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Fired for Speaking Truth
Townhall.com ^ | July 8, 2020 | John Stossel

Posted on 07/08/2020 4:20:33 AM PDT by Kaslin

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To: cuban leaf

Except for the fact that there WAS indeed a communist infiltration into our government from the Thirties into the early Fifties, and there is little to no institutionalized racism in our systems today.

Truth is an absolute defense, IMO.

I get the feeling you view Communists in less of a Manichean fashion than I do. I don’t condemn you for that, by the way. I wish I could swing that, but...I have never been able to do so. I just feel much more polarized on the issue of communism.

I do think a lot of the people who were communists back in the Thirties and Forties weren’t “bad people with bad ideas” as described below, I think many of them were simply people with bad ideas. I felt there were a huge number of them who didn’t have an anti-American animus towards our Republic, many were just ignorant useful idiots who didn’t understand communism.

I felt some sympathy with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall who appeared at a HUAC hearing to protest, and were openly being used as Useful Idiots and didn’t realize it. From all accounts, it was something they regretted and wished they had never done.

Even today, you still see people talking on this subject who equate HUAC and Joseph McCarthy as one and the same.

I readily admit I have never been much to stick up for communists, because personally, I view them as a threat and always have...Dan Bongino often says that we look at Leftists as people with bad ideas, and Leftists view conservatives as bad people with ideas. I have always viewed Communists and Marxists as bad people with bad ideas. I have always felt at the core, being American was completely incompatible with being a Communist and should be treated as much.

Pretty much the same way I view Marxists and now Leftists of all stripes today. Their goal is the overthrow of our government and our country

The other thing that is 100% true is when you read “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers, the politics of personal destruction practiced on him by the Left are EXACTLY the same thing they do on the Left today.

Exactly the same.

They hypothesized publicly that he had homosexual attractions to his brother who had died by a self inflicted gunshot wound, that he (Whittaker Chambers) had spent time in a mental institution...all Soviet style tactics.


21 posted on 07/08/2020 2:27:28 PM PDT by rlmorel ("Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies"- George Orwell)
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To: rlmorel

I think a lot of those people that were Communist back in the day were just useful idiots. That’s legal. Sure, there were real spies and that needed to be dealt with.

But the message I liked in the movie was that it was not helpful and downright hurtful to destroy people’s business, brand and source of income simply because of what they believe, which is what the left today is doing even worse than McCarthyism was doing.

And look at all those people in the movie that hated the “Communists” around them simply because of the narrative (false, BTW) they got off the MSM.

For me, that is the message of the movie.

It was also not lost on me that when the lead character jokingly called his daughter a “little commie” based on her answer to his question that was an answer to her question regarding “what is a communist”, she was not a communist. She was a person that wanted to help others. That is my position and I’m no communist.

IOW, he didn’t really understand what a communist was, at least in the movie. There is a difference between wanting to help others with the time and resources God gave you and wanting a form of government that pays all people regardless of their contribution to society.

I thought the movie was an indictment of modern leftist methodology which, at the MSM level, is mimicking McCarthyism at its worst.


22 posted on 07/09/2020 5:10:07 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: cuban leaf

I think we can agree that many people who belonged to the Communist Party were indeed Useful Idiots.

Joseph McCarthy did a great service to this country and should be a hero, not the perpetual and timeless dog to be kicked because it makes Leftists feel good in some way.

Senator McCarthy made being a communist in this country disreputable. He made being a Communist an odious thing in the public eye, and he was very popular with the public even into 1954 with the entire weight of the newspapers assassinating him on a daily basis.

I get angry even seeing the word McCarthyism. (not at you, I understand the context you were using it in) That is something the Left worked hard to instill, using the same methods of character assassination, innuendo, and outright lies that they use unashamedly today.

But up until McCarthy came on the scene, it was considered fairly benign, almost a rite of passage for rich kids to go to college, have their dalliances with the Communist party and its ideology, and then they grew up and moved on from it. Or at least most did.

After McCarthy, that all disappeared. He purchased us at least 20-30 years, at least into the mid to late Seventies, but all the radicals from the Vietnam Era began to cut their hair, put on suits, and become to all outward appearances, mainstream. But they still harbored their fantasies.


23 posted on 07/09/2020 8:39:31 AM PDT by rlmorel ("Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies"- George Orwell)
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To: rlmorel

We are in complete agreement.


24 posted on 07/09/2020 9:59:08 AM PDT by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: cuban leaf

I kind of thought so too, but like listening to a couple of Jews discuss a finer point of the Talmud, there may be three people discussing it and four opinions...

And an observer might think there was no agreement on anything, when they might be in full agreement on nearly everything..:)


25 posted on 07/09/2020 10:45:57 AM PDT by rlmorel ("Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies"- George Orwell)
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To: Kaslin; 100American; 3D-JOY; abner; Abundy; AGreatPer; Albion Wilde; AliVeritas; alisasny; ...

The Cancel Cult.

Oompah loompa doopity doo
They will eventually come for you too!

PING!


26 posted on 07/11/2020 9:11:07 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (The Constitution guarantees the States protection against insurrection. Act now, Mr. President!)
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To: Kaslin

This will end when the crybullies start getting disappeared. The people whose lives they ruin, by definition, have nothing to lose.


27 posted on 07/12/2020 3:46:16 AM PDT by gogeo (It isn't just time to open America up again: It's time to be America again.)
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To: rlmorel

Exactly so.


28 posted on 07/12/2020 4:02:42 AM PDT by gogeo (It isn't just time to open America up again: It's time to be America again.)
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