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McCarthyism...a mistake?

Willoughby

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Simple two simple questions:
Can Joseph McCarthy's activities and the House of Un-American Activities Committee be justified?
Was it one big mistake?
 
Willoughby said:
Simple two simple questions:
Can Joseph McCarthy's activities and the House of Un-American Activities Committee be justified?
Was it one big mistake?

The whole fiasco was the antithesis to the ideal of free speach that america was supossedly fighting for in the cold war so of course it cant be justified. How can you persecute people for there political views in the name of freedom and democracy? Its bullshit
 
I guess it would depend upon whom you asked.

McCarthy got his 15 minutes of fame.

But Republicans got a reputation of being against free speech. Seems to me we have the same situation under Bush and his spying on Americans, don't you think? Nixon and his wire taps?

Why are these Republicans so paranoid? They be up to illegal and unconstitutional activites and don't want us to know it?
 
I believe the communists shouldn't have been prejudiced against whatsoever. So yeah I would've been totally against McCarthy.
 
Communism is a toxic political philosophy that deserves every ounce of scorn it has received since its foundation.

However, America was founded on free speech, democracy, and political freedom; outlawing of a political party is a violation of more than one Amendment of the Constitution, democratic principles in general, and Lady Liberty herself. McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade swept up a lot more than just revolutionary Marxists-- it attacked liberals, artists, McCarthy's political enemies, and at the very end, the United States Army.

He left a tainted legacy that, in my ways, the Republicans still have not cleansed.
 
Willoughby said:
Simple two simple questions:
Can Joseph McCarthy's activities and the House of Un-American Activities Committee be justified?

While he was not very tactiful and he turned his crusade into a political fight with some, his persuit of communist inflitrating government was completely justified and historically shown to be correct. There were spys in the State Department and we needed to expose them and rid government of them. The HUAAC, which McCarthy had nothing to do with, might have gone a little over board but the fact is the Soviets DID try to use such media as Hollywood and TV to influence our country and as a propaganda tool.

Was it one big mistake?

No.
 
Only the Stinger answered the question with common sense. Too bad McCarthy hadn't lived longer to help oust America and our government from the Commie threat within. Even (Whittaker Chambers) a former Commie himself, led the charge to get Alger Hiss imprisoned.

My suggestion is that we vote or elect a modern day MCCarthy to finish the job of ousting all un-Americans from our government (that be the liberals). Ann Coulter has the credentials to fill the bill. Let me be the first to cast a vote for her.
 
And for the love of all that is good and decent in these United States, please let's also allow you to be the last.
 
Stinger said:
but the fact is the Soviets DID try to use such media as Hollywood and TV to influence our country and as a propaganda tool.

Is there any evidence of this? As far as i can tell it was a brave-new-world-esque attempt to surpress any media that challenge state sanctioned values. For example Arthur Miller wrote plays like "The Death Of a Salesman" that questioned the way people though and got deported for it [cant have people thinking independantly can we now?] As far as i know
he wasnt sponcerd by moscow.
 
My suggestion is that we vote or elect a modern day MCCarthy to finish the job of ousting all un-Americans from our government (that be the liberals). Ann Coulter has the credentials to fill the bill. Let me be the first to cast a vote for her.
:rofl come on please
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Communism is a toxic political philosophy that deserves every ounce of scorn it has received since its foundation.

However, America was founded on free speech, democracy, and political freedom; outlawing of a political party is a violation of more than one Amendment of the Constitution, democratic principles in general, and Lady Liberty herself. McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade swept up a lot more than just revolutionary Marxists-- it attacked liberals, artists, McCarthy's political enemies, and at the very end, the United States Army.

He left a tainted legacy that, in my ways, the Republicans still have not cleansed.


:yt ...............
 
McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade swept up a lot more than just revolutionary Marxists-- it attacked liberals, artists, McCarthy's political enemies, and at the very end, the United States Army.

He left a tainted legacy that, in my ways, the Republicans still have not cleansed.


Couldn't agree more. I think it's a legacy many republicans are proud of and lean toward in this ultra conservative environment. Attacking the press now with threats is the latest anti-free speech tactic.
 
Red_Dave said:
Is there any evidence of this?

Yes, go read about the Venona intecepts.

April 17, 1996
A POST BOMBSHELL: JOE McCARTHY WAS RIGHT!
Coffee cups rattled all over Washington on Sunday morning, April 14, when The Washington Post ran a headline which, although cast as a question, conservatives never imagined would appear in that paper: "Was McCarthy Right About the Left?"
One-time radical Post columnist Nicholas von Hoffman, now a freelance writer, went on to give a qualified "yes and no" to the question, acknowledging that the recent gush of information from old Soviet and U.S. intelligence archives make plain the extent of spying by Americans who worked for Moscow.
http://www.aim.org/publications/weekly_column/1996/04/col417.htm



WND Exclusive Most-hated senator was right
Scholars: Joseph McCarthy's charges 'now accepted as fact'
Posted: February 8, 2000
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jon Basil Utley
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON -- Although Joseph McCarthy was one of the most demonized American politicians of the last century, new information -- including half-century-old FBI recordings of Soviet embassy conversations -- are showing that McCarthy was right in nearly all his accusations.

"With Joe McCarthy it was the losers who've written the history which condemns him," said Dan Flynn, director of Accuracy in Academia's recent national conference on McCarthy, broadcast by C-SPAN.

Using new information obtained from studies of old Soviet files in Moscow and now the famous Venona Intercepts -- FBI recordings of Soviet embassy communications between 1944-48 -- the record is showing that McCarthy was essentially right. He had many weaknesses, but almost every case he charged has now been proven correct. Whether it was stealing atomic secrets or influencing U.S. foreign policy, communist victories in the 1940s were fed by an incredibly vast spy and influence network.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17401

As far as i can tell it was a brave-new-world-esque attempt to surpress any media that challenge state sanctioned values.

No it was an attempt to prevent the Soviets union from being successful in it's plan to bury us. It was a time of war.

The left, which were the true evil in all this, have manage to rewrite history, once again, to make themselves appear to be the victems when in fact they were the perpitrators. You will note that even with the evidence we now have that McCarthy was at the least mostly right, George Clooney completely ignored this in his trashing of him in his latest movie.

For example Arthur Miller wrote plays like "The Death Of a Salesman" that questioned the way people though and got deported for it [cant have people thinking independantly can we now?] As far as i know
he wasnt sponcerd by moscow.

Who on earth told you Miller was deported?
 
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If just seemed that it was a attempt to get rid of people that the administration didn't like. So many posters on here bang on about the US being the greatest democracy in the world etc but how does this square with what happened with these veru undemocratic "trials"

btw if you are not sure what McCarthyism is then here are some dictionary definitions:

1: The practice of publicizing accusations of political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence.
2: The use of unfair investigatory or accusatory methods in order to suppress opposition.

or

n : unscrupulously accusing people of disloyalty (as by saying they were Communists)
 
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FinnMacCool said:
I believe the communists shouldn't have been prejudiced against whatsoever. So yeah I would've been totally against McCarthy.

I like your words but you will be judged by your deeds.
There is perception that Communism is some kind of philosophy, theory. In reality it has only demonstrated itself as a foundation theory of terrorism. The observed practical application of Communism started in Russia as a wide spread terrorism in a lot worse form than it is known now. Murder, bombing, suicide like bombing targeting officials and killing innocent people were counted in tens of thousands! The goal of the Communism was to do things through violent overthrow of an existing government. When Communists took power in USSR millions were killed, all individual freedoms were suppressed. The goal of Communism was to spread this kind of violence throughout the world. Stalin was working hard on the plan ( though he was smart enough not to advertise it like Trotsky did). Billons were poured in establishing Communist (terrorist) organizations throughout the world. The organisations were causing violence and death. Whatever the theory could be that was the only real observation of the theory in action. Accordingly Stalin worked on starting WWll which was supposed to lead to establishing of power of Communism all over the world. Rockets and steep industrialization in USSR were just a way to achieve the main objective. Since Hitler interrupted his plans by suicidal attack on USSR Stalin achieved only a small part of his original plans, taking over Eastern Europe, China and some other insignificant parts of the world. The blood of millions was pouring, freedoms were suppressed, - those were the deeds. It did not really mean Communists were going to stop. When old Stalin hesitated, hard liners changed him for bloodier dictator Chrushev. Communists were always throwing billions in their war against capitalism and Western democracy. Like in any kind of war, propaganda and espionage were no less important than tanks. Soviet support of ME terrorism, training and sharing experience, just demonstrating the real example of terrorists( Communists) taking over a big part of the world played a very important role in foundation of Muslim terrorism.
American communists and liberals sympathetic to American communists had their imminent goal of removing US government and US Constitution, through propaganda, espionage and all other possible actions, and resorting to terrorism was always on the table. Weak attempts by McCarthy to guard the American Government from its enemy were countered by the experienced machine of well founded KGB. Only with fall of the Soviet Union American Communist Party lost its funds and started dissolving.
The observation shows that McCarthyism is still taught as a kind of persecution of freedom of speech, but not an interruption of attempts to remove American democracy and establish a terrorist state by all means, including violence of the mob. Therefore the present terrorism cannot be understood in full spectrum of history and cannot be fought
with an adequate force. As protection of bloody Communists was a task of American lefts before, so protection of bloody Muslim terrorists is represented by them as a protection of freedom of speech, religion etc now. So, Communism is still playing distructive role in America. No other practical deeds of Communists rather than terror, including international terror and mass murder of millions by all means have been observed, who cares about their speeches.
 
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