Noam Chomsky on Ron Paul

I have my doubts even an idiot like Noam Chomsky would have the audacity to call himself a libertarian. He would be mocked endlessly by actual libertarians. Noam is a socialist, full stop.

He is a full blown socialist.

He calls himself a libertarian socialist. By "libertarian" he means anarchist.

The answers are completely unresponsive to the questions, too.

From what I read, I sense that he is disconnected from the average individual and the sense of urgency we are confronted with.
He seems to be a dreamer.
Where is the money going to come from to support his positions?

which apparently a lot of Paul supporters lean toward too, from the people I've come across on this website. Kucnich would be something of a libertarian socialist.

They believe in civil liberties but they're against economic liberty (unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism, private property in natural resources, etc).

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Don't blame me if there's no voice for liberty opposing McCain and Obama in the Presidential debates. I donated to Ron Paul Libertarian, Bob Barr's campaign.

chomsky is an NWO shill. always has been, always will be

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1) "Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago."
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This "what if" scenario incorrectly assumes a free market forces people to starvation. It also assumes there'd only be one job available. I'll play along with Chomsky in a moment, but keep in mind this starving scenario makes sweeping assumptions with no support. We could imitate Chomsky and make baseless "what if" scenarios about socialism, but we could also open a history book and read about the 10 million Russians starved to death in one year, or the countless millions that starved under China's "Great Leap Forward" or the generations of compassionate socialism in India starving millions, North Korea's uncounted starving peasents, and so on. Chomsky's starvation nightmare is common, but only under socialism.

Anyway, playing along with Chomsky. A man signs a contract (his only option, poor guy!) under the influence of starvation. In America this would be considered Economic Duress, causing a state of psychological weakness, making the contract void. And under Ron Paul the company would be held liable for any injuries.

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2. ““Dismantling of big government” sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability?
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Paul is abnormally clear (for a politician) in what he means by dismantling big government. If you honestly don't know what he means, here is a good place to start,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...

As for limited liability, that's a hot topic with true conservatives, and most would agree that it, and the protections it offers corporations, should go. Owners need to be held responsible for their companies. However, Paul has not stated his stance on this issue.

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Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government
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No. That's not a part of government Ron Paul has shown any interest in dismantling during his presidency. You're trying to set Paul up as your straw-man.

It would be nice if Chomsky - or any Paul critic - stuck to issues Paul has shown interest in, rather than issues they heard a libertarian talk about once.

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"- He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).

Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you’ve already mentioned.
There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely."
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If only it were that easy. If you've ever had a skilled employee (or you've been one), you know what I mean. My employees could put me out of business whenever they please by doing one of the following:

1) Striking for a month (even if I hired scabs on the first day, these are highly skilled jobs that would take at least 1 month to train, which would put me in the red for the whole year)
2) leaving to join a rival company
3) starting their own company

They don't, not because they're stupid, but because they enjoy and believe in their company.

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- He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it).

He is proposing a form of ultranationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.
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A socialist calling someone nationalistic? Now that's ironic. What isn't ironic is a big-government lover like Chomsky claiming that peace is immoral. That's expected.

Also, I'm not sure on this, but didn't Paul state he'd go to war if Congress actually declared war for once? As unlikely as that would be, still interesting.

Anything I missed?

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Ban Everything
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It's not real. Have Mikey da Murph verify source at the illustrious Geekarmy blog.

Get rid of this post. It's not Chomsky. I answered back to this same "Geek Army" some time ago. Weird.

Noam Chomsky is no libertarian, primarily because libertarians believe in private property, socialists do not.

Noam Chomsky and even Michael Moore are very adept at describing the problems in our current system, however their proposed solution is always more government control and less liberty.

They generally believe that a capitalistic system is "unfair" and that we must use government to create a fair system. (not that I'm saying our current system is capitalism..) In that respect they are right, some people are just better at some tasks, or harder working or even just plain lucky and they will obtain more wealth than others but to believe that government can lift all of humanity up is false.

Socialism requires central planing, and mandating equal outcome, so those that can do better have no incentive to do so. This has the effect of forcing people to accept not a higher standard of living, but a lower standard of living. All of the great innovations of the 20th century have been created by people seeking a profit. Socialism is incompatible with a free society because every decision about what one buys, sells, and even the work they do is controlled by the government.. you are not allowed to simply buy and trade with others on your own, so it must force all people to accept the system, with the end result if you resist it, being brutal force.

What has always made a hell on earth has been that man has tried to make it his heaven.
-- Friedrich Holderin

even respond to this type of bait? Chomsky is a socialist, not a libertarian. Just ignore this thread and it will be relegated to the dust bin of history, just like the ilk of Chomsky.

Freedom Bomb
http://www.youtube.com/wa...

"Cheers for liberty, my man."
http://www.youtube.com/wa...

The revolution will not be televised.
http://www.myspace.com/go...

What do you think about his arguments?

First and foremost, Chomsky isn't making arguments; He's giving you his opinion.

For example, Chomksy says:

Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters.

and that's not true; More specifically, if an owner requires "skilled labor," then the skilled labor can intimidate the owner; For example, a nurse can threaten to "stop working" if his/her wage isn't raised.

Thus, for Chomsky's "argument' to make sense, you have to accept his assumptions.

This analysis and conclusion can be applied to every question that Chomksy answers.

Essentially, the only way that I can explain my philosophical preference to Ron Paul's position is through a story: "I was a student teacher in k/12 mathematics; Initially, I tried to be responsible for 200 students but I quickly realized that I had to 'push back responsibility' to my students because the burden was too big."

As far as I could tell, Chomsky implies-- but doesn't prove, that centralized government can bear the burden of whatever its citizens throw at it. Since inequality is growing in America, Chomsky's implication seems dubious.

To further give credibility to Ron Paul, consider Obama's latest email message that had the subject:

"Empower your organizers"

and the message:

"we've created a new system to help support the work we are doing on the ground and connect you with our field organizers more directly than ever before."

As we all know, imitation is a form of flattery and it seems obvious to me that Obama's campaign is following the model which Ron Paul chose-- the model of decentralized control, because:

He's not a libertarian, and he's not a friend of liberty.

...about Chomsky, it definitely sounds like something he would say. He is a Marxist, and his philosophy requires a massive police state to enforce all of the "rights" of all the different interest groups that he'd recognize. That's the falicy of all collectivists, and many of the are well meaning but don't understand what they are advocating. Others know exactly what would happen and are just plain evil people. As we all know, and Ayn Rand said it best, the only "group" that can have rights is the smallest minority possible, but one that also includes every person in existence, and that is the individual.

Almost all of the things he is saying we shouldn't get rid of, could be, or already are provided by the state governments. Ron Paul is just saying get the federal government out of it, if it is not provided for in the Constitution, or amend the Constitution using the proper procedures.

Chomsky will not support Ron Paul and is making up lies about him because Chomsky is a Zionist. He supports unconditionally the continual ongoing exploitation of American taxpayers to subsidize Jewish settlements built on the stolen property of Christians and Muslims who are being imprisoned and starved inside the walled ghettos of Palestine and deliberately deprived of access to their own private property. This stolen property is, with our tax dollars, being bulldozed and condos are being built on them. American Jews are then receiving mortgages at interest rates of 3% or lower - less than any mortgage rate available to any other American, in order to encourage them to move into these condos. Then, US taxpayers fund their living expenses for a year while they get settled and take language classes. It goes on and on.

Chomsky is philosophically opposed to ending the US tax funding of Israel. He is also opposed in principle to equal rights for Jews, Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. If the US ends funding of Israel they will be forced to make some kind of settlement that will likely be a simple "one person one vote" solution. The Israelis will also have to go through years and years of court battles, just like after WWII, when people came back to their homes in Germany and Poland that they had been forced to vacate. Chomsky doesn't believe in upholding the property rights of Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. He actively and philosophically opposes upholding the property rights of non-Jews in the Holy Land, it's not that he just doesn't care.

Chomsky supports the Israel Lobby's ability to continually launder billions of US taxpayers money through Israel which ends up in the pockets of our Congresspeople influencing their decisions on whether the US should go to war. What they are doing is nothing less than treason & international organized crime. I hope when Ron Paul is president, AIPAC and its local equivalents will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I would personally support execution by live televised public hanging. When the neocons start going to prison, Chomsky will suddenly shift position and say he was always opposed to the US funding of Israel.

Karin Friedemann

Chomskys problem is that he doesnt believe in economics. There are 'goods' and then there are 'scarce goods'. Scarce goods are what economics studies. A scarce good is any good for which there is not enough of it to go around. Air is a good, but not a scarce good. a Chomsky book is a scarce good. Once a good is scarce, no "democratic mechanism" for the distribution of goods can ensure everyone gets one. A rule must be put in place to decide who gets what. But that means behind every egalitarian democratic socialist utopia is an economic hegemon (ha). In other words Chomsky could easily have said: Democratic Mechanisms for the distribution of economic goods in all circumstances? Suppose there is a desperate man and there is a shortage of food. Why that man would be willing to do anything the Democratic Committee for the Distribution of Economic Goods (DCDEG) asked him to do, just to feed his starving children. That is not my cup of tea!
Of course I am kidding. This is precisely CHomsky's cup of tea. Since he is an academic, he undoubtedly visualizes himself as chair of the DCDEG deciding whose children starve, and what work desperate men must do to prevent that. Worse yet he imagines making those decisions more efficiently than the distributed decision-making of the free market.

next.

But he has his priorities all screwed up because he believes private property is evil, government -- though it's evil too -- needs to be big enough to quash big aquirers of private property.

I always like reading Chomsky though.

Tracy

PS I am suprised Chomsky says Hillary is better then Paul though. Hillary represents the authoritarian left that left-wing anarchists abhore. TS

After watching some of his viewpoints and asorted videos I find this could be legit. I find Chomskey to be affiliated directly to The Bilderberg group and that alone would be cause for concern to dismiss this mans views on what a free society should consist of..

His replies don't seem legit. Is this authentic stuff?
The Chomsky I read would love Ron Paul for his one declaration to bring all troops home from around the globe. That would literally save the earth for at least fifty or a hundred years. The greatest threat to the world's existence is the American Empire. Chomsky knows this. He also knows that as President most of what Paul desires as an individual is meaningless. He is limited as executive. Yet the one grand thing he could do would be to cut back on our military. Chomsky doesn't sweat the small stuff—like social security. We are a massively armed nuclear nation. New York State as of this writing has no nuclear ambitions. Paul wants to channel power out of the Federal governemnt. That is definitely a Chomsky ambition.
Also, he would love to hear Paul's take on ending our multi-billion dollar support of Israel, Pakistan, India.

I could go on. I don't believe the legitimacy of the "interview"

He would take Hitlery over RP and that says it all. I think Mr. Chompski is full of globalist bull. If I go to the store I am in line behind chingos of illegals. If I go to the hospital the same story, only I worked 30 years for my SS medical insurance. When My girl immigrated to the states legally it took a year and a half and about 5 grand for all the fees and trips. If illegals get amnesty I am turned into a chump. They pay a 1000 dollar fine and thats it. I was a sap for not having her swim over. The law must be enforced and I dont give a hoot what some overeater dude says. And the first thing RP should do as pres. is free the two border patrol agents that shot a drug smuggler, they are jailed and the crook didnt even die. And he is back running dope. I for one can live without Chompski's little bits of wisdom. He is up there in his ivory tower and has no idea what is going on down here in the trenches. Enough with foreigners putting their counterfeit 2 cents in. (he's a commie if you ask me)

For all we know this could all be hearsay, so I put this blog up to show how easy it was to say Chomsky said something:

http://chomskychompchomp....

He likes apples.

I thought he was a good guy, I guess not. I only skimmed the article but felt disappointed. Especially his 2nd amendment arguments I thought were weak.

Leftists like Chomsky leave me perplexed. They speak truth to the undue power of corporations, but are then willing to place massive power in just one corporation - the federal government. They repeatedly fail to see how the power of government is co-opted by the very forces government is granted power to combat. They usher in the age of the special interest group, and shake their fists at the power their own ideology helps to create.

Liberty brings people together, statism in all its variants, drives us apart.

Ron Paul's stated views on the powers of the presidency and the fact that there are few like minded people in congress means that it is very unlikely that he'll be able to foist radical libertarian capitalist legistlation on us. He also strikes me as fairly compassionate and careful in attempting to transition toward his ideal.

Instead, a Ron Paul presidency's most profound effects would be on the practice of American imperialism.

If Chomsky would vote for Hillary over Paul, he hasn't thought through what the real-world consequences would be.

I had a similar 'conversation' in November, 2002. The following correspondence with political activist/dissident Noam Chomsky began with an inquiry:

Mr. Chomsky:

Why do you neglect or omit any reference to the CFR in your political discourse?

Chomsky: Not sure what you mean. I constantly quote their journal, Foreign Affairs, and have also discussed their main study groups, like the important War-Peace studies of the late 30s through mid-40s, which laid the groundwork for postwar planning.

I don't discuss them much as an organization, unless there is something specific to say. Their meetings and regular publications are mostly a bore, in my opinion.

Noam Chomsky

Noam:

Official American foreign policy receives its imprimatur from the CFR, and its reference as an organization, would enlighten significantly those who include you as perhaps their most important statesman on the subject [of foreign policy]...

Chomsky: I think you are seriously exaggerating the role of the CFR. The participants play important roles. The organization itself rarely does, though there are exceptions, like the War-Peace studies group I mentioned.

They do many other studies. I often read them. They are usually not very important, in my opinion, like most of the studies of the Trilateral Commission and others like them. Perhaps your judgment is different, but mine is that the more important sources lie elsewhere.

Noam Chomsky

Noam

You are not known for a lack of specificity in your polemic prose, and yet you dismiss a Who's Who of whores in the American Establishment that comprise approximately .001% of the general population without citing who or what the more important sources are?

Chomsky: I didn't regard my letter to you as "polemic prose." Rather, I wrote a response to your specific inquiries, as I do to the 100+ other e-mail inquiries every day that take a great deal of my time.

To respond to this letter, I did not "dismiss" the members of the CFR who are listed in "Who's Who" but said precisely the opposite: that they are powerful and important, and we should pay a great deal of attention to them, as I constantly do. You're confusing the CFR as an organization with its members, the distinction I was trying to make clear in my earlier letters. I didn't cite what I regard as more important sources because you didn't ask me to. The easiest way for you to find the answer to that question is to check the footnotes in what I write. I don't feel that it's my responsibility to run through them and quote what's in print when responding to a letter.

Noam:

It is revealing that you could have just as easily name-dropped a handful of ‘the more important sources’ as you could have written this response. Or is it that your usefulness is actually derived from your marquee value to attract a nurtured naiveté?

Chomsky is an ultra-collectivist and is the antithesis of libertarianism. He has reigned supreme on the minds of college campus teachers and students for far too long. I hope his influence finally wanes - he has been a negative voice in America and has carried on an assault against the individual and sovereignty.

no respect for private property and way too much trust in government.....

I watched a lecture by him about a week ago. I wasn't impressed. He was talking about globalization and seemed he agreed with it. I'm going to try to go find it now and post it.

I don't know if Chomsky actually said those things, he doesn't seem to back up his accusations with facts.

So, I emailed him and I got this! ZOMG!
http://chomskychompchomp....

lets analyze mr.chomsky's first comment:

1. lets begin by assuming the worst. the man in question can work only for GE and the contract mentioned is the only one available to him. we also assume that the rule of law prevails in the sense that the contract will be enforced, i.e., on both sides...GE wont be allowed to torture the man etc. the first thing to be said is that the man is walking into the job wit his eyes wide open. he is entering into it voluntarily. the fact that his son will otherwise starve is of course savage....but then nature and the world around us is savage. chomsky here distorts the very meaning of exploitation. going by his definition all people who work are exploited...cos dont we all work cos otherwise we wont have the money to buy what we want?...but thats a fact of life and in the nature of the world...its something nobody can change. so in this worst-off scenario all one can say is let the man retain the fruits of his labour and quickly get the money he needs....this, by the way, the state will never let you do...after all how can you keep the fruits of ur labour if theres something called a tax!

2. luckily for humanity the situation needn't be so bad. on the market there will emerge many entrepreneurs trying to bid away the services of the worker in question...and to do so they will have to offer better working conditions and/or a higher wage...and given that a labourer, esp. an unskilled or semi-skilled one (as the guy in question happens to be) is highly non-specific, i.e., he can seek work in various fields and industries, thus this competitive process is very strong in his case.

3. now lets see if the state can do beter. lets substitute the state for GE in the contract. one must remember that the state by its very definition is a monopoly..so no question of competitive bidding here! the worker will be completely at the mercy of the men in power...he will have to be happy with what they give him...and what about the rule of law?...u kidding?,,,the state is the law!...yup the ,men in power can torture the man all they want...

4. but let us assume the men in power are more equal than others...they are dripping with good intention...they wont hurt a fly. they can then forcefully redistribute money. this is of course a gross violation of the rights of the rich man. but who says rich people have rights...u kidding?...but apart from that lets look at the man's plight now...he now must be given this dole period after period...and where is this dole going to come from?...from people who produce!...but if the producers had ben allowed to keep the fruits of their labour and were allowed to invest it...you'd have a dynamic free market...the man would have various opportunities to choose from and point number 2 above follows...

this is getting too long..but hope whoever reads this gets the picture...analyse each of chomsky's arguments and you will find loopholes galore...the true humanitarians are the ones who do this...not those who immediately cry out - STATE!