This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," April 22, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK: We started telling you about Cass Sunstein, last night, our regulatory "czar." I called him the most dangerous man in America because Sunstein's job is to figure out how to make people do what the government wants them to do, but in a stealth sort of way.
He is a good candidate for a job like that. We told you about the paper he wrote way back in 2008, when he pondered how to make people stop believing in what he calls conspiracy theories. But conspiracy theories sound an awful like disagreement with the government, you know what I mean?
Let's look at his cures, may we? Here is his cure:
One: Ban conspiracy theorists. The government should ban them. How a government with an amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech bans a conspiracy theory is absolutely beyond me. But it's not beyond a great mind and a great thinker like Cass Sunstein. He promises just a few sentences later his idea, quote, "will have a place under imaginable conditions," end quote.
Whoa.
Another idea that will have a place under these imaginable conditions is this one. Government might impose a special kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such conspiracy theories.
This is weird. If I may go back to history: It's kind of like when — here, when gave the right to vote to everyone and then some decided to apply a poll tax on those they didn't want voting. Remember? That didn't work out real well. So what we did is we amended the Constitution to stop it because it was wrong.
And another thing here, they impose a tax, financial or otherwise. What other kind of tax is there besides financial? What is the "otherwise" part? Don't worry, Cass Sunstein has got it all worked out.
And by the way, he doesn't advocate either of those ideas being implemented right now. No, no, no. What he thinks the government should be doing right now is very, very simple:
"Our main policy claim here is that the government should engage" — should engage — "in cognitive infiltration of the groups." He's talking about Americans coming in and infiltrating the groups that produce conspiracy theories.
Yes. Conspiracy theories equal anti-government speech. That is what it is. Government might itself engage in counter-speech. That is the next one. They might engage in counter-speech, marshalling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories.
Really? That sounds an awful lot like all the websites that Barack Obama has started. Remember the campaign, "End the Smears?" And now, "WhiteHouse.gov" — reality check?
More of Sunstein's ideas and how they are being enacted right now, next.
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BECK: Conspiracy theories to Cass Sunstein, equals anti-government speech — anti-government speech.
How do you get people to stop believing anti-government speech? Tea Party has been called anti-government, conspiracy theories by Cass Sunstein.
Well, ban conspiracy theories, impose a tax, engage in counter-speech. This is from a paper that he wrote way back in 2008.
The fourth one here is hire private parties. Government, he says, quoting, "might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counter-speech."
Well, now, wait a minute. This doesn't sound anything like Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist, who is writing a completely objective op-ed about the glories of health care reform while no one asked him a single question about the fact that he was being paid about $400,000 by the Obama administration.
That is nothing like number four. Not at all.
Also recall that the left was constantly complaining about this tactic back when George W. Bush was in office — I was, too — claiming that it was illegal — they claimed. I said it was unethical.
Finally, Sunstein advocates sending covert agents into your chat room; a covert government agent into your online social network or your real space group. So the guy next to you at Tea Party meeting or something might be a covert government agent.
Wow, that sounds good. After seeing the widespread reports of Tea Party-crashing, not to mention dozens of identical letters to the editor supporting Obama's policies written to newspapers all across the country, one might have to question: Is that a coincidence? Is that a conspiracy theory?
Sunstein himself admits that some of these conspiracies have been proven true, such as Watergate. But don't worry, he recommends, and I quote, "as a general rule, true accounts should not be undermined."
Oh, as a general rule, the truth shouldn't be? I'd like to make that a blanket — that is just wonderful.
We tell you all the time it's not about right and left, it's about right and wrong. Big government, small government. Small government, because if your government isn't big, they don't have the power to do things like sending in covert agents.
Let me talk directly to Democrats just for a second. If you are a Democrat, please, please ask yourself this question: Sunstein, right now, is targeting those who don't agree with global warming, you know, because they say he says it's a conspiracy. It's the conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe — flat-Earther.
In the paper, he specifically targets a sitting senator, James Inhofe. Now, that may be wonderful to you. But another conspiracy theory he targets is the idea that AIDS was created by the government.
Now, think about what that means. Because if Cass Sunstein's ideas were implemented and then George Bush followed this president, it's very possible that a target of infiltration would have been Jeremiah Wright's church. Therefore, it would have been possible that the man sitting next to Barack Obama in the pew every Sunday would have been an undercover federal agent working on behalf of George W. Bush.
How do you think you would have reacted the day that was flashed on the front page of The New York Times? Do that you have reaction, the outrage? Is that the feeling that you have right now? If it's not, you have to ask, why are you reacting differently today?
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