Mccarthy Trials Quotes

All other trades are contained in that of war. Is that why war endures? No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not. That's your notion. The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgments ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.

Brought before HCUA, Miller was chastised for the suggestion that Congressional investigations might have something in common with witch trials; he replied, “The comparison is inevitable, sir.” Thomas was shortly afterwards thrown in jail for fraud.

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view.

Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But the trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

The irrational simply changes its look and its fashions. We may no longer have literal witch hunts, but in the twentieth century, not so very long ago, we witnessed the show trials of Stalin, the McCarthy hearings in the U.S. Senate, and the mass persecutions during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Various cults are continually being generated, including cults of personality and the fetishizing of celebrities. Technology now inspires religious fervor. People have a desperate need to believe in something and they will find it anywhere. Polls have revealed that increasing numbers of people believe in ghosts, spirits, and angels, in the twenty-first century.

Of the trials that Eisenhower encountered in politics, McCarthy’s behavior was the most difficult to abide. In his private correspondence, Eisenhower repeatedly conveyed his conviction that the way to curb a demagogue was to ignore him. And, given the separation of powers, the president had few levers to discipline a senator. He could try to rally public opinion, but an open clash would elevate McCarthy and tarnish the presidency. “I personally deal in principles, ideas and national purposes,” Ike told a supporter. “I shall not demean this office by indulging in personal Donnybrooks.

It’s my belief that the raw material of good art is human sorrow, and when that sorrow is another’s, one has the obligation to treat it with great care and dignity. But I also believe the one who is loved is placed under an obligation. To survive and bear these trials with grace and dignity. Otherwise all our enterprise is a creature of the fates and all our imagination and invention and care will not be enough to save us.

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence.

Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherit in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals that define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

IN THE LONG RUN, however, Strauss’ strategy backfired; the transcript revealed the inquisitorial character of the hearing, and the corruption of justice during the McCarthy period. Within four years, the transcript would destroy the reputation and government career of Lewis Strauss. Ironically, publicity surrounding the trial and its verdict enhanced Oppenheimer’s fame both in America and abroad. Where once he was known only as the “father of the atomic bomb,” now he had become something even more alluring—a scientist martyred, like Galileo. Outraged and shocked by the decision, 282 Los Alamos scientists signed a letter to Strauss defending Oppenheimer. Around the country, more than 1,100 scientists and academics signed another petition protesting the decision.

The Salem [witch] trials…can be seen as an example of the propensity of the American people to be convulsed by spasms of self-righteous rage against enemies, real or imaginary, of their society and way of living. Hence the parallels later drawn between Salem in 1692 and the “Red Scare” of 1919-20, Senator McCarthy’s hunt for Communists in the early 1950’s, the Watergate hysteria of 1973-74, and the Irangate hunt of the 1980s. What strikes the historian, however, is not just the intensity of the self-delusion in the summer of 1692, by no means unusual for the age, but the speed of the recovery from it in the autumn, and the anxiety of the local government and society to confess wrongdoing, to make reparation and search for the truth. That indeed is uncommon in any age. In the late 17th century it was perhaps more remarkable than the hysteria itself and a good augury for America’s future as a humane and truth-seeking commonwealth. The rule of law did indeed break down, but it was restored with promptness and penitence.

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man’s vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.

They arise quickly: “Witch-hunts seem to appear in dramatic outbursts; they are not a regular feature of social life. A community seems to suddenly find itself infested with all sorts of subversive elements which pose a threat to the collectivity as a whole. Whether one thinks of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, the Stalinist Show Trials, or the McCarthy period in the United States, the phenomenon is the same: a community becomes intensely mobilized to rid itself of internal enemies.”10 Crimes against the collective: “The various charges that appear during one of these witch-hunts involve accusations of crimes committed against the nation as a corporate whole. It is the whole of collective existence that is at stake; it is The Nation, The People, The Revolution, or The State which is being undermined and subverted.”11 Charges are often trivial or fabricated: “These crimes and deviations seem to involve the most petty and insignificant behavioral acts which are somehow understood as

The movies were just kind of figuring out how to use computers in 2003, and nobody was just kind of figuring out how to use computers harder than Michael Bay. It’s tempting to say that every frame of Bad Boys II looks like a TV commercial, but truly every frame looks like a print advertisement, like those Candies ads where Jenny McCarthy’s taking a shit, shallow and glossy and tinged acid green. There are four car chases, one of which is at least fifteen minutes long. Even the most passing transitions are giddily tasteless: the camera EXPLODES out of the speedboat’s tailpipe and ZOOMS across Biscayne Bay and WHAMS down the ventilation shaft in the backward sunglasses factory and SHOOMPS into the buttcrack of a raver’s low-rise jeans and SPROINGS across her transverse colon and SQUEAKS through her appendix and AIRHORNS out her belly button and PLOPS into the Cuban drug lord’s mojito as he shoots his favorite nephew in the head while saying, “Adios, kemosabe,” or something fucking cool like that. When faced with a choice, Bay picks “all of the above” every time. He’s like a dog in one of those obedience trials who’s like, “Obedience? I don’t know her,” and just goes buck wild on the sausages. Except instead of “obedience” it’s “having a coherent plot that holds the audience’s attention” and instead of “sausages” it’s “explosions, Ferrari chases, and how many different cool kinds of box could a gun come in.

In 1951, 20-year-old [Jim]Jones [of Jonestown massacre fame] began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis. He became flustered with harassment during the McCarthy Hearings, particularly regarding an event that he attended with his mother focusing on Paul Robeson, after which she was harassed by the FBI in front of her co-workers for attending. He also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Jones said he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.