I understand — the communist ideological menace was a real one. But it was a menace that played to willingness to believe. I believe that when the Knights of Columbus successfully petitioned Congress to put “In God We Trust” on our money, that was poised to do more good than the HUAC activities, inasmuch as people noticed. However, the response was half hearted. America was already coming down with the disease, and that by its own free will. And that’s the dread possibility in a land where its constitution starts out “We The People.” “The People” can choose whatever they want by their own free will, and the result, if they choose something else, will be a constitutional construal that looks far from the original one.
America said it was going to trust in God. God calmly took that at face value, and when it failed to, it suffered bad consequences.
But anyhow that was then, and we are where we are. Now God continues to address the land, even through the President and Vice President now. Will America by and large say yes? The Holy Spirit is quite large enough to confirm it if it does.
The Communist ideological menace is still an ever-present threat. Unfortunately, we were started down the primrose path of Socialism in the 19th century. Some, like William Jennings Bryan, tried to marry it as a Christian Socialist agenda (which is a contradiction in terms), but those that took over the Democrat Party back in 1896, simply wanted to purge it of sensible Conservative Bourbons (the last non-leftist Democrat President was Grover Cleveland, who was reviled by the growing leftist base of the party by 1896).
Of course, that Christian bit was out the window before long. Even Bryan spent his last days here in Tennessee defending Christianity in schools as the left was looking to purge it (Scopes). He “technically” won the fight, but was a pyrrhic victory.
As for “HUAC” (itself a pejorative), I call it HCUA, it has a curious history, to be sure. It was used for a time to root out Nazis (as they were competing with the Soviets as another ultraleft totalitarian ideology). Samuel Dickstein, a leftist Congressman from NYC, was a paid Soviet agent, and was heavily involved with the committee (he ducked out on assuming full command of the chairmanship, lest someone discover the fact that he was doing the bidding of the Kremlin).
Because the Democrats were the majority for most of the period of its existence, it is singularly curious and hysterical how Republicans (and McCarthy) get the “blame” for it. Especially so when McCarthy was a Senator and not a House member (HCUA is a House Committee), and he only served in a Senate with a GOP majority from 1947-49 and 1953-54 (indeed, he was only a freshman member, right off of defeating Bob La Follette, Jr., scion of the leftist Progressive Republicans, in 1946). He wasn’t really known to the public until his February 1950 Wheeling Speech and served as a Senate Chairman for barely two years (Gov’t Operations).
From the media hysteria and the rest, you’d have thought he was Dictator of America for 20 years, sending millions to the gulags and taking their jobs. He merely aired what was already known privately, and should’ve been told to the public, that there was extensive Communist and leftist-sympathizers in government, education and entertainment institutions and other bodies. It was a slow, systematic boil of our country.
I would say for that brief, shining moment, it was a glorious time when the left had to go running like the Satanic vermin that they are, made to feel precisely the way WE have felt since the 1960s, as they have waged war against us when they were able to successfully vilify McCarthy. That evil should’ve been exposed and fully excised like a cancer. Sadly, it hasn’t been, and the forces of darkness have marched onwards with little interruption.
I’m in absolute agreement with you that we must get back to God. This Republic (not a democracy) is only meant for a moral, Godly populace. When it ceases to be, we have lost the country. We may require another revolution or civil war to restore this nation to its proper place and standing. Eternal vigilance is the only prescription for our nation. As was pointed out, we’re always only a generation away from losing it all.