and acknowledgments of counterarguments...
...b o o k s I n R e v I e W pamphleteers and partisan newspapers...
...Meanwhile, every few days I pick up a local newspaper at the edge of my driveway...
...Sunstein is worried about the “echo chambers” and “information cocoons” that the proliferation of individual choice may allow...
...I am proud to have been one of them...
...Sunstein has removed from this volume some of the preposterously illiberal policy recommendations he made in the first version of Republic.com, where he proposed, among other things, that websites be required by law to link to opposing viewpoints...
...After the 1980 election, the Judge followed Reagan to the White House, taking on positions as chief of staff, national security adviser, and finally secretary of the interior...
...To hear Sunstein tell it, republican virtues are imperiled by the emergence of a media market that is becoming more, not less, like the one that flourished when our republic was founded...
...Against considerable internal opposition, Clark backed Reagan’s determination to win the Cold War by any legitimate and moral means...
...But Sunstein, naturally, prefers Brandeis’s view...
...b o o k s I n R e v I e W evolved into a political relationship as Clark became part of the new governor’s inner advisory council...
...however, gating sites...
...Sunstein shows little awareness that the dominance of the general-interest intermediaries he has in mind—mass media outlets that large majorities of the citizenry were exposed to—was a historical curiosity of the 20th century that had never been seen before and will, in all likelihood, never be seen again...
...So who gets to decide which counterargument constitutes the “opposing” one...
...Ea page where I can see the RSS feeds fro u s v ’ e T m s e i o t s r fi very t s day p w s h N en e t i v ib ope . n c o my . w h eb e r br I ow e ser e , t m m p y my favorite blogs—information junkie that I am, there are about 25 of them at the moment (I add or subtract them periodically...
...This is counterintuitive, to say the least...
...At first I would read them, but now I throw them in the trash immediately...
...Later Reagan appointed him to the California Supreme Court, where Judge Clark wrote many minority opinions in response to an increasingly liberal judiciary...
...f e b R U a R Y 2 0 0 8 T H e a M e R I c a n s P e c T a T o R 8 5...
...Some of the candid photos of the two together in the book express their relationship better than words...
...Although this book will not be the last biography of a major Reagan-era political player, no other adviser was as close to Reagan in temperament, faith, and political philosophy—and no one was a closer friend to this famously distant man...
...That, I suppose, is the difference between me and Cass Sunstein...
...Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes both defended a robust First Amendment, but did so in different terms...
...Indeed, a good deal of Republic...
...it includes a full spectrum of viewpoints...
...press, 272 pages, $24.95) Reviewed by John Tabin mediaries” serve important functions by promoting shared experiences and forcing people to encounter views and topics they would not have sought out...
...the previous tenant of my house never bothered to cancel his subscription, and they’re still coming even though I’ve lived here for months...
...But his basic premises remain the same, and remain wrong...
...He characterizes Holmes’s view of freedom as thinking in terms of “consumer sovereignty” and frets that consumer sovereignty threatens the “political s d a h - f o - t h g i e l l a i r o t e h e h y a w i r t . e v i t a r e p im overeignty S ” th p at a Bran t dei r s reads c as s a constitutio n nal , and it’s plain that what Sunstein is actually talking about is individualism versus collectivism, and that he is coming down on the side of the latter...
...Brandeis believed that the First Amendment is rooted in the principle “that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people...
...T h t e o l i d i t c a n e f o k r a l C h t i w , r e w o p f o s l e v e h i h va g rio l us rivalries tha t are inevitab t le at su n ch g itself icted would by N be cho threatened as Negrop by nt the in “Daily 1995— Me” a pre t is y democrac fre professor la o of he booK gives dispassionate insights into the mare...
...had been in control, the whole Iran-Contra mess Sunstein believes that “general-interest interwould never have happened...
...Chicag In his 200 w 1 book, Republic...
...His specific lodestone is Louis Brandeis...
...I like it that way, but I don’t believe that what’s right for me is necessarily right for you...
...He was involved in all of the important decisions of the Reagan administration’s first term, particularly those dealing with national security and the conduct of the red-hot Cold War...
...Finally, the Judge was the most self-effacing and agreeable of Reagan’s advisers...
...My Netvibes page is not a cocoon at all, at least not in the sense that Sunstein has in mind...
...The nasty authoritarian undercurrent is clear...
...Sunstein’s latest is his approach was perhaps not much different from a revised edition of that volume, Lincoln’s handling of his own “Team of Rivals” during the Civil War...
...Clark was also fortunate in being basic thesis remains the same: largely out of the circle of the Iran-Contra debacle The Internet provides each individual with the abilthat marked the low point of Reagan’s second term...
...Republic...
...This, it would seem, is Cass Sunstein’s nightretitled Republic.com 2.0...
...But of course it might be: The pursuit of happiness may sometimes require tuning out politics and tuning into child-rearing or other pursuits, and one shouldn’t necessarily feel guilty about that...
...The Founding Fathers lived in a polarized and fragmented media environment dominated by John Tabin is a frequent contributor to The American Spectator online at spectator.org...
...Holmes believed the First Amendment meant the government should allow “free trade in ideas”—that is, that the First Amendment constrains the state from intervening to constrict political debate...
...tted com that , the University - , as mediator and broker and sometimes being a party personalized media along the to these rivalries...
...Sunstein’s view of what constitutes republican virtues is not rooted in the Founders’ worldview (though he invokes them often) but rather in that of modern progressives...
...ity to build his own media environment, and this is a Observers quoted in this book believe that if Clark bad thing...
...Clark continued intermittently advising Reagan and took on various diplomatic missions for him, but over the last two decades he has largely limited his activities to his family, ranching, and private philanthropy, all very much in the context of his Catholic faith...
...The original Republic.com had nothing to say about political blogs—they hadn’t caught on yet when it was written (though they did exist...
...com 2.0 predictably frets that the blogs can promote echo chambers...
...Without them, we are in danger of becoming a polarized and fragmented citizenry...
...against an “inert people,” Sunstein never stops to think that disengaging from the political process might be a legitimate and even admirable decision for some people...
Vol. 41 • February 2008 • No. 1
