NOTE: First off, I'd like to point out to anyone who may be reading this that Ernie.C DID NOT answer my question. Amazing! He couldn't even admit that communism is a far greater threat to American democracy than anti-communism. He dodged the question entirely, and posed another one as a straw man to throw me off his non-answer. It won't work.
I'll ask it again, bold as I can. DOES COMMUNISM OR ANTI-COMMUNISM POSE THE GREATER THREAT TO DEMOCRACY?
Now on with the show, Ernie.
You'll have to excuse me, but I don't belong to the JBS, as you seem to think that I do. I could care less about them to tell you the truth. The JBS didn't enslave or execute hundreds of millions of men, women, and children in the U.S.S.R., China, North Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Zimbabwe, Angola, Nicaragua, Ghana, and dozens of other nations. The JBS isn't devoted to taking away my 1st and 2nd-Amendment Constitutional freedoms, abolishing God from the state and stealing my personal land and private property. No, I'd say that the Birchers should be beside the point here.
What I am concerned about is the disturbing possibility that you, ernie.c, are using the Freerepublic boards to wage a one-man war against an anti-communist organization when you have so far proven unable or unwilling to acknowledge the overall legitimacy of the anti-Communist cause. What do you tink of Sen. Goldwater? Pres. Reagan? PM Thatcher?
Pouring over your last 3 pages of posting history, I have not found you EVEN ONCE citing the proven atrocities of communism or it's inherent emphasis (admitted by no less than Karl Marx himself) on the *necessity* of ideological WORLD DOMINATION to it's cause. You have not ONCE admitted the threat that the corrupt, greedy, absolutely repressive "ideology" of communism posed once, and still poses, to the basic tenets of freedom in a human society (which are, among others, at least a heavy degree of Democracy in government and Capitalism in economics).
You are chicken little preaching that "the sky is falling" over what is essentially (Yes) a well-intentioned but excessive and often inaccurate organization while missing that the ground is really falling out from under you because of the very real and inherent threat of communism, the most insidious form of government yet devised by man (okay, equal with the Nazis for brutality and injustice).
At best, You have the worst kind of tunnel vision. At worst, you are a fool. Is that perfectly clear?
Thanks for your calm, "friendly", and "rational" reply to my earlier comments.
Apparently, you have difficulty reading or understanding---so I'll spell it out for you more plainly.
(1) I DID answer your question about what constituted the greatest danger to our country. As Hoover pointed out in the comments I quoted, the Communists had not achieved success of any substance and the FBI and other security agencies were doing their job.
(2) The "straw man" in our exchange, is your attempt at forcing answers to loaded questions. As Hoover pointed out, we aren't faced with your phony "either-or" choices for an answer. According to Hoover's testimony before the Warren Commission:
"I think the extreme right is just as much a danger to the freedom of this country as the extreme left. There are groups, organizations, and individuals on the extreme right who make these very violent statements, allegations that General Eisenhower was a Communist, disparaging references to the Chief Justice...Now, I have felt and I have said publicly in speeches that they are just as much a danger at either end of the spectrum. They don't deal with facts. Anybody who will allege that General Eisenhower was a Communist agent has something wrong with him." ...
Apparently the root cause of your confusion is that you engage in lowest-common-denominator reasoning. Consequently, if someone presents evidence which is critical of ONE self-proclaimed anti-Communist organization, THEN one must be hostile to ALL anti-Communist organizations. I guess, in your scheme of things, inept and divisive anti-Communism is just as helpful as rational and effective anti-Communism.
You state that I am "unwilling to acknowledge the overall legitimacy of the anti-Communist cause." PLEASE BE SPECIFIC. When have I made such comments?
You then ask for my opinion regarding Goldwater, Reagan and Thatcher. FYI: I have favorable opinions of all 3. I voted for Reagan twice for Governor of California. I voted for him twice as President.
Incidentally, both Goldwater and Reagan repudiated the JBS as HARMFUL TO WHAT YOU TERM THE "ANTI-COMMUNIST CAUSE" More significantly, the Birch Society considers both Goldwater and Reagan as "phony" conservatives and the JBS lost numerous members because of the Society's vitrolic attacks upon them.
Finally, I think it is significant that you have not presented a single iota of evidence to dispute the accuracy of anything contained in my original message.
You also have not asked any questions pertaining to the content of my message. Apparently, you START with your conclusions and have no interest whatsoever in ANY data that contradicts what you currently believe....and, this, presumably, is what you consider an example of your "open mind".