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roronoa79
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01 Apr 2021, 9:16 pm

Suggesting that McCarthy was 'right' is absurd. People are going into a panic because, what, 5 self-identified democratic socialists have seats in congress? Less than 1% of the 535 members of congress are self described socialists/social democrats and it's treated like the end of days. It's more of them same ludicrous capitalist panic.

Mr Reynholm wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Are socialist views not entitled to be expressed in a democratic society? Should they be cancelled? 8)

Socialism is a transitory phase on the way to communism. Communism is slavery to the government and antithetical to a democratic society.

Socialists are not all just being socialists until they can be communists. If they were, they would just call themselves communists. Socialists have participated in democratic government in Europe for over a century, and their countries are nowhere near communist.


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slam_thunderhide
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02 Apr 2021, 12:39 pm

McCarthy was right. Some people seem to have this idea he just picked on people for the ideas in their heads, or what he imagined were the ideas in their heads. No, he was trying to clamp down on actual Soviet agents in the State Department, of which there were large numbers. Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were just the tip of the iceberg. Whitaker Chambers, who was a former Communist Party member, wrote about this in his autobiography.

There was more truth in McCarthy's claims than there was with the more recent nonsense about Trump "colluding" with the Russians.

Trying to draw a parallel between the actions of a patriot like McCarthy and the destructive, vindictive "cancel culture" of the modern left is just more evidence of the uselessness of centrism as far as I'm concerned.



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02 Apr 2021, 12:43 pm

Joseph McCarthy was a paranoid delusionist, thoroughly debunked in later years.


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02 Apr 2021, 12:45 pm

McCarthy was canceled by the ARMY----talk about conservative cancel culture! :wink:

McCarthy was just some guy who wanted publicity, so he "went after Communists." Richard Nixon was also in on this crusade; perhaps Nixon was Giuliani to McCarthy's Trump?



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02 Apr 2021, 4:12 pm

Fnord wrote:
Joseph McCarthy was a paranoid delusionist, thoroughly debunked in later years.


The fact that some people are so willing to defend McCarthy scares the hell out of me.


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02 Apr 2021, 4:41 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Joseph McCarthy was a paranoid delusionist, thoroughly debunked in later years.


The fact that some people are so willing to defend McCarthy scares the hell out of me.


But pinkos!! !

Image


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roronoa79
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02 Apr 2021, 5:10 pm

A conservative acting like what they are experiencing now is worse than what happened during the McCarthy era just speaks to the modern conservative victim complex, ignorance of history, and the persistence of Cold War era propaganda.
People did not deserve to have their lives destroyed for expressing any socialist or communist beliefs. I'd rather see peoples' lives destroyed because they spew hatred against immigrants and queers than because they dared to question capitalism.

McCarthyism was the government and business silencing those who challenged their power.
'Woke'-ism is common people banding together to ensure social and economic consequences for those with power who say and do morally reprehensible things. If the government and corporations sometimes help do it, that's because they know the public backlash that rightfully awaits them if they dont.


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02 Apr 2021, 5:11 pm

McCarthyism, Russiagate...same s**t, different toilet.


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uncommondenominator
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02 Apr 2021, 5:38 pm

slam_thunderhide wrote:

There was more truth in McCarthy's claims than there was with the more recent nonsense about Trump "colluding" with the Russians.


Let me see if I have this corectly.

McCarthy was right, in that russia has americans acting as agents within the american government.

But yet the idea that Trump is acting as a russian agent while a member of the american government, is absurd?

It seems like the idea of russia using agents to infiltrate amercan government isn't disputed, it's mere WHO the agent is. Somehow, magically, bernie sanders being a russian agent, TOTALLY PLAUSIBLE! - yet dontald trump being a russian agent, ABSOLUTELY ABSURD! Like many arguments of this nature, seems like you can't pick which leg to stand on.

At least some others are consistent in their views, and claim both mccarthyism and russiagate are both absurd. Which might make sense if it weren't for the fact that the evidence shows mccarthyism was fake, whereas the evidence shows that russia did interfere with american politics. In both cases, the evidence is from the government's own investigations. So now we're hopping back and forth between "government reports CAN be trusted" (when it comes to mccarthyism) but other times "the government CAN'T be trusted!" (when it comes to russian interference or a total absence of voter fraud).

Here's where it gets really funny.

"You can't trust the government, or the news, or social media!"

Really? Who told you that?

"My senator said so, and I heard it on the News, and I read this article!"

AND they completely fail to see the irony until you point it out, and then back you are, playing human pogo stick, where they have to explain why SOME news is true, but OTHER news is UNTRUE, and SOME politicians lie, but NOT others, and SOMEtimes social media tells the truth, but it usually lies, and you can tell the difference cos the real ones are the ones that agree with them, and the fake ones are the ones that disagree with them, and clearly they're biased towards the LEFT (they reflexively chime in), but stop making everything political (and yet again totally fail to see the irony)...

It's like people just turn on the word valve and let sentences pour out without a singe actual thought, regurgitating whatever narrative they've acclimated to, and then call others sheep.



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02 Apr 2021, 6:28 pm

uncommondenominator wrote:
slam_thunderhide wrote:

There was more truth in McCarthy's claims than there was with the more recent nonsense about Trump "colluding" with the Russians.


Let me see if I have this corectly.

McCarthy was right, in that russia has americans acting as agents within the american government.

But yet the idea that Trump is acting as a russian agent while a member of the american government, is absurd?

It seems like the idea of russia using agents to infiltrate amercan government isn't disputed, it's mere WHO the agent is.


No, McCarthy was right in that the Soviet Union had (past tense) agents within the US government. Actual agents: people in the US government passing top secret material to the Soviets.

You seem to have me mixed up with MrReynholm. I don't know exactly what he is arguing, but in cases you hadn't noticed, MrReynholm and I are different people.

uncommondenominator wrote:
Somehow, magically, bernie sanders being a russian agent, TOTALLY PLAUSIBLE! - yet dontald trump being a russian agent, ABSOLUTELY ABSURD! Like many arguments of this nature, seems like you can't pick which leg to stand on.


This is more evidence you're not really following the thread. I haven't said a thing about Bernie Sanders. What has Bernie Sanders got to do with anything? I was talking about the State Department in McCarthy's time.

I bet most people who somehow "know" that McCarthy was just some deluded megalomaniac haven't even bothered with the most cursory internet research into the opposing viewpoint.

The following is from Wikipedia's page on Cold War espionage:

Quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage

Ware Group: Sleeper spy ring in US headed by J. Peters, first organized under Harold Ware, inherited by Whittaker Chambers (under orders from Peters), and also included: John Abt, Marion Bachrach (Abt's sister), Lee Pressman, Alger Hiss, Donald Hiss, Charles Kramer, Nathan Witt, Henry Collins, George Silverman, John Herrmann, Nathaniel Weyl, and Victor Perlo. When Chambers defected in 1938, the Ware Group went dormant and then broke up. Harry Dexter White (below) contributed materials to Chambers but not as part of the Ware Group.

Silvermaster spy ring: The Silvermaster Spy Ring was led by Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the Treasury and the second most influential member of the Treasury department. His job was to aid placement of Soviet spies within the United States Government. The United States Treasury Department was successfully infiltrated by many Soviet spies, the most successful of which belonged to the Silvermaster Spy Ring. Harold Glasser, Elizabeth Bentley, and Nathan Silvermaster were other major members of the Silvermaster Spy Ring.[3]

Atomic spies: While the Atomic Spies were not exactly a network of spies, the collective information that was obtained by this group of Soviet spies was critical to the Soviet Union's ability to build an atomic bomb. Many of the members of the Atomic spies group worked for, or around, the Manhattan Project, or the United States building of the atomic bomb.[3] This group included:

Klaus Fuchs: a German-born British theoretical physicist. He worked with the British delegation on the Manhattan Project.
Morris Cohen: an American who gained insight to the plans from the secret laboratory at Los Alamos and delivered it to the designers of the Soviet atomic bomb.
Harry Gold: an American who was a courier for Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass.
David Greenglass: an American machinist at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. He gave crude schematics of lab experiments to the Russians.
Theodore Hall: an American, and the youngest physicist at Los Alamos, gave a detailed description of the Fat Man plutonium bomb and several processes for purifying plutonium to the Soviets.
George Koval: an American-born son of a Russian family. He obtained information from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Dayton Project about the Urchin (detonator) used for the Fat Man plutonium bomb.
Irving Lerner: an American film director who was caught photographing the cyclotron at the University of California in 1944.
Alan Nunn May: a British physicist who worked for the British nuclear research and then in Canada on the Manhattan Project. His uncovering in 1946 was responsible for the United States restricting sharing atomic secrets with the British.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: Americans who were involved in the coordinating and recruiting of an espionage network. Ethel's brother was David Greenglass.
Saville Sax: an American who acted as a courier for Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall.
Morton Sobell: an American engineer who admitted to spying for the Soviets and uncovered how extensive the Rosenberg's recruiting network was.[3]


And that's just the people wikipedia is prepared to tell us about.

A reminder to the readers of this thread: this is the sort of thing McCarthy was trying to fight, actual Soviet agents passing top secret material, including material on nuclear weapons, to America's number one international enemy of the time. He wasn't just picking on random people whose ideas he didn't like.



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02 Apr 2021, 6:31 pm

XFilesGeek wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Joseph McCarthy was a paranoid delusionist, thoroughly debunked in later years.
The fact that some people are so willing to defend McCarthy scares the hell out of me.
I guess they all got tired of trying to defend Hitler, and failing miserably at it.


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02 Apr 2021, 8:01 pm

Mr Reynholm wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Early 1950s McCarthyism:
Proven Correct.
Today's socialists and communists in Congress prove that McCarthy was right. Infiltration has be accomplished.
Examples; Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, and all the rest.


McCarthy was not right by any degree. McCarthy was a demagogic gadfly out to gain personal aggrandizement by exploiting Anti Communist paranoia, resulting in ruining people's lives.
What communists in congress? Sanders is a social democrat, while the Squad hardly fit the definition of communists, so no. In fact, white nationalists have had a real presence in congress, such as the thankfully voted out Steve King.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political ... 0socialist.
According to Wikipedia Bernie is a Democratic Socialist.
The fact that our government is crawling with socialists proves McCarthy Correct.
No matter what modifier you give it or how you pretty it up, socialism is a dangerous and evil system.


Bernie is a social democrat. The difference between the two is that in social democracy, heavy industries (oil, mining, telecom) are private enterprises, whereas in democratic socialism, those industries are usually state-run. He doesn't suggest nationalizing major industries, just taxing the billionaires.

Examples of democratic socialism would include Bolivia and Angola.


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02 Apr 2021, 8:13 pm

Fnord wrote:
Standards are artificial and morality is relative.

Then they mean nothing.



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02 Apr 2021, 8:20 pm

uncommondenominator wrote:
Mr Reynholm wrote:
Early 1950s McCarthyism:
Proven Correct.
Today's socialists and communists in Congress prove that McCarthy was right. Infiltration has be accomplished.
Examples; Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, and all the rest.


Ok then. Explain to me how those individuals are akin to soviet communists. Preferably something more meaningful than "they're socialists, duh!". That's just regurgitating a label.

You do know that just cos someone slaps a label on it, that doesn't magically make it that thing, right? Just cos I write "diamonds" on the side of a cardboard box full of broken glass doesn't mean I suddenly have a box of diamonds. Just cos the USSR CALLED themselves "socialist" doesn't mean they actually OPERATED that way. It's called a "scam".

Equally so, calling those individuals "socialists / communists" simply to equate them with the failed soviet state is a strawman at best. If anything, they would call themselves "democratic socialists", and if you're already jumping up and down ready to point out "SEE?! SOCIALIST!!", you can kindly calm down and sit down. "Socialism" and "communism" both come in many flavors, and are both different from each other in important ways.

While you're at it, why not argue that socialism has already been a keystone of american culture and politics for ages. After all, I bet you, and most americans, have a SOCIAL security card, issued by the Department of SOCIAL Security. Many people call SOCIAL services when they have problems. Most americans LOVE government instituted SOCIAL programs, like SOCIAL security, or SOCIAL safety nets like unemployment and disability benefits. Not to mention the fact that we fund SOCIAL infrastructure like roads and parks, that COMMUNALLY benefit everyone, by COLLECTIVELY paying taxes into SOCIAL programs.

Hilariously, the closest american parallel to the soviet lie that was masquerading as "socialism" is "trickle-down-economics". Both worked the same way, contrary to the claims. "Give everything to the top, and it totally trickles down and disperses evenly" was the claim. In reality, they gave everything to the top, and the top just kept it, passed it around to others at the top. Soviet russia: "that's all there is, we swear, nothing left". Capitalist America: "we can't pay you any more, that's all there is". In both cases, there WAS more, it was merely hoarded.

The real hilarious part is when people try to make people like Bernie look like the "wealthy elite". Bernie is worth around two million dollars. That might sound like a lot if you're not used to dealing with big numbers. But a billionaire (just ONE billion) is worth 500 times that. Mark Zuckerberg at 66 Billion is worth 33,000 times what Bernie is. Politics is a pay to play game, money is necessary to be a part of it in a meaningful way. Bernie himself usually looks like he's from the macklemore thrift shop video.

It's like people use words they don't understand...

Words mean things. No matter how many hairs are split, and how you try to rationalize it, the word socialist means something specific. Don't be an apologist for the wealthy elites you happen to agree with.



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02 Apr 2021, 8:22 pm

roronoa79 wrote:
Suggesting that McCarthy was 'right' is absurd. People are going into a panic because, what, 5 self-identified democratic socialists have seats in congress? Less than 1% of the 535 members of congress are self described socialists/social democrats and it's treated like the end of days. It's more of them same ludicrous capitalist panic.

Mr Reynholm wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Are socialist views not entitled to be expressed in a democratic society? Should they be cancelled? 8)

Socialism is a transitory phase on the way to communism. Communism is slavery to the government and antithetical to a democratic society.

Socialists are not all just being socialists until they can be communists. If they were, they would just call themselves communists. Socialists have participated in democratic government in Europe for over a century, and their countries are nowhere near communist.

I don't think you understand the concept. I would suggest you read Karl Marx.



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02 Apr 2021, 8:23 pm

slam_thunderhide wrote:
McCarthy was right. Some people seem to have this idea he just picked on people for the ideas in their heads, or what he imagined were the ideas in their heads. No, he was trying to clamp down on actual Soviet agents in the State Department, of which there were large numbers. Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were just the tip of the iceberg. Whitaker Chambers, who was a former Communist Party member, wrote about this in his autobiography.

There was more truth in McCarthy's claims than there was with the more recent nonsense about Trump "colluding" with the Russians.

Trying to draw a parallel between the actions of a patriot like McCarthy and the destructive, vindictive "cancel culture" of the modern left is just more evidence of the uselessness of centrism as far as I'm concerned.

Well Said!