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From: rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Criticism of America :re to critics
Message-ID: <292@noscvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Mar-86 20:04:51 EST
Article-I.D.: noscvax.292
Posted: Wed Mar 26 20:04:51 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Mar-86 09:46:14 EST
References: <1691@bbncca.ARPA> <536@whuts.UUCP> <1636@ihlpg.UUCP> <718@mtuxn.UUCP>
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 36
Summary: Blacklisting, etc.

In article <718@mtuxn.UUCP>, gdf@mtuxn.UUCP (G.FERRAIOLO) writes:
> for 'slandering the Soviet state'.  Of course, _criticising_ the US will not
> get you put in jail at all, not even for "short legally defined term".
> My understanding of the 'blacklisting' issue is that people were denied
> employment on political grounds.  This is not the same as a prison term.
> Also, can you think of any period of 'left-wing hysteria', or is it only 
> right-wingers who are subject to this form of mental disturbance?
> 

I am sure that many people were blacklisted in the 1950's; it is not a made
up story.  I consider that a very unfortunate chapter in our history.  However,
it might be well to keep some perspective on what was going on in those days.
The Soviet Union was colonizing (and in the process murdering a lot of innocent
people) many countries that just wanted to be left alone (can any of us here 
in the U.S. really understand what Poland has gone through in the past 47
years?).  Many people, well meaning I am sure, did identify themselves with the
philosophy if not the government of the Soviet Union in the 1930's and 40's.
Some of them took an awfully long time to wake up to the reality that the 
Soviety Union represented brutality and repression.  

Also, it is bad enough to be blacklisted in a given industry, but another
thing to be blacklisted in a country that has only one employer; namely the
government.  I might also mention that there has been quite a bit of what
I would call McCarthyism on the left in this country.  Do you remember the
Carter cabinet member in 1980 who almost literally called Reagen a racist?
Reagen may lack a lot of good qualities (such as seeing reality), but he
is basically a man of decent motives.  I think branding him a racist is
leftwing McCarthyism.  That is not the only example I could mention, but
I will spare you.

The issue is freedom.  It is bad when one person unjustly represses the
freedom of another.  It is wrong when a government unjustly represses the
freedom (such as freedom to breathe) of its citizens.  But, imperfect as
it is, the United States, even at its worst, stands for values far more
humane and positive than the Soviet Union.  If we cannot agree on that
point, I fear we will not do well in competition with the Soviet Union.