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Is the president’s pick for regulator czar an animal rights activist?

I’m watching the clock as I sit down to pen this column Tuesday morning (May 12, 2009.) The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs is scheduled to hold a hearing in ten minutes to consider the nomination of Cass R. Sunstein, professor of law at Harvard University, for the position of Administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

This is a sort of “regulatory czar” position. All major rules and regulations land on the desk of the Administrator for the OIRA.
Cass Sunstein has been called a “close friend” of President Obama in the political blogs, having become friends during years at the University of Chicago.

So what’s the big deal? Lots of presidents nominate close friends to positions of power in their respective administrations. I’m watching this because a few months ago, the Center for Consumer Freedom Online called my attention to Professor Sunstein’s views on animal rights.

Lying beside my laptop computer on this Indianapolis hotel room desk is a copy of Chicago Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper No. 30. It is titled “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer” and is written by Cass R. Sunstein, The University of Chicago Law School.

Now I realize that in law school, debate team and sometimes just for the heck of it – a person will argue the opposite side of an issue on which he or she stands. As a journalist, we are charged with covering all sides of a story, whether or not we agree. Journalists true to their trade give you all the facts. Present the facts and let the listener, reader or viewer decide for him or herself.

The operative word here is facts.

I’m not defending the views of this man as presented in the abstract. I whole-heartedly disagree with 99.9% of what was written in this 14-page primer. The essay calls for increased regulation on hunting, science, farming and more. Sunstein writes, ‘We should focus 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.’

Sunstein goes on to describe changes in federal law and to praise European nations for changing laws to give animals more rights.

The paper concludes, ‘Every reasonable person believes in animal rights. Even the sharpest critics of animal rights support the anticruelty laws. I have suggested the simple moral judgment behind these laws is that animal suffering matters, and that this judgment supports a significant amount of reform. Most modestly, private suits should be permitted to prevent illegal cruelty and neglect. There is no good reason to give public officials a monopoly on enforcement; that monopoly is a recipe for continued illegality. Less modestly, anticruelty laws should be extended to areas that are now exempt from them, including scientific experiments to farming. There is no good reason to permit the level of suffering that is now being experienced by millions, even billions of living creatures.’

Sunstein says he does not support autonomy for animals, which he defines as a freedom from human control and use.
‘In my view, the real questions involves animal welfare and suffering, and human control and use may be compatible with decent lives for animals. . . it is appropriate to consider human interests in the balance, and sometimes our interests will outweigh those of other animals,” he opined. “The problem is that most of the time, the interests of animals are not counted at all – and that once they are counted, many or our practices cannot possibly be justified. I believe that in the long-run our willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seem a form of unconscionable barbarity – not the same as, but in many ways morally akin to, slavery and the mass extermination of human beings.’

Sunstein says he does not support autonomy for animals, but that is exactly what it sounds like to me. And might I add that I am terribly insulted that this man reaches as far as to draw the comparisons he does when comparing livestock farmers to mass murderers and slave owners.

Finally a speech at Harvard University in 2007, Cass Sunstein argued in favor of entirely ‘eliminating current practices such as … meat eating.’ He also proposed: ‘We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.’

The man who wrote these opinions and spoke these words could very well be the next regulatory czar for the United States of America.

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