I haven't been exposed to as much of Chomsky's work as some have, but whenever he has brushed up against me, I'm always dusting this sort of stuff off my sleeve: America on balance has been a force for evil in the world. The world would be a better place if the US military didn't exist. Business is mostly bad. Government that funds the military is of course bad. Government that funds "social programs" is good. (Government that funds Chomsky is just dandy.)

Whenever I hear or read people claiming that such and such a nation is bad, I always wonder: compared to what? Is there in Chomsky's estimation a country that has had a net good effect on the world? The United Kingdom can certainly be criticized for colonialism; but then again, because of its empire, it was able to do more to put an end to slavery in vast swaths of the Earth than any other force in history. So there's that.

Reagan was "the world's greatest terrorist commander"? Perhaps—from the point of view of some of our neighbors to the south—he might have seemed so when their countries’ respective revolutions weren't going their way. (The guys whose side he was on thought he was swell.)

We have by way of comparison the Khmer Rouge’s rampage across Cambodia resulting in somewhere between 1.5 million and 3 million dead in less than four years (once you’ve built a few pyramids out of human skulls it’s understandable to lose track of the body count), the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, and many more of Genocide's Greatest Hits. Compared to all the above, Reagan was just a lone cowboy riding into town and meddling in the duties of the local sheriff.

Then there's Chomsky's bi-curious relationship with money—how he's been banging on for decades about the brutal scourge of capitalism while raking in the shekels using every means he can think of.

He charges big bucks for his speeches, and then resells them in recorded form for those who wanted to hear him but couldn't afford the price of admission. You can buy his stuff on his web site. And so on. Call it multi-level marketing for radicals.

Of course the real money is in book sales, and Chomsky's made himself quite a glittering pile of it. He has reportedly set up a trust in his daughter's name to shield his income and assets from the tax collector.

I applaud him for all that; it's what enterprising types do to make the most of their efforts.

It's the hypocrisy I can't stand. For once I’d like to see Chomsky or some other of his ilk say, "You know, I used to bitch about the evils of capitalism. But now that I have a different perspective on the matter, all I can say is: damn, it’s good to be rich!"