No! On Chomsky

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A friend of mine said he was listening to Noam Chomsky and I told him I thought Mr. Chomsky was a creep. He didn't know why and I was curious, so I ended up listening to part of a video.

I listened to the video for a total of perhaps 10 seconds and he already offended me. He started by saying things were always bad but in the past, like after WWII, people thought things would get better. The difference as he sees it is that today people don't think things will get better (gee, I wonder why? Perhaps because of creeps like him telling us we have never been in worse shape??? but I digress) and then he said that things are MORE unequal than ever! Is he kidding? Clearly not, but things here are more equal than ever before. In some ways, a bit too “equal”, if you ask me. There is the impression among people in this generation that equality means equality of money, or of happiness or of G-d knows what.

But what equality means, as in constitution equality as in all “men” are created equal, means equality of opportunity – it's that, even though there cannot possibly be total equality (some people are born smart, some people are born rich, some people are born into poverty in a totalitarian country, some people are born into democratic US).

Even so, they can study hard, or learn to tell jokes, or dance on their toes, or hit a baseball. And in that, we all have an equal opportunity (to a large degree), certainly more than when my grandparents came here and there weren't a lot of professions open to Jews – that's why Jews became Doctors or Lawyers and other professionals or shopkeepers because they could have their own businesses – even though medical and law schools had quotas for how many Jews they would take.

Part of the problem is that there are so many people like the (undeservedly) respected Mr. Chomsky who speak “pearls of wisdom” made of manure. They perpetuate the soft racism of lowered expectations. Most of them feel a guilt over the treatment of blacks in the US (artificial guilt taught to them from nursery school) centuries before they were even born. Not only that, but a large percentage of these people didn't even have ancestors who were in the US before the Civil War. How in heaven's name do they share in the guilt slave owners should have felt?

And this is all my reaction to, what, two entire sentences? Can you imagine how I could react to the entire hour +?

So I listened to one more sentence. This guy is deluded. He started talking about the whole “rich vs. poor” thing. I had just recently watched a Prager University video (most of them are 5 to 6 minutes long, not an hour) that points out that the top 1% of earners in this country earn $500,000 or more. That is a very nice income, to be sure, but hardly filthy rich (and that's before taxes). And the top 1% earn 17% of the income and pay 37% of the taxes. Mind you, this is yearly earnings. (People on the lower end of the earning scale, BTW, people who make under $45,000 mostly pay little or no taxes.)

Most really rich people (like, oh, say, Mark Cuban) are self-made millionaires/billionaires. Cuban talks about ketchup and mustard sandwiches (my BFF talks about stone soup). I am personally poor but thanks to my parents and siblings, I live a pretty middle class life.

And I used to be a bit of a socialist, but I'm now convinced that the fairest, most equitable system is capitalism – hard work helps people get ahead and one can get ahead by working for someone else's business or your own. Hard work and a good product (physical product or service) helps one get ahead, no matter their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

All this doesn't even count the lies Mr. Chomsky tells about Israel. Here is one quote: “Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel' [I wish they were always or even regularly described that way since that is the best description one could come up with to describe Hamas]. One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement [two state? What “two states”? Hamas and Fatah????] in accord with the international consensus' – blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true [what is his definition of “true”? I guess it means “in your dreams!] but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable – Noam Chomsky, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians

(The reason you “never” hear that is it's just not true. If you call an “election” where voters are threatened if they don't vote for Hamas “democratic” you need to read a dictionary. An election can only be truly democratic if it is a secret ballot and if it occurs at regular intervals.)

So can I be exempted from having to listen to this jerk? It's no wonder so many people don't understand him – he lies.