To read any text is to attempt to infer its meaning. This is English, not C.
I was mostly trying to suggest that, just maybe, it'd be a good idea to not turn the whole conversation into one about politics, but apparently that's inevitable. There seem to be a lot of people on HN whose feelings about libertarianism (either for or against) are a core part of their self-image, and that makes discussing anything related perilous.
Sure, thanks for the suggestions. I guess I might give Chomsky a pass if it was purely about linguistics and didn't involve his politics at all.
Look, I'm not out to push my politics here, if that's what you're thinking. I read HN because of the high-quality discussions about technology and related matters. If I want to see flame wars over libertarianism, environmentalism, or whatever else there's an entire internet full of that dreck, and the amount of political content usually has a pretty direct negative correlation to the quality of discussion at a site.
I was mostly trying to suggest that, just maybe, it'd be a good idea to not turn the whole conversation into one about politics, but apparently that's inevitable. There seem to be a lot of people on HN whose feelings about libertarianism (either for or against) are a core part of their self-image, and that makes discussing anything related perilous.
See also: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html and http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/
In the future I think I'll just flag any article that mentions Rand and I encourage others to do the same, regardless of what they think of her ideas.