Editing McCarthyism (section)

==Repercussions==

=== Study and reactions to Constitutional implications ===
The political divisions McCarthyism created in the United States continue to make themselves manifest, and the politics and history of anti-communism in the United States are still contentious. Portions of the massive security apparatus established during the McCarthy era still exist. [[Loyalty oath]]s are still required by the [[California Constitution]] for all officials and employees of the [[government of California]] (which is highly problematic for [[Religious Society of Friends|Quakers]] and [[Jehovah's Witness]]es whose beliefs preclude them from pledging absolute loyalty to the state).<ref>Paddock, Richard C. (May 11, 2008), [https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Loyalty-oath-poses-ethical-dilemmas-3215393.php "Loyalty oath poses ethical dilemmas"], ''San Francisco Chronicle''</ref> At the federal level, a few portions of the [[McCarran Internal Security Act]] remain in effect. However, the act's detention provision was repealed in 1971.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Izumi|first=Masumi|date=May 2005|title=Prohibiting 'American Concentration Camps'|journal=Pacific Historical Review|volume= 74|issue=2|page=166|jstor=10.1525/phr.2005.74.2.165|doi=10.1525/phr.2005.74.2.165}}</ref> The McCarran Act's Communist registration requirement was declared unconstitutional in the 1965 Supreme Court ruling in ''[[Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board]]'' as well. The McCarran Act's [[Subversive Activities Control Board]], which enforced the law's investigation requirement for persons alleged to be involved in "subversive activities", was officially abolished through Congressional legislation in 1972 as well.<ref>{{Cite web|editor-last=Kesaris|editor-first=Paul L.|title=Records of the Subversive Activities Control Board|url=http://cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/10837.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304022713/http://cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/10837.pdf|archive-date=2016-03-04|access-date=2022-02-04|publisher=[[University Publications of America]]}}</ref>

=== Historical study on anti-communism and Soviet espionage ===
McCarthyism also attracts controversy purely as a historical issue. Through declassified documents from Soviet archives and [[Venona project]] decryptions of coded Soviet messages, the Soviet Union was found to have engaged in substantial espionage activities in the United States during the 1940s. The [[Communist Party USA]] also was substantially funded and its policies controlled by the Soviet Union, and accusations existed that CPUSA members were often recruited as spies.<ref>Marshall, Joshua, [http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=exhuming_mccarthy "Exhuming McCarthy"]{{Dead link|date=October 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, ''American Prospect'' 10, no. 43 (1999).</ref><ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Storrs |first=Landon R. Y. |date=2015-07-02 |title=McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare |url=https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-6 |journal=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.6 |isbn=978-0199329175}}</ref>

[[Cold War liberal|Liberal anti-communists]] like [[Edward Shils]] and [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan|Daniel Moynihan]] had a contempt for McCarthyism. Sociologist Edward Shils criticized an excessive policy of secrecy during the Cold War, that led to the misdirection of McCarthyism, which was addressed during the 1994–1997 [[Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy|Moynihan Commission]]. As Moynihan put it, "reaction to McCarthy took the form of a modish [[Anti anti-communism|anti-anti-Communism]] that considered impolite any discussion of the very real threat Communism posed to Western values and security." After revelations of Soviet spy networks from the declassified Venona project, Moynihan wondered: "Might less secrecy have prevented the liberal overreaction to McCarthyism as well as McCarthyism itself?" He described the situation during the McCarthy era as "ignorant armies clashed by night". With McCarthy advocating an extremist view, the discussion of communist subversion was made into a civil rights issue instead of a counterintelligence one.<ref name=":7">{{cite book |last=Moynihan |first=Daniel Patrick |url=https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn |title=Secrecy: The American Experience |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0300080797 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/secrecyamericane00moyn/page/15 15–16] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In the view of some contemporary commentators, the revelations from Venona and other archives on espionage stand as at least a partial vindication of McCarthyism.<ref>[[David Aaronovitch]] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t7hhf McCarthy: There Were Reds Under the Bed] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150330094927/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t7hhf |date=March 30, 2015 }} ''[[BBC Radio 4]]'' airdate August 9, 2010</ref> Some, such as Goldberg, feel that a genuinely dangerous subversive element was in the United States, and that this danger justified extreme measures.<ref name="Goldberg">{{cite magazine |author=Goldberg, Jonah |date=February 26, 2003 |title=Two Cheers for 'McCarthyism'? |url=http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg022603.asp |magazine=National Review Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210062004/http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg022603.asp <!--Added by H3llBot--> |archive-date=December 10, 2006 |access-date=January 25, 2007}}</ref> The opposing view holds that, recent revelations notwithstanding, by the time McCarthyism began in the late 1940s, the CPUSA was an ineffectual fringe group, and the damage done to U.S. interests by Soviet spies after World War II was minimal.<ref>{{cite book |author=Theoharis, Athan |url=https://archive.org/details/chasingspieshowf00theo |title=Chasing Spies: How the FBI Failed in Counter-Intelligence But Promoted the Politics of McCarthyism in the Cold War Years |publisher=Ivan R. Dee |year=2002 |isbn=1566634202 |author-link=Athan Theoharis}}</ref> Historian Ellen Schrecker states, "''in this country,'' McCarthyism did more damage to the constitution than the American Communist Party ever did."<ref>{{cite web |author=Schrecker, Ellen |date=Winter 2000 |title=Comments on John Earl Haynes' ''The Cold War Debate Continues'' |url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/comment15.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170515134722/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/comment15.htm |archive-date=May 15, 2017 |access-date=February 27, 2009 |work=Journal of Cold War Studies |publisher=Harvard University – Faculty of Arts and Sciences}} Emphasis in original.</ref>

Historian [[John Earl Haynes]], while acknowledging that inexcusable excesses occurred during McCarthyism, argues that some contemporary historians of McCarthyism underplay the un-democratic nature of the CPUSA.<ref>{{cite web  | last = Haynes  | first = John Earl  | author-link = John Earl Haynes  | title = Reflections on Ellen Schrecker and Maurice Isserman's essay, 'The Right's Cold War Revision'  | url = http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page47.html  | access-date = September 9, 2010  | archive-date = March 15, 2015  | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150315132843/http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page47.html  | url-status = live  }}</ref> At the same time, Haynes, who studied the Venona decryptions extensively, argued that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus", thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping them.<ref>{{cite web |last=Haynes |first=John Earl |date=February 2000 |title=Exchange with Arthur Herman and Venona book talk |url=http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page58.html |access-date=July 11, 2007}}</ref> Of the 159 people who were identified on lists used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence only substantially proved that nine of them had aided Soviet espionage efforts—while several hundred Soviet spies were actually known based on Venona and other evidence, most were never named by McCarthy.<ref name="johnearlhaynes62">{{cite web |last=Haynes |first=John Earl |year=2006 |title=Senator Joseph McCarthy's Lists and Venona |url=http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page62.html |access-date=August 31, 2006}}</ref>{{sfn|Haynes|Klehr |2000}}

=== Later political usage of term ===
A number of observers have compared the oppression of liberals and leftists during the McCarthy period to 2000s-era actions against suspected terrorists, most of them Muslims. In ''The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism'', author Haynes Johnson compares the "abuses suffered by aliens thrown into high-security U.S. prisons in the wake of 9/11" to the excesses of the McCarthy era.<ref>{{cite book |author=Johnson, Haynes |url=https://archive.org/details/ageofanxietymcca00john_0 |title=The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism |publisher=Harcourt |year=2005 |isbn=0151010625 |page=[https://archive.org/details/ageofanxietymcca00john_0/page/471 471] |url-access=registration}}</ref> Similarly, [[David D. Cole]] has written that the [[USA PATRIOT Act|Patriot Act]] "in effect resurrects the philosophy of McCarthyism, simply substituting 'terrorist' for 'communist'."<ref>Cole, David, "[http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011217/cole National Security State] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070211044858/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011217/cole|date=2007-02-11}}", ''The Nation'' (December 17, 2001). See also Cole, David, "The New McCarthyism: Repeating History in the War on Terrorism", ''Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review'' 38, no. 1 (Winter 2003).</ref>

From the opposite pole, conservative writer [[Ann Coulter]] devotes much of her book ''[[Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism|Treason]]'' to drawing parallels between past opposition to McCarthy and McCarthyism and the policies and beliefs of modern-day liberals, arguing that the former hindered the anti-communist cause and the latter hindered the [[War on Terrorism]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Coulter, Ann |url=https://archive.org/details/treason00annc |title=Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism |publisher=Three Rivers Press |year=2003 |isbn=1400050324 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Other authors who have drawn on a comparison between current [[Anti-terrorism legislation#United States|anti-terrorism policies]] and McCarthyism include [[Geoffrey R. Stone]],<ref>{{cite news |author=Geoffrey R. Stone |date=October 17, 2004 |title=America's new McCarthyism |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2004/10/17/americas-new-mccarthyism/ |url-status=live |access-date=January 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104192406/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-10-17/news/0410170323_1_democratic-dominance-mccarthyism-partisan |archive-date=January 4, 2018}}</ref> [[Ted Morgan (writer)|Ted Morgan]],<ref>{{cite book |author=Morgan, Ted |title=Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America |publisher=Random House |year=2004 |isbn=081297302X |pages=597 et seq}}</ref> and [[Jonah Goldberg]].<ref name="Goldberg" />

Since the time of McCarthy, the word ''McCarthyism'' has entered American speech as a general term for a variety of practices: aggressively questioning a person's patriotism, making poorly supported accusations, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or to discredit an opponent, subverting [[civil and political rights]] in the name of national security, and the use of [[demagoguery]] are all often referred to as ''McCarthyism''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rosenthal |first=Jack |date=October 7, 1984 |title=President vs. Demagogue |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/07/books/president-vs-demagogue.html |url-status=live |access-date=December 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170904111135/http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/07/books/president-vs-demagogue.html |archive-date=September 4, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Boot |first=Max |date=April 2000 |title=Joseph McCarthy by Arthur Herman |url=http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/joseph-mccarthy-by-arthur-herman-9160 |url-status=dead |journal=Commentary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100721122049/http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/joseph-mccarthy-by-arthur-herman-9160 |archive-date=July 21, 2010 |access-date=April 11, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=What Qualifies as Demagoguery? |date=October 19, 2004 |title=What Qualifies as Demagoguery? |url=http://hnn.us/articles/7603.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130725015101/http://hnn.us/articles/7603.html |archive-date=July 25, 2013 |access-date=December 20, 2017 |publisher=History News Network}}</ref>