A great point, one never hears from “Hollywood”:
… the fact that Hollywood’s belief in its own heroism derives from a moment of colossal Hollywood cowardice any obstacle. The blacklist “victims” weren’t blacklisted by the government but by the studios – Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney – the same folks who run Hollywood today.
This is the point that the liberals in Hollywood conveniently fail to ever mention. The United States government NEVER “blacklisted” ANYONE.
If somebody was advocating the violent overthrow of the US government to impose communism, I do see that as something the government should be concerned about.
I am troubled though about our government trying to figure out if a sitcom writer ever was a member of the communist party and to grill them under oath.
Should we have in the 90's, grilled every person who intellectually agreed with the militia movement? I am just wondering if the cure is greater than the disease? A limousine communist in Hollywood, who wanted the workers to unite, and was actually more of a socialist, than a hardcore commie, was probably being swept up in this. They may be wrong, wrong about politics, economics, ideology, but, so what? As long as they weren't spying for the Soviet Union, what business is it of the federal government if they wanted a Utopian world where everybody sang kumbaya while they shared all the wealth? It doesn't work that way, but I don't think it's a federal offense.
The times were different, and tough measures needed to be taken, against people who were fronting for the U.S.S.R., but I am a bit of a civil libertarian when there is no justification for abridging somebody's constitutional, and God Given right to believe something foolish.