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Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift, and the refusal to provide such opportunities is criminal

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
Computer Scientist
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Linguist
Media Critic
Opinion Journalist
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Philosopher
East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
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Chomsky
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More quotes by Noam Chomsky

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In many respects, the United States is the freest country in the world. I don't just mean in terms of limits on state coercion, though that's true too, but also in terms of individual relations. The United States comes closer to classlessness in terms of interpersonal relations than virtually any society.
Noam Chomsky
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I happen to agree with the anti-dictatorship policies, but I don't think it's the role of General Electric to support them or oppose them. They do of course, but I don't agree with that.
Noam Chomsky
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When [ Paul Johnson] got to me he was in trouble, because I'm an old-fashioned conservative: married when I was 21, stayed married, 3 kids, live in the suburbs, no scandals, so nothing to write about. So what he did is concoct one of the nuttiest claims I've ever seen.
Noam Chomsky
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I have never heard of anyone who was a model person in all aspects of his or her life, intellectual life or other aspects nor do I see why anyone should care. We are not engaged in idol worship, after all.
Noam Chomsky
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The uniformity and obedience of the media, which any dictator would admire...
Noam Chomsky
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For the past century or so that's [ Monroe Doctrine] actually been true, but it's declining very significantly.
Noam Chomsky
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The 50,000 Korean mercenaries we had in Vietnam were professional killers and just massacred people outright. And the American army did plenty of that too, but it couldn't take it after awhile. It's not the kind of job you can give to conscripts who are not trained to be murderers.
Noam Chomsky
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If you look at say, England and Germany a century ago, which had the most advanced navies then, they were dealing with extremely tricky technological problems. Putting a huge gun on a moving platform and ensuring that it could hit another moving target was one of the hardest technical problems of the early twentieth century.
Noam Chomsky
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The fact is that if you have not developed language, you simply don't have access to most of human experience, and if you don't have access to experience, then you're not going to be able to think properly.
Noam Chomsky
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I happened to go to a school when I was a kid and that's all we did, pursue our own interests. It was kind of structured so you ended up knowing everything you were supposed to know, arithmetic, Latin, whatever it was. But almost always it was under your own initiative.
Noam Chomsky
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If you read people like say Bruce Blair one of the leading, most sober, knowledgeable specialists, he says, look, [Donald Trump] statements are all over the map, but his personality is frightening, he's a complete megalomaniac.
Noam Chomsky
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When I was a college student and I got interested in linguistics the concern among students was, this is a lot of fun, but after we have done a structural analysis of every language in the world what's left? It was assumed there were basically no puzzles.
Noam Chomsky
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In the Munich agreement in late 1938 [Franklin] Roosevelt sent his chief adviser Sumner Welles, who came back with a very supportive statement saying that Hitler was someone we could really do business with and so on.
Noam Chomsky
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Greece, alone, is in a very vulnerable position. If the Greeks had had support from progressive left and popular forces elsewhere in Europe they might have been able to resist the demands of the Troika, but they had almost no support. Not even from Portugal, Spain, or other left forces. They were left alone.
Noam Chomsky
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Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.
Noam Chomsky
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The number of illegal firings tripled during the [Ronald] Reagan years. It was at that time that you started getting these companies that specialized in how to destroy unions.
Noam Chomsky
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The whole basis for the US intervention in Colombia is outrageously racist and arrogant.
Noam Chomsky
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It is one thing for the institution to offer space for serious engagement, in thought and action, and to encourage free and independent use of such opportunities it is something else for the university to become engaged as an institution, beyond a fairly narrow range where true consensus exists, and even that raises questions.
Noam Chomsky
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Should a community... be free to enact legislation to say they don't want blacks? Now that's illegal. Fifty years ago it was legal. Is that progress or is that regress?
Noam Chomsky
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US wars are going to be against much weaker enemies. And they have to be won quickly and decisively before a popular reaction develops.
Noam Chomsky