There is a new film out about Ed Murrow and his dealings with Senator Macarthy. I have not seen the film, but am reasonably familiar with the history. It occurs to me that many peopleaccepted abuses of civil liberties at that time because of fear. That is, for example, they tolerated narrowing of civil liberties because they thought this might be a small price to pay to prevent the success of communism. From today's perspective -- and without watching the movie I speculate part of the message of the above cited movie -- it is unwise to sacrifice civil liberties based on fear.
It occurs to me that this can be viewed as a substantial mechanism behind gun control. In my opinion, any reasonable gun control laws -- for example, arguably prohibiting felons from purchasing firearms and ordinary citizens from owning fully automatic weapons (machine guns) -- were enacted long ago and new gun laws are just way beyond reasonable and into diminishing civil liberties territory. Fear of crime, of gang violence, of drug violence have been used to pile up more gun control laws. A lot of liberals, I'm guessing, will love the movie cited above and will take renewed inspiration to fight any infringement or rumor of infringement of our dear civil liberties . . . except for one civil liberty, the right to keep and bear arms.
I wonder if it would be possible to tie the second amendment rights cause to the civil liberties cause more closely?
All you have to do is convince liberals and ACLU that the Second Amendment is as valid as the others. There is evidence, though, that while the Dem party is still controlled by the ultra-left, that most mainstream Dems believe in RKBA and gun control has become a losing issue for the party in the public arena. Still the folks who control the Dem party and Congressional leaders are very pro-gun control. Mainstream Dems need to get control of their party.
While I'm a staunch advocate of RKBA, I see more civil liberties being eroded by fear of terrorism. Witness the Patriot Act. I was adamantly opposed to giving FBI the subpoena power they requested. Thank God, Congress throttled back Pat II a bit.
Civil liberties? Who needs them. I'm all for being safe. Search me all the time, read all my email, don't let me read books Dick Cheney doesn't like, tap my phones, track my movements, declare me an enemyand jail me without charges forever- it's all good if it keeps me safe. All this stuff is as American as apple pie, I'm sure it's what the founders envisioned.
I have read some of the McCarthy stuff and think it's overblown. I still need to reed up on the whole incident but I doubt people summarizing are being as truthful as they should. I think there were problems with our national security that did need fixing. I think the Patriot Act had a lot of good ideas on how to fix some things and did a few other things incorrectly. There were better ways to fix things.
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The right to keep and bear arms IS a civil liberty! You should always tie this in when argueing with anti-gunners.
As far as Macarthy goes, he did get overzealous, but the part of the story that gets overlooked is many of the people who appeared before his committe from the entertainment industry and government actually were documented as being CPA members or sympathizers at one time or another.Macarthy was smeared a lot more than he smeared them.
As far as Macarthy goes, he did get overzealous, but the part of the story that gets overlooked is many of the people who appeared before his committe from the entertainment industry and government actually were documented as being CPA members or sympathizers at one time or another.Macarthy was smeared a lot more than he smeared them.
I'm not aware that it's ever been illegal to be a CPA member then or now , they have rights like anyone else . McCarthy was a zealot who hurt countless people with his idiotic witch hunts .
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I'm not aware that it's ever been illegal to be a CPA member then or now , they have rights like anyone else .
Yes, they do. Amazing thing is many of the supeonaed members wouldn't admit to being a member. If you're going to be a member of a political party, admit it. I guess that's asking too much, even today. Most "Democrats" won't admit they are Socialists or Communistsat heart.
If you stop and consider the background of the people that were of voting age at the time of the McCarthy hearings you might gain a bit of insight as to their feelings at the time. Most were either WWI and WWII vets. The had lived through the 1917 era overthrow of the Czars of Russia and the implementation of Socialism/Communism in that area of the world, they knew first hand of the heavy handed means used by Stalin to implement Communism in that part of the world. They also knew first hand the result of gang warfare in Chicago and other areas by thugs with automatic weapons and the slaughter of innocents caused by that. These were men and women fresh from two world wars and the great depression and giving up the "Right" to own something they could never conceievably afford to own anyway, was a small price to pay for the "Security" it would bring them in their daily lives. McCarthys, has been proven since the fall of the U.S.S.R. to have been correct in his fears and the rights of gunowning Americans have been eroded further since the laws enacted in 1934 to control the sale of automatic weapons to gangsters. Good people do make bad mistakes, regretably, we are paying the price today. The ACLU and the ever more socialist Democratic party are but the tip of the iceberg.
Red flags should be flying everywhere when law-abiding people are asked to sacrifice even a seemingly insignificant right. The people that will actually give up their rights are not going to be the ones that were targeted by the measures in the first place. Giving power to the government seems easy at the time, but try getting it back and you'll see why giving it away was a serious matter.
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Civil liberties
