Comparing The First Red Scare, Mccarthyism, And The War On Terror

There are no asterisks on the Bill of Rights. There are no asterisks clarifying that our rights are contingent upon the state of national security or anything else. Our rights as citizens of the United States are inalienable. Yet, the first Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the War on Terror demonstrate how easily the American government and the American people themselves will sacrifice their own civil rights and liberties for the sake of feeling secure when there is a perceived threat, and many are inclined to take advantage of the situation for their own ends.
The first red scare took place in 1919 after World War I after government officials feared a communist takeover similar to that of the Russian Revolution. This fear and the people who took

advantage of it caused the violation of American’s freedom of speech that would become a cyclical trend in American politics. Jacob Abrams, an anarchist, was found guilty of violating the Espionage and Sedition Acts, after distributing leaflets calling for Americans to strike until the United States pulled their troops out of Russia. On November 10, 1919, the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict, ruling that distributing incendiary leaflets during wartime was illegal. This is one case in which the Supreme Court defied the spirit of the Bill of Rights and put contingencies on when citizens have the right to free speech.
The Abrams case reflected American’s fear of a communist revolution which those in power used as an excuse to crush labor unions and radicals alike.

American anxiety about communist revolution, which was heightened by economic anxieties of the time. After bombs planted by communists went off in eight cities the government and business leaders used the opportunity to stir up anxieties even more. A few months later, the Palmer raids occurred. During the raids, approximately 6,000 people were taken from their homes and interrogated and nearly 600 were deported. Thankfully, public support for the raids dwindled as people recognized that the raids were violations of citizen’s civil liberties. Once American’s decided that having their civil liberties violated over a handful of communists was not worth it, the raids ended. However, the red scare did continue in other forms throughout the

1920s.
The second red scare, also known as McCarthyism, began with Cold War anticommunist sentiments, and, like the first Red Scare, ended with individuals having their individual civil liberties trampled on.

Both those on the left and on the right held strong anti-communist sentiments. Conservatives established the House Committee of Un-American Activities (HUAC) which investigated those suspected of holding communist views in Washington and in industries that shaped public opinion, like Hollywood. President Roosevelt, despite being suspected of having a communist agenda by his opponents on the right, authorized the wiretapping of those suspected of violating the Smith Act which prohibited belonging to any group that held the intention of overthrowing the US government. Although both Democrats and Republicans held anti-communist sentiments, it wasn’t long before Republicans used these programs to their advantage to try to take down the Democrats by claiming their ranks were littered with communists. They succeeded with the conviction of Alfred Hiss, a Democrat accused of espionage who was ultimately convicted of perjury because the statute of limitations for espionage was up which gave the Democrats a bad

reputation.
By the time Joseph Raymond McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, became the head of the Permanent Investigation Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, it was easy for Republicans to abuse the systems put in place. They saw McCarthy as a tool they could use to undermine the Democrats, raise suspicions of them, and win back the White House. The press assisted McCarthy and Republicans in their mission by giving his sham investigations plenty of media coverage. McCarthy knew how to stir up people’s suspicions and fear. He would make bold declarations and accusations with no regard to the truth, and people believed him because his lies were so convoluted that by the time people were able to parse out the truth McCarthy had moved on to some other bold, unfounded claim. Eventually, McCarthy’s lies and outrageous behavior would catch up to him, but it took four years of Republicans using him and the anticommunist fear he spread to their advantage before they realized that he was giving them and anticommunism a bad public image.
Nearly 50 years later the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, spread a new wave of fear through the hearts of Americans. This time our enemy was terrorists instead of communists, but, as before, the government stepped in to undermine our rights for the sake of national security. A month after the attacks President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law. The Patriot Act eased restrictions on domestic intelligence gathering and gave law enforcement agencies the ability to wiretap telephones, retrieve e-mails, and search medical, financial, and library borrowing records of anyone suspected of terrorism. Most Americans supported the act in part because of their anti-Muslim sentiments. Along with allowing the government to violate their civil liberties, some Americans’ fear of terrorists lead to an outbreak of hate crimes against Muslims. It’s difficult to say whether or not the passage of the Patriot Act foiled any terrorist plots, but in recent years the extent of domestic intelligence gathering has come to light thanks to whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, and Americans have had to reevaluate whether or not programs like the NSA ought to have the ability to collect information on United States citizens.
The first red scare, McCarthyism, and the Patriot Act were all periods of time where the government violated Americans’ civil liberties for the sake of national security, but the other thing they had in common was the fear citizens had about the perceived threat. It was only because of the fear citizens had that they allowed the government to take their rights away, and in many cases, members of the government intentionally stirred up fear to use it to their own advantage. If the rights of citizens are truly inalienable, we cannot allow fear to dictate when they should be respected.