By the time HUAC came around, actually, the reasons to take the fifth were quite well developed. Additionally he had helped someone come up with a strategy of refusing to answer questions without an appointed attorney present which had the effect of getting a lot of lawyers who weren't even necessarily civil libertarians thrust into the front lines. The result was that Canwell lost re-election. This was before HUAC even got formed.
You have a point about McCarthy but only from a different direction. McCarthy was an exponent of what was going on. He did not turn America into anything. He was just the final wave.
We do have McCarthy to thank however for the great free speech protections we enjoy in our nation. It was due to his overreaches that the court ruled that spreading the Communist ideology was protected under the 1st Amendment unless one actually went so far as to try to raise an army to violently rebel (the case was Yates v. United States).
The great irony was that whatever McCarthy's lust for power or his intentions, he succeeded in showing the court why Communists had to have civil liberties too and perhaps turned the US into something better, very much despite his best efforts.
Looks like this person made a career on defending the worst of the worst. The article - which is no wonder - tries to paint it in ligher tones by saying communists and BPP were "prosecuted for radical beliefs" - but we all know it went way, way beyond mere beliefs there. Still, of course, maintaining legal representation even to the worst of the worst is the important part of the due process, so I guess he has a place in the picture too. Though I'm not sure if we heard about a guy who defends the right of local Al Qaeda group to hold meetings in your local civic center, we'd think "he's the hero of our time", even recognizing their right for legal representation.
As for the practice of taking the Fifth, I can appreciate that people associating with organisation with official goal of overthrowing US government and which is financed and directed by Joseph Stalin would feel the need of some defensive tactics when the same government their organisation is trying to overthrow comes in and asks questions. I can also appreciate they may think it was unfair that they suffered some serious problems due to their association with the CP, but think about it - would you want a known Al Qaeda member to be in charge of the gas lines in your city, for example? Yes, he personally never did anything wrong except being publicly in support of Al Qaeda and their actions, which is not a crime, so would you be OK with him in this position or would you demand him to be replaced?
> Still, of course, maintaining legal representation even to the worst of the worst is the important part of the due process, so I guess he has a place in the picture too.
Sure, and defending such rights at the cost of one's job and even being kicked out of the ACLU when the ACLU didn't want to touch the issue requires a certain degree of courage.
> As for the practice of taking the Fifth, I can appreciate that people associating with organisation with official goal of overthrowing US government and which is financed and directed by Joseph Stalin would feel the need of some defensive tactics when the same government their organisation is trying to overthrow comes in and asks questions.
Taking the 5th started after people were prosecuted for refusing to testify before the state legislature in Washington State.
But a goal in the abstract is just a political belief. It is not until it is paired with concrete steps to make it happen that it is actionable. This is what Yates turned on, unless you think the Supreme Court in Yates got it wrong and the Smith Act never should have been castrated.
But if the Communist Party's goal in the abstract of overthrow of our government at some indefinite point in the future makes them illegal, then surely the National Rifle Association's view that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of the people to rebel violently against the government would be illegal too, is it not? There is not much difference between "things are such that at some point we will have to take over the country by violent revolution if necessary" and "this provision of the Constitution is to ensure that if and when the government overreaches, we can exercise our duty and take over the country by violent revolution if necessary." Drawing a line between the CP and the NRA is surprisingly difficult.
I want to underscore this by saying one of my most memorable conversations with John was about gun control back in the early 1990's and I thought it was interesting that he made the arguments almost exactly that the Supreme Court accepted in Heller years later.
My question to you is whether you think the Supreme Court got it wrong in Yates v. United States, when it held that arguing for actions in the abstract with no tangible steps to make it happen was fully protected under the first amendment even when it came to advocating the moral desirability of violent overthrow of the government. Maybe you think that was wrong and the NRA should tone down their rhetoric too. After all the "cold dead hands" mantra is a threat to rebel if sufficient gun control laws are enforced.
Membership in CPUSA per se is not illegal. However, membership in this organisation may very well make the member unfit for employment both in the eyes of the government and in the eyes of his peers. Membership in Stormfront or KKK today in not illegal either, but I think you'd want to know if somebody in the government was a member.
>>>> Drawing a line between the CP and the NRA is surprisingly difficult.
Not difficult at all. NRA never been controlled by a totalitarian state led by the homicidal dictator, never performed mass massacres, never advocated totalitarian restrictions of human rights, never facilitated transfer of top secret defense information to the hands of the enemy. How hard is that?
>>>> My question to you is whether you think the Supreme Court got it wrong in Yates v. United States
No, I think they were absolutely right - people have the right to proclaim any crazy stuff they want, as long as it is not organizing and facilitating actual violence, it is protected by the 1st amendment. However, that does not mean advocating these crazy things would not have consequences for those people beyond governmental prosecution (or rather absence of it) for the speech. If you are advocating crazy stuff, be prepared that people would not want to associate with you or hire you.
>>>> After all the "cold dead hands" mantra is a threat to rebel if sufficient gun control laws are enforced.
If "sufficient control laws" - i.e. laws that violate the US Constitution and human rights - are being enforced, what one has left to do? Flee, submit or fight. It has nothing to do, however, with communist actions - they weren't some Tea Party activists going too far. Only use they had for the constitution was when it protected them personally, but if they ever succeeded, all constitution right were to be abolished immediately - look at any communist state.
In fact membership in the KKK was held to be Constitutionally protected specifically because membership in the Communist Party had become protected. Remember that Brandenburg (can't prosecute for KKK membership or for shouting "Kill the niggers... we intend to do our part," quoted from majority opinion footnote 1, at a KKK rally) overturned Whitney v. California, a 1920's precedent allowing prosecution for mere Communist Party membership.
> Membership in CPUSA per se is not illegal.
Yes it was. Look at the portions of the Yates indictment from the Supreme Court's syllabus. The Smith Act prohibited among other things organizing groups which advocated overthrow of the United States government and that was essentially what Yates was charged with.
You talk about taking the 5th but keep in mind that people were being prosecuted and thrown in jail for advocating Marxist ideas. In such, taking the 5th was perfectly legitimate.
> Not difficult at all. NRA never been controlled by a totalitarian state led by the homicidal dictator, never performed mass massacres, never advocated totalitarian restrictions of human rights, never facilitated transfer of top secret defense information to the hands of the enemy. How hard is that?
I meant a line regarding Constitutional liberty. I am sorry if I was unclear. I think you agree with me on that, given that you say the Supreme Court got it right in Yates so this is probably just a miscommunication.
As far as non-criminal matters, it is worth noting that the Supreme Court struck down prosecutions for people refusing to testify before HUAC at the same time Yates was decided in Watkins v. United States, ruling that Congress's power of investigation was limited to legitimate goals of Congress (see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vo...), and overturning a misdemeanor conviction of contempt of congress for someone refusing to answer certain questions before HUAC.
> Flee, submit or fight. It has nothing to do, however, with communist actions - they weren't some Tea Party activists going too far.
My point is that where statute and Constitution are at issue the same lines would probably apply to both, and so the protections of one protect the other too.
Sounds about right.
Mussolini said: "Fascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center ... These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don't give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words"
Quoting Robert Paxton's "The Anatomy of Fascism": facism is "... a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."
McCarthy was obsessed with "The Red Menace", and was willing to abandon just about any ethical or legal constraint to both cleanse the United States, and to spread his idea of Americanism.
He enlisted industry, traditional elites, and whatever political support he could find his obsessive pursuit of cleansing the US of communism (and homosexuality).
What's especially scary is that you write off his wholesale destruction of careers and lives as an ethically justified approach to the problems of the Cold War (and his problems with homosexuality), despite the tactics baring a striking similarity to the CCCP's enforcement of party politics through social, commercial, and direct governmental intimidation.
We're lucky that McCarthy was never truly unleashed on the Red Menace; your implied support of him and his tactics is abhorrent.
>>> He enlisted industry, traditional elites, and whatever political support he could find
Unlike any politician with the cause, which never ever uses industry, elites and other political support. I didn't know we are practically surrounded with fascists - our whole government is composed of fascists, almost everybody relies to support of the industry, elites and political groups affiliated with their causes! You opened my eyes!
>>> What's especially scary is that you write off his wholesale destruction of careers
I do not "write off" anything. I explain that if the person is a voluntary member of a totalitarian organisation headed by a violent dictator Joseph Stalin, organisation which murdered millions in its home country, drowned multiple countries in blood and caused uncountable deaths and suffering all over the globe, and currently is actively engaged in both hot and covert war with the US - I can understand if some people do not want to entrust sensitive positions to the judgement of such people. Either these people are not of the sound mind, or their personal goals are not aligned, mildly speaking, with something that the rest of Americans would want to happen. If you think not wishing to associate with such people is morally reprehensible, you may want to seek friendship with some KKK or White Pride or Westboro Baptist Church members, but my ethics says these are not the people I'd like to be anywhere near them.
>>> despite the tactics baring a striking similarity to the CCCP's enforcement of party politics
Surely, that's exactly how it happened in the USSR - if somebody was found working for foreign organisation bent on overthrowing communists, he was asked nicely if it is true, and after he refused to answer the worst could happen to him was losing his job, after which he would either just find another one or live off public assistance. This system is exactly what is widely known as GULAG. True story, bro.
It's very much like the folks who insist they should never get into a relationship because they might get hurt, or never found a startup because it might fail. That's the point. We choose to live with that vulnerability because it makes the moments where it doesn't fail so much sweeter.