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A view in the 1950's that could get you dismissed from a high-visibility job? How about being a communist? Have people forgotten about the McCarthy Era?

sudosysgen 6y ago
You'd probably still get dismissed from a high visibility job for being a communist, actually. IIRC in California being a communist bars you from holding office still today.
jihadjihad 6y ago
In that case there wasn't even a requirement to actually be a communist. You could be dismissed for simply being accused of being a communist.
souprock 6y ago
dismissed from a high-visibility job: agree supported by the median American in 1950's (or at least 30% of Americans): not a chance
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Ah but you see, you didn't actually have to be a communist, you just had to close enough to one. For example, Eugene Debs despite getting more electoral support than the Libertarian party ever did, was branded as a communist, and also made a political prisoner.
  - yanderekko 6y ago
    If your response to being challenged about the 1950s political climate is to raise a story about someone who died before 1930, then that says a lot...
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      It got even worse after 1950, it's just that at that point all socialist were already atomized.
      - yanderekko 6y ago
        But afaik it's simply not the case that 30% of the population was sympathetic to socialism in the 1950s. Maybe if you really tortured the term "socialism", but come on.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        30% is an arbitrary number, but even at the time where more people in the US were sympathetic to socialism and were ever sympathetic to modern libertarianism, it was violently suppressed by the state, much less "canceled". As far as how many people were sympathetic to socialism at that point, 15-20% isn't a bad estimate. But if you want something closer to 30% in the 1950s, how about just being black?
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Eugene Debs was an out and out socialist, who led the most violent strike in US history. You can make an argument that he didn't make it violent -- that was the Pinkertons -- but he didn't get tossed in jail because he ran an opposition party a la Navalny. He's not the boogyman that some would make him out to be, but he didn't pull punches, either. Got 3% of the US vote behind bars, too.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      He actually went to jail twice. The first time was for screening an anti-war movie.
tarboreus 6y ago
Were 30% of Americans Communist? The argument isn't that there wasn't anything you couldn't say, but that the window doesn't cover the full range of opinions a substantial part of the population actually holds.

sudosysgen 6y ago

You'd probably still get dismissed from a high visibility job for being a communist, actually. IIRC in California being a communist bars you from holding office still today.

jihadjihad 6y ago

In that case there wasn't even a requirement to actually be a communist. You could be dismissed for simply being accused of being a communist.

souprock 6y ago

dismissed from a high-visibility job: agree supported by the median American in 1950's (or at least 30% of Americans): not a chance

sudosysgen 6y ago
Ah but you see, you didn't actually have to be a communist, you just had to close enough to one. For example, Eugene Debs despite getting more electoral support than the Libertarian party ever did, was branded as a communist, and also made a political prisoner.
- yanderekko 6y ago
  If your response to being challenged about the 1950s political climate is to raise a story about someone who died before 1930, then that says a lot...
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    It got even worse after 1950, it's just that at that point all socialist were already atomized.
    - yanderekko 6y ago
      But afaik it's simply not the case that 30% of the population was sympathetic to socialism in the 1950s. Maybe if you really tortured the term "socialism", but come on.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        30% is an arbitrary number, but even at the time where more people in the US were sympathetic to socialism and were ever sympathetic to modern libertarianism, it was violently suppressed by the state, much less "canceled". As far as how many people were sympathetic to socialism at that point, 15-20% isn't a bad estimate. But if you want something closer to 30% in the 1950s, how about just being black?
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  Eugene Debs was an out and out socialist, who led the most violent strike in US history. You can make an argument that he didn't make it violent -- that was the Pinkertons -- but he didn't get tossed in jail because he ran an opposition party a la Navalny. He's not the boogyman that some would make him out to be, but he didn't pull punches, either. Got 3% of the US vote behind bars, too.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    He actually went to jail twice. The first time was for screening an anti-war movie.

tarboreus 6y ago

Were 30% of Americans Communist? The argument isn't that there wasn't anything you couldn't say, but that the window doesn't cover the full range of opinions a substantial part of the population actually holds.