My Brother was Brainwashed by Communist Professors: A conservative Christian admires Noam Chomsky?

The advanced human brain is just about the only means that we have to secure our collective well-being. Humans are neither the strongest nor the fastest species, but we are the smartest. Therefore, it makes sense to educate ourselves. Without education, we would probably still have a life span of nine years and would spend our evenings sacrificing each other to the sun god. That’s why education is good. It does, however, have its bad points. For one, a college education costs about as much as a three story Victorian home. What is worse, higher education today usually requires students to sacrifice their brains— not all of their brains, just the part that allows them to use logic. So, today’s college grads have to pay back loans every month until retirement and they also have to forfeit the most important part of their brains— that’s a pretty high price for a college degree.

Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe college isn’t to blame for the political silliness of so many students. Stupid political decisions— like voting for Ralph Nader— could be attributed to outside factors, such as immaturity or malnutrition. Or it could be that the liberalized boys and girls who are being turned out of the Marxist assembly line known as academia have been liberal their whole lives. Maybe their parents named them “Moonbeam” in 1975 and are still anti-establishment hippies who suck down marijuana cigarettes with their kids every weekend. I have had friends who come from similar circumstances. Another reason that kids come out of college dazed and confused could be alcohol and hallucinogens. Nothing kills a strong study habit like a hit from a three foot glass bong. Nothing, of course, except a fat, old professor who convinces you to chain yourself to the front gate of a power plant.

Are colleges and universities turning young people into spineless leftists who are afraid to use logic? Perhaps even as you read this you are thinking of a friend or family member who used to make sense and receive commonly appreciated ideas with a rational thought process, but now, upon liberating himself in academia, has accepted the notion that possessing a strong opinion is bad, and standing up for what you believe is not right, if it’s possible that somebody might take offense. Do you know somebody like this? Does it frustrate you? Do you try to drag them back with conventional wisdom only to watch them recoil like disease recoils from cure? Do they respond to your logical statements by accusing you of being too rigid and aggressive? Is there still hope?

I know somebody who fits this description to a tee— my brother— I‘ll call him Jack. My little brother, I love him. He can whip a six-string guitar like Bruce Coburn, write phat lyrics like Busta Rhymes, and furnish his entire wardrobe by shopping at the Salvation Army. At twenty-four, he’s visited monasteries in France and temples in India, just for the hell of it; just to see what they’re like. He’s driven all over America; he’s hiked all around California and Oregon— all without ever asking for any doe from mom and dad, without even asking for a ride to the airport. My father has never gotten a phone call like “We’re broken down in Wyoming. Can you come and change a flat?” My brother is a very accomplished guy. He earned a bachelors degree in philosophy from a prestigious college, and he now works as a teacher for autistic children. He’s basically been on his own since he went off to college, where, of course, he completely lost his mind.

Before he departed for college, he was a typical conservative Christian who enjoyed going on youth group trips and playing his guitar. He also liked to listen to music such as the Grateful Dead and The Beatles. He enjoyed hanging out with his friends, reading books and doing normal things. But then he went to college and came under the influence of a radical professor who is a former student of the intellectual fraud and unrepentant leftist, Cornel West. This professor became Jack's mentor, inviting him to her house for dinner and even arranging for him to join her in a protest of the World Trade Organization that took place in Boston’s financial district. As time went on, and Jack got closer to graduation, I noticed that the little comments he would make were more and more left-wing. Now, my youth-group loving little brother has been transformed into a young man who gets his jollies by studying the likes of Noam Chomsky and Richard Rorty.

Recently I caught up with him and convinced him to do an interview for this magazine. When I told Jack that I wanted to write a column about his liberal convictions for this cutting edge conservative publication, he immediately cried foul, citing his belief that he is not a liberal at all— he simply doesn’t know what he thinks. When he informed me of this, I was disappointed. I had already agreed to write the article, but now my interview with Jack was not getting off on the right foot. I was quickly reassured that the article would be written, however, when Jack realized that the floor was his and I would not be challenging any of his ideas. That, of course, would be an insensitive thing for me to do.

He began his statements by informing me that “I think Mitt Romney [the MA Republican Governor-elect] and George Bush are both clowns.” Now, he doesn’t exactly know why; they just “seem” like clowns. My thought: “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” His thought: “Well, if either of those two guys are on the cover of a book then I ain’t buying that book.” Touché.

Still unconfident in his political knowledge, he told me that if I really want to interview a liberal then there are plenty of guys in his commune who fit the bill. (I suppose it isn’t really a commune, but he has about a million roommates and none of them own beds). He also told me that he often listens to the socialist radio station, National Public Radio (NPR), but he doesn’t think of it as left-wing, he just considers it normal. Moreover, he thinks that conservative programs are just out there bashing anyone who doesn’t agree with their way of thinking. He’s heard the Boston area conservative radio host Jay Severin do this, and he has never listened to Rush Limbaugh, but he has “heard of him.” According to Jack, everyone in the world should just meet in the middle and avoid extremes— the middle apparently being the political line of NPR.

Jack says that he is all for finding alternative forms of energy, and that drilling for oil in the pristine Alaska wilderness “doesn’t make sense” to him. This desire to find alternative forms of energy is popular among those on the left. But, like most rank and file leftists, Jack doesn’t have any suggestions as to what “alternative forms of energy” might mean. Perhaps we should all rely on our own fat. The U.S. is, after all, the fattest nation on earth. The average American is twenty pounds overweight. That is caloric energy stored as blubber. I’m sure that we could figure out a way to harness this energy and avoid disturbing the sacred Alaskan caribou. Maybe if liberals took science classes instead of studying about “oppression,” and “women” they would have figured this one out already.

Unlike most lefties, my brother takes a firm stand against abortion. This is a brave position to take considering that just about anyone in the country can be pro-abortion without ever having to worry about defending that position. Teddy Kennedy, the chubby, alcoholic Senator from Massachusetts, for example, counts himself as pro-abortion as well as Catholic. How does this work? Who knows? Even though it is logically impossible for someone to be both a Catholic and pro-abortion, Kennedy gets away with it because he’s not expected to be logical— he is, after all, a liberal Democrat.

During our conversation, Jack briefly mentioned that he does not think that nuclear weapons are good. That’s his stand on the nuclear weapons issue.

Jack then began complaining, and rightfully so, that the state program that he works for is holding out part of his check for some kind of retirement fund. He is only twenty-four and is clearly not going to be working in the same job until retirement. He thinks that this withholding is “stupid” and “unfair.” Conversely, he thinks that there should be more state funding for social services. He obviously hasn’t figured out that part of that money will be coming from his paycheck. Maybe someday he’ll make this connection.

One of the social services that he firmly believes the federal government should provide for American citizens is health insurance. I’m not quite sure, but I think that this belief might be derivative of his own lack of health insurance— just a hunch.

How about this for an irrational, baseless fear? Jack mentioned in passing that he has a terrible fear of “large corporations.” I have heard of this fear before. Some experts actually consider it to be a clinical problem— like claustrophobia, or arachnophobia. It is typically referred to as “corporatephobia.” Many a college student has been known to come down with this illness. Currently, Jack is only in the beginning stages of the disease, suffering from such symptoms as a strong desire to read anything by Noam Chomsky and an unexplainable pull toward masculine women who badmouth capitalism. In its later stages, this illness usually culminates in a trip to Seattle, where the afflicted person breaks storefront windows and flips the bird to anyone wearing a suit.

Throughout the interview, Jack was dead set against me attaching a political moniker to him. I think perhaps many folks who are politically astute would call him a “liberal” or a “leftist.” But Jack reflexively pulls away from such titles. Like many brainwashed college grads, he displays ignorance and weakness as a sign of intelligence and sophistication. The rationale is, “Hey, I’m so confident and secure in my intelligence and inner strength, I don’t have to make sense or know the answers, or have the testicular muscle to take a stand. But just don’t ever call me a conservative.” Of course, most campus leftists wear their political label as a badge of honor. But some, like my brother, are too afraid, for whatever reason, to admit that they are further left than Karl Marx.

Yeah, when we found out that blowhard was going to be there, we knew it'd be packed with libs, but also with frat guys trying to hook up with a granola chick.

So we hauled over to Blockbuster to use the moviebook they have there (lists all past movie work that folks have) and found Stone was a Conan co-writer. But the best time was definitely Senator Bob Graham speaking to my law school class.

Graham was invited by a Rat former Florida House speaker who golden parachuted himself into UF, and is now the dean of the Florida law school. I got to ask the first question, which was absolutely prime.

This was just as Hillarycare 'town hall meetings' were being smacked in Congress by the Republicans. So I asked him what started as a softball question: "Don't you think that the current Congressional uproar over Mrs. Clinton's closed health care planning commission is inappropriate, especially with higher priority issues to consider, such as your campaign donations from both an international arms dealer and from bank officials who were later indicted for laundering drug money?"

Deer in the headlights. His jaw actually dropped and his jowls kinda worked for a second. The class was completely silent.

I got a C in the class, but it was worth it just to see the Rat professor mutter under his breath and the Senator stare death at the rat prof.

Something I'm sure you have noticed over the years is that those on the left really do live in a very small world. They would never be caught dead with a copy of National Review, or listening to "rightwing" talk radio. It's like they think they'll get contaminated and suddenly become a carding member of the KKK or something.

OTOH many on the right have a much more wide-rangeing in their reading. That is because the left encourages its recruits to adopt a certain set of convictions and guard those convictions above all else. To preserve their convictions, they abstain from that which is most dangerous to them: knowledge that the world is not and can never be what they want it to be.

Conservatives OTOH, derive their convictions from knowledge and know truth from lies. We can read a leftist screed, look for the truth and discard the lies.

One who clothes himself with a tissue lies must be ever vigilant lest the flame of truth consume those lies and reveal his nakedness.

Not only does betty boop make some good points in her post #79, but my husband pointed out that you will not receive a passing grade on this assignment if you fail to deliver on the teacher's mandate, i.e., prove that there is a conservative bias in the media.

Therefore, I think it prudent that you freely confess and highlight the explosion of conservative talk radio (Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity, Savage Nation), internet news sites (Drudge, NRO, WND, JWR, NewsMax), and conservative chat forums (Free Republic, lucianne). Point out the growing American preference for these, as well as for FOX, which really is more balanced than biased. Emphasize the Liberal Big Media's own admission that these are what America has been hungering for. Substantiate your findings with the numbers, and even use the quotes from Daschle and Gore to prove your point!

While the facts are impossible to refute, namely that the liberal-leaning newspapers still have the largest circulation, as I cited in a previous post, and even on-line those same liberal news sources get more hits, it should be possible to find numbers correlating to the rapid (even alarming!) trend toward conservatism in the information industry.

I read your piece on your daughters college professor, then I read this. It's almost dishearting. But not quite.

So, I'm having a discussion with a young female employee, and for some reason it got into the coming war with Iraq. She says to me, "if we go to war, it will only be for oil." I said, "why do you think that?" Her retort was, "Bush and Cheney are oil men."

Not having the time to deliver a disertation on the whole subject I said, "if we wanted the oil we could just lift the sanctions." After about a minute, I left her with her mouth open, but no sound coming out. There is hope for this younger generation.

5.56mm

He really overuses esoteric words to make himself seem smart.

Oh, you got that exactly right! It was maddening to have to read his stuff and wade through something that seemed so difficult when in the end it was a rather simple concept.

I think that was especially true in his earlier stuff. One of his landmark books was published in 1965 and I remember he would quote a couple of pages of French with no explanation. Years later he was quoted in Newsweek as saying, "I have never studied a foreign language, for one reason because I find it so boring." Fine, Noam. You have a problem with learning foreign languages, but just to make yourself look smart you throw a few pages at your readers. Sheesh!

There are many things which thoroughly bug me about the whole field of generative linguistics. The arrogance is a big part of it and I think it stems directly from Chomsky. They really do treat all previous generations of linguists as if they were doing the mundane work of data gathering until they, the geniuses, came along to tell us the really significant conclusions you can draw from all of that.

While I was at the University of Washington, our linguistics department celebrated their 25th anniversary and I got to learn a bit of history. When the department was begun in the early 60s, students studied Greek, Latin and Sanskrit within the first year or year and a half. The focus was all on comparative linguistics. Then the Chomskyan/generative revolution took over and soon the department was highly political and those who weren't on the bandwagon were forced out or into other departments. By around 1970 the anti-war protests occupied a good deal of the energies of these budding scholars -- when they weren't having dinner and reading their linguistics papers to each other in the nude! (Absolutely true!)

I know one guy who is now a foremost expert in SE Asian languages who had started his PhD before all that happened, then headed off to Thailand to do more research and write his dissertation. When he came back, the Chomskyites had all taken over and were on the verge of making him start the whole thing over because he wasn't versed in their way of doing things. Finally one faculty member went to bat for him and spared him all the trouble.

By the way, the linguistics department, as a direct result of this revolution, became the first department at the University of Washington to drop ALL foreign language requirements. Even the forestry and fishery students had to take a foreign language in the early 70s, but the linguistics students could avoid all such trouble and just formulate theories based on their own innate knowledge of English.

As you can probably tell, I could go on and on. Thanks for probing enough to get some of this vitriol out. By the way, I still try to hang onto some admiration for a few of the ideas that were a result of all of this. It's very hard knowing what I know about their history and the people who were involved. But I try.

Jeff, congratulations and best wishes to your daughter in her quest to finish that degree.

I have sympathy for anyone who can show up on America's campuses these days to pursue their goals. It took me ten years part-time to get a BS through the eighties, partly due to my not being quite as bright as I imagined, and partly due to my inability to swim with the current. Then, as now, I wasn't overly impressed with where that current was directed. I'm restarting an MBA program after quitting 10 years ago, but this time it'll be from a distance, hopefully with less PC interference.

It will take miracles and massive effort to reform our educational systems, from K-12 to post-grad, and it most likely won't happen from below. Getting conservatives in, and on top of, the existing manure wagon is a daunting task, but that will be the only way education will be reformed. Those who don't adapt to the preferred profile will pay extra in time, money, and effort. In the war of ideas, the education areas are the muddy flats and the enemy holds the high ground.

That's my rant for now.
Stay well.

I think many of us see the lies in our society.

I don't pretend to know enough , to do any more than say "Go back to the basics". I don't know anything about Noam Chomsky other than two books of his that I read. If he is a liar that's one thing , but if he's not , we are guilty of many crimes.

As far as our education system which is controlled by our federal government through incorporation ( just like many of our Churches ) I think it was Lenin who said " Give me four years to teach the children , and I will have planted a seed that can't be uprooted."

I'm currently trying to get through a book by Richard Cummings called "The Pied Piper , Allard Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream". I never realized how important it is for a government to control free thought and the CIA's involvement in colleges and world politics.

To me it's simple , What would Jesus do? I'm sorry if this is old and doesn't have much meaning to people anymore. But the more I learn the more important that simple question becomes.

God gave us a set of Laws to live by. Not only us , but our leaders also should be held to these Laws.

We cannot be a strong society or a Christian nation , when we are ruled by corrupt politicians.

We live in a nation where the government uses groups like the ACLU to undermine our Constitution.

We live in a nation where the government hides behind enviromental groups to steal American's property Rights.

We live in a nation where once again the elites are willing to send our children off to war so they can have more power and profits.

We live in a nation where our Churches have been incorporated to Caesar , becoming the State churches that our ancestors risked prison and death to escape.

Through incorporation our Churches in order to receive "Tax Exempt" status , are limited in what they can say about our society and our representitives.

To me that means they no longer speak for Christ , but Caesar. I quit going to church when the pastor said " Be sure to pay all of your taxes " and " Only the government has the right to carry the sword." I only accept one Lord. And I will oppose all of His enemies.

Read the "Ten Planks of Communism" and then take a serious look at our country. Which Stalin said would be taken down by a War of Concessions.

It's about a lot more than education , it's about our future and the future of our children.

When do we actually stand up like the American Patriots , that we like to imitate ( as long as it involves no sacrifices )?

What is happening in America is a planned degression not a natural progression.

We need to put our faith back in God and STAND up with Him , instead of accepting corrupt politicians excuses for our lack of Life and Freedom.

PEACE IS WORTH THE PRICE AND THE ONLY ONE OFFERING PEACE IS JESUS CHRIST.

Peace Jeff

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