BleepingComputer.com: The ghost of Joe McCarthy

It's getting really ugly out there, folks.

[quote]"Bachman Calls for McCarthy-Like Investigation into Anti-American Activities of Liberals"

She then went further, suggesting that all liberal views — held by people such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, professors, and all Americans who identify themselves as “liberals” — are “anti-American.” When host Chris Matthews, stunned by her remarks, asked Bachmann how many people in Congress hold anti-American views, she responded, “You’ll have to ask them.”

[url="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/17/bachmann-anti-american/"]http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/17/bachmann-anti-american/[/url]

"Goodnight and Good Luck"
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDJyji8x6JQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDJyji8x6JQ[/url]

For those too young to remember the McCarthy era:

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy[/url][/quote]

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

We had that in Australia, Rudd was accused of all sorts of things that he politely ignored, won the Election with a Landslide of Votes!

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but never ALL the people, all the time!"

Wait, we shouldn't dismiss this so quickly -

there are millions of Liberals to investigate and it will take a hugh organization to conduct this monumental investigation.

Hiring all the people to do this will be a great boast to the economy.

Well, except we won't be able to hire any Liberals, so there may be a lot of them still jobless.

But, if they can hang in there long enough, they'll be hired when we begin investigating all of the Conservatives!


Is this country great, or what?

I saw Ms. Bachmann's original performance on MSNBC, and clips of her later performances denying that she said and did certain things in the manner in which she said and did them. I would call her an oxy-moron, but I believe the poor woman may be demented and thought she looked like she might be taking prescription mental health substances.

This woman was actually re-elected! Maybe the people of her state wanted perpetual entertainment.

I have had to sign loyalty oaths for a couple government positions and thought they were a total scam. The only groups they benefit are the ultra-right and the actual subversives and insurrectionists, whether they come from the left or the right. Many people of conscience would prefer not to take it because it is an unduly intrusive holdover from the McCarthy era and a totally useless waste of time in trying to determine an employee's patriotic intent or lack thereof.

Just curious... what kind of difference is there between that loyalty oath and, say, a non-com clause? Other than one is government-issued, of course.

I am not quite sure what you mean by a "non-com" clause. Do you mean non-competition?

Loyalty oaths are meant to ferret out those who are not patriotic or loyal to the U.S. government. I think they are useless. The only people who have doubts about signing loyalty oaths to the government are people who take their government service and other ethical obligations very seriously. Or they may belong to religious sects, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, which prohibit adherents from taking any kind of oath. Insurrectionists of any type would not hesitate to sign the oath, because they would feel no obligation to adhere to its terms.

Non-competition clauses are trickier. Sometimes the terms are fair, but sometimes the terms are used to prevent embarrassing or potentially incriminating information about the business or corporation from coming out. Were you perhaps thinking of private confidentiality agreements?

Oaths taken in a ceremonial sense, which are also meant to be legally binding, make more sense. Swearing in of public officials, or the swearing in or affirmation-taking of witnesses, who are promising to tell the truth in court. This subjects them to charges of perjury or contempt if they do not comply.

Judging from comments made by folks in various government agencies that I have worked for and a lifetime of news stories, government agencies who are using loyalty oaths are generally looking to screen out people on the left, rather than people on the right, who also may be subversive, insurrectionist, or otherwise dangerous. Not particularly helpful. Nutcases and political criminals come in many varieties.

They also didn't help with the folks in the Bush-Cheney administration who had contempt for both the U.S. Constitution and for the history of law in our country. Anyone who works against a government, at any level in the United States, local or federal, could be subject to criminal prosecution and/or civil or criminal fines for misbehavior. This is a much more effective deterrent than the loyalty oaths which minor civil servants are required to sign. Of course, it would be helpful if both the Democrats and the Republicans were to pursue these cases in a timely and aggressive manner. Because they do not, there is much unhappiness and sometimes suspicion and distrust of government.

[quote name='JohnWho' post='980543' date='Oct 20 2008, 05:27 AM']Well, except we won't be able to hire any Liberals, so there may be a lot of them still jobless.[/quote]

Damn... is it too late to fake it?

I don't understand why not. It's not uncommon to get people to spy on their own. Why not hire liberals to spy on liberals? After all, you'll be improving their morale by confirming their favorite conspiracy theories while giving them a paycheck they actually earned.

Liberals get validated, and conservatives have fewer deadbeats on welfare and unemployment. Isn't this what he wanted?

That's how Ronald Reagan got started; he testified against ineffectual, very naive american socialists and communists who were working in the film industry (they still didn't understand, for the most part, what a monster Stalin had been, and how repressive the Soviet regime was). I believe he went to the FBI and volunteered to tell them what he knew and when he knew it.

True liberals take moral obligations very seriously; then there's that "don't snitch or rat out criminals" thing going around in some circles, that would deny folks the right to tell anything about any observed criminal activity, no matter how heinous.

Liberals are notoriously disorganized, unfortunately. And many of them agonize over the smallest moral decisions. Liberalism has its price. Remember Jimmy Carter?

The next administration seems to be an exception to that rule. They're going to use well-trained, experienced individuals to implement policies more liberal than they had implemented before.