Chomsky supporter criticizes Michelle Malkin.
Chomsky supporter then makes something up about Ron Paul out of the blue.
Point out to Chomsky supporter that Michelle Malkin attempted to fabricate these exact allegations about Ron Paul two years ago.
Chomsky supporter says nothing more about Ron Paul and moves on to how great Chomsky is, saying that his views are both consistent and logical.

So this is my great Noam Chomsky post, wherein I show just some of the inconsistencies and flaws in Noam Chomsky’s political arguments.

The interview my pseudo debater pointed to is one from a few years ago in which Chomsky discusses the “views” of Ron Paul (“views” in quotes because Chomsky often distorts Ron Paul’s actual political views into a caricature/straw man which Chomsky then has a less difficult time debating). Interestingly, Chomsky is an anarchist himself but the views he often knocks down in this interview are more related to anarchism than libertarianism. After describing something which is a cross between our current society and anarchism, Chomsky concludes it “would be a nightmare, in my opinion, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.”

First up is personal contracts. Ron Paul is for voluntary associations among people, otherwise known as “contracts.” To the idea of voluntary contracts between people, Chomsky replies:

Under all circumstances? 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. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.

First of all, it’s a bit disingenuous to argue against a purported worst case scenario, yet treat this as the natural endgame of anything as inauspicious as voluntary contracts. First of all, I would say that “democratic politics” did not get rid of this scenario at all, it just plays out in other countries of the world every day. Secondly, in countries with non-tyrannical governments, there will always be a choice in companies to work for or you can start your own as many poor people have done. Third, contracts enforced by law enforcement is what we have now, so does Chomsky think that we have already “entered a period of private tyranny”? If so, since Ron Paul is against pretty much all the current corporatist and financial system, he’s barking up the wrong tree.

The only reason someone would choose this General Electric job is because there is absolutely no other alternative. That situation certainly wouldn’t exist in a free market, because the enterprising person could start their own business easily. That’s very difficult to do today.

Of course, in the end, Chomsky sums up his views by saying that things in Chomsky World would be “worked out by free communities.” How is that much different than voluntary personal contracts or the libertarianism he tries so hard to set up as a strawman and criticize?

Let’s continue.

Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)?

Yes, corporations certainly aren’t accountable when they bankrupt themselves and we wag our finger and bail them out easier than a poor person gets food stamps, but that wouldn’t exist in a libertarian government. Currently, regulations serve to do the opposite of what Chomsky says they accomplish, accountability: the corporations actually write those regulations (literally write the bills that Congress passes) and of course write them in a way that keeps themselves in business at the expense of any competitor or gives them a monopoly. Notice how Chomsky does not mention this tidbit at all, even though it is directly what keeps those hated cable, electricity, and telecom companies in business.

Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded? like what we’re now using, computers and the internet?

Did the economy collapse when R&D wasn’t publicly funded, or did many of those things he mentions (computers, the Internet) come from the transistor, which came from Bell Labs, the best R&D of all time (and privately funded!) What Chomsky doesn’t mention is that the Internet came from a military project which his anarchist society would not fund, and the project sat there for decades until it was released to private hands, which used it to create the Internet. Same for GPS, only when given over to private entrepreneurs was the public able to use or even glimpse these projects.

Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation?

If roads, schools, public transportation, and environmental regulation (of everyone but itself and large corporations, of course) are so important to Chomsky, why does he advocate for the government to do anything else? If in fact these things are the most basic and essential components of government, why not skim off all that fat and allow the government to concentrate on these and get them right?

Now, we have potholes, 50% graduation rates, virtually no public transportation outside of large cities, and of course, the government is our country’s own largest polluter. Sounds like the government isn’t doing too great on any of these accounts.

Since unlike Chomsky tries to imply, these things would all still exist and probably be better in a libertarian society with actual accountability, his argument is, as usual, groundless.

(Question) 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.

How are these rights not enforced by “state police power” currently? How is Chomsky going to defend these rights, if it’s not some sort of central committee/groups/maybe even one person (Chomsky himself?) as “The Decider”?

There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.

This is such a supreme generalization that I’m not sure where to begin.

Workers have absolutely no power over owners? Most people in America are employed by a small business. Try running a small business or working at one, and you’ll see quickly that an owner has every reason to keep his/her workers happy, employed, and doing their jobs. If a worker suddenly quits, an owner can be in a bad situation.

Saying that workers cannot “intimidate” owners may be true if one thinks that anyone doing any intimidating would get a worker fired, but I have seen the opposite. Some highly trained and specialized employees are extremely valuable to a business and can lord over (or completely run over or take advantage of) the owner if they choose to do so.

But perhaps Chomsky is only referring to large corporations, which deal more with unions. Chomsky apparently wants to correct what he sees as a power imbalance by allowing workers to join unions. However, many unions require workers to be members and forbid a company from hiring any non-union labor. Chomsky thinks the owner has all the power, but doesn’t his solution (AKA the status quo) just transfer all that power to the unions, still at the expense of the individual worker?

Let me give one pertinent example. My brother has a small carpenter’s business. To get big jobs (government, etc.) he would have to be a part of the local carpenter’s union. Well, just join the union, right? No, the union doesn’t accept new members. You have to “know” someone to become part of the union. Sounds to me like the union doesn’t care about workers in general, but merely protecting its own workers at other people’s expense. (In fact, that’s the very definition of a union!) Yet, it has achieved the power through government means (partly through rhetoric like that of Chomsky’s here) of saying that it is protecting its workers’ and the public’s safety by getting all the large jobs for its members’ choosing, without having to compete with more skilled, non-unionized workers.

And yet, giving workers and owners equal consideration and “putting them on a par” is forbidden by Chomsky, too. You just can’t win with this guy.

So what about foreign policy?

Chomsky, supposedly so against America’s foreign policy, really only wants to impose his preferred form of foreign policy on other nations. Ron Paul’s idea that we should let other countries govern themselves is “morally unacceptable.”

OK, then. Anyone who disagrees with Chomsky is immoral, with no specifics given.

Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally,

If Ron Paul means what literally? Notice how Chomsky gives no quote whatsoever. In fact, he’s literally making all this stuff up.

then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn’t themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens).

When has Ron Paul ever said any of these groups shouldn’t receive Social Security? In fact, he is the only member of Congress who doesn’t raid the Social Security “lockbox” to pay for general accounting, and he is the only politician I’ve heard who has said Social Security and Medicare could be fully funded by simply bringing our troops home and closing our 900 military bases around the world. Notice how Chomsky isn’t even aware of Ron Paul’s position on this issue and is just turning this into a generalized rant.

His claims about SS being “broken” are just false.

Oh, really? Aren’t more people receiving benefits now than are paying in to the system? Where’s the money for this program?

He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based, the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need.

Here we come right down to it. Chomsky wants a “communal” decision, decided by, of course, Chomsky. Allowing a younger worker to not pay into the communal pot is verboten. But, you say, that younger worker is one of those starving workers with three young children who can’t afford to find a place to work other than General Electric and doesn’t even have a union but only an intimidating boss! Too bad, Chomsky says, everyone has to give up thousands of dollars a year to ensure Chomsky’s own Social Security benefits.

Never mind that the money won’t be there when the starving worker reaches SS age; Chomsky doesn’t worry about that, and forget about those charts and graphs. Social Security is not “broken.” It’s immoral to say so.

Also never mind that the situation Chomsky tries to speak of in which our starving worker is taken advantage of by an intimidating boss is actually often the case with an intimidating government, which not only takes money for Social Security and Medicare out of a young worker’s paycheck but income taxes, too. Forcibly. Notice how Chomsky’s sympathy for the workers does not extend to the big hand of government forcing them to hand over 40% of their paycheck.

He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we’re at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).

Funny, when Chomsky reads the First Amendment, he takes it to say what it means. When he reads the Second Amendment, he tries to say it doesn’t really mean what it really means.

And what is this about the Constitution not being enacted in a way that Ron Paul would agree with? Ron Paul bases every political position he takes on the Constitution. Chomsky is against just making stuff up here.

At the end, Chomsky says that he would support Hillary Clinton over Ron Paul (yes, the Iraq War-supporting, Drug War-supporting, current Israel policy-supporting, Patriot Act-voting, bailout-supporting, not-ruling-out-nukes-against-Iran Hillary Clinton.) Now that’s a principled vote!

So who’s the fundamentalist?

RP discusses his first year in Congress in 1976, when the government created a swine flu scare and initiated a mass inoculation program– which killed more people than the original swine flu had.

RP’s questions:
Why is the Department of Homeland Security getting involved in a medical issue and holding press briefings? (This emphasizes the fact that the DHS steps on areas that were already handled by other agencies and is mainly redundant in focus.)
Why are we more worried about the swine flu so far when there were more than 13,000 cases of tuberculosis (also a spreadable, contagious disease) last year?

It is my opinion that there will certainly be a pandemic at some point in not just the United States, but the world, so it’s good to be prepared even if the current crisis doesn’t morph into a pandemic. I’ve got Tamiflu stocked from the last scare (involving avian flu), but not too many other people do, even people I told to hoard a supply. People just don’t take things seriously unless it’s right here, right now, happening in front of their faces. When deciding on what kind of response to take, we should look back to 1976 and to 1948 and 1918, but we shouldn’t base our response solely on those flus (or on Twitter). This is a different flu that could have the potential to be worse or could turn out to be an empty threat.

In the future, though, pandemics will happen as they always have, and we do need to be ready for that. All the recent wildly infectious flus have come from human contact with livestock, and that’s certainly something that needs to be addressed. Meanwhile, you can just track this one.

Congressman Paul mentioned that news outlets had been eager to talk to him about the story, because he is from Texas and because he’s probably known for supporting ideas that are considered out of the norm. While he doesn’t think that Texas should secede, he supports Texas’ right to secede. Time discusses why this is such a problem for most people: Abraham Lincoln made such a case against secession, and the cost of the Civil War was so great, that to even consider a state seceding at this point seems like an affront to not just Lincoln but to liberty and freedom and America itself.

Ron Paul presents good arguments why secession shouldn’t be entirely left off the table: it’s how America came into being, after all. New England once wanted to secede because it was upset with the South, and no one at that time made an argument that secession was unconstitutional. We’re delighted to arm and train secessionists in various hotspots around the world, including the many countries that left the Soviet Union.

As for Texas, it wouldn’t fare too badly as its own country. According to Time:

NCAA offcials would have to grant an exception for foreign participation in college bowl games, but I’m betting they’d agree. American Airlines might decide to move out of Dallas, but I’d be O.K. with leaving NASA behind and letting Texans decide if they could afford to return to the moon. Border-patrol costs would be steep, but I’m sure Texas’ application to join NAFTA would be favorably received. And it would get a vote at the U.N. and the right for its diplomats to park wherever they wanted on the streets of Manhattan. Texas would saunter into the global community bigger than Australia, Greece or Bolivia.

Kent Snyder would understand that. He left a lucrative career to return to Congress when Ron Paul did in 1996, but that’s not his greatest accomplishment. That came in the twilight of his life last year, when he convinced Dr. Paul to run for president, leading to the “wildest libertarian campaign in American history.” In fact, it’s because of Kent Snyder that this blog exists, because I was inspired to begin it after getting excited about Ron Paul’s campaign and then realizing that someone actually had not yet taken the libertariangirl.com domain.

It’s terribly sad news. One of my favorite Ron Paul stories is one Kent told Texas Monthly last year. Working for Ron Paul’s 1988 Libertarian presidential campaign, Snyder was stopped in the halls of the capitol building by John McCain, who told him: “You’re working for the most honest man in Congress.” McCain isn’t really one to tell the truth, but he certainly was in that case.

If you never got to see Kent Snyder in action during his lifetime, here’s a long video of him discussing the campaign and issues that were close to his heart. In addition to working for Congressman Paul (who even served as the subject of Snyder’s master’s thesis), Snyder was the head of the Liberty Committee and against such government intervention as TeenScreen (“No Child Left Undrugged”), the subject of this video.

“This is more comprehensive than even Orwell’s creative mind could conceive.” — Kent Snyder on TeenScreen

I remember a few people commenting about Dr. Paul’s age during his campaign– not realizing that the person who would not live to see another year was his younger campaign manager and friend, Kent Snyder. He was 49 years old.

“Frank Serpico – The first police officer not only in the history of the New York Police Department, but in the history of any police department in the whole United States, to step forward to report and subsequently testify openly about widespread, systematic cop corruption-payoffs amounting to millions of dollars.” — Peter Maas, author of the biography Serpico

For Serpico’s efforts, he was rewarded by his fellow police officers with the most difficult beat– the narcotics one– and shot in the face with some of his fellow police officers just standing by and refusing to help. Luckily, a civilian neighbor heard the gunshots and called for help. Serpico is a true American hero when it would have been much, much easier to just go along with the crowd. It was true then and it’s true now, people like this– especially in government– are rare.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Serpico has a blog and writes in one of his latest posts:
“I would vote Republican if Ron Paul was running.
At least we would get to the truth.”

More than anyone, Serpico knows the truth when he sees it. This week is Sunshine Week, in which journalists focus attention on the importance of open public records and the laws protecting that freedom. Needless to say, open and honest government are completely necessary for a democracy to work. You can’t vote the bastards out if you don’t know what they’ve been up to.

I’ve heard many people this week say that government agencies that lose battles for open records should pay court costs if they lose. This would all be well and good if it was in fact the agencies’ fault. It’s usually not.

These cases almost always amount to one or two bureaucrats who are trying to protect themselves by using the taxpayers’ money to outspend and outlast citizen plaintiffs in these cases. I argue that not only do we need open records for democracy to work, we need individual accountability on the part of government employees. The taxpayers shouldn’t take the fall when some political appointee doesn’t want his emails to his mistress revealed publicly and wages battle in court for years. It’s that person’s fault, and it should be that person who pays, not you or me or anyone who had nothing to do with his own unprofessional behavior. Most of the time this involves public employees conducting personal business and affairs in government offices while being paid to do a government job, which is unacceptable and means they should be fired immediately anyway– isn’t it amazing that they’re not? Only the government would defend an employee’s right to have an affair and give preferential contracts during work.

We need open records because there are still a lot of 1970s-era NYC cops who have government jobs in all bureaus and agencies, at the federal, state and local level, and there are far, far too few Serpicos.

Tags: Sunshine Week, open records, open records laws, Frank Serpico, Ron Paul, honest government

“We must remember, elections are short-term efforts. Revolutions are long-term projects.” — Congressman Ron Paul

Ron Paul has now said he is focused on continuing to further the message of liberty rather than continuing his presidential campaign (although he will continue to contest primaries and collect delegates). Everyone is wondering what’s next– could Ron Paul’s supporters start a (more libertarian, of course) MoveOn-style organization, as Dean’s supporters did after his defeat?

Howard Dean already has some similarities to Ron Paul, besides each using the Internet to his advantage. Perhaps most importantly and unfortunately, just like Ron Paul vs. John McCain today, Howard Dean would have been a better candidate for the Dems than John Kerry in 2004, and the Dems now know it. When will the Republicans realize their huge 2008 mistake?

Dr. Paul had a great run. He brought libertarian ideas to a mass audience, taught Republicans about the 9/11 Commission Report, cured a lot of people’s apathy, raised $4 million for the Republican record and then $6 million for the all-time record of money raised in one day, beat Giuliani in the un-libertarian state of Iowa (with my help!), showed Nevada what a great candidate looks like, and inspired me to start this site. It ended too soon, with a loss of the antiwar voters to, of all people, John McCain, perhaps due to what many called an incompetent staff.

The ideas are fabulous, though, and it’s only a question now of how they will live on, not whether they will.

On that note, what can a true lover of liberty do?

Some, in true free market fashion, are starting their own media company, called Break the Matrix. I fully support them in this effort, and it’s certainly worth trying. Some of us are still becoming delegates to their local county, district, state and even the national convention, to remind the Republican Party what it used to stand for. Some are trying to become members of Congress themselves.

Tags: Ron Paul, Ron Paul dropping out

“Libertarianism is the heart and soul of conservatism.”

That quote becomes more interesting when you find out that Ronald Reagan said it in 1975. Today would have been Reagan’s birthday. Why not sit back and listen to a vintage Reagan speech and decide which candidate is most like him among today’s GOP candidates (I’ll give you a hint: RP). A Reagan-like president (without the huge deficits and Iran Contra-type scandal) would be excellent right now.

It reads: “Click on The Office characters above to determine what kind of taxpayer you are and match you personality to the right software product.”

Apparently the options are:

• EZ Breezy Filer
• Fancy Filer
• Procrastinator
• Extender
• Typical Taxpayer

Amazon conveniently doesn’t provide the option of “Working to elect a president and members of Congress who will get rid of the income tax so that I no longer have to pay it.”

The answer lies in the Federal Reserve, our privately owned and mostly privately operated central bank. When it was created by Congress in 1913, $1 was worth… $1. Now, that $1 is worth four cents, due to the inflation that the Federal Reserve stimulates in our economy. The Fed has been working especially overtime since the 1970s, when we went completely off the gold standard and the Fed could print up as much money as it wanted to.

Here’s a display of how the Federal Reserve works, in Legos…

Tags: Federal Reserve, inflation, inflation since 1970s, Ye Olde Waffle Shop Chapel Hill, Federal Reserve inflation, Ron Paul Federal Reserve

The richest person in the world raps with Jay-Z, calls Bono and Barack, and asks to be Ron Paul’s running mate (along with most of the other candidates).

Tags: Bill Gates, Bill Gates last day, Bill Gates CES keynote speech, Bill Gates last day speech