Have You No Sense of Decency? Theme of Freedom and Tyranny

The beauty of America is that we're allowed to act stupid. Want to publish a newspaper claiming that Justin Timberlake is an alien? No problem. Want to dress up like an organic cucumber to protest GMOs? Bring it on. We're also allowed to act smart, voting for the candidates of our choice or marching in the streets and occupying Wall Street if we believe we're opposing income inequality or injustice. For a country that got started with a bunch of guys dressing up like Native Americans and dumping tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxes, anything goes—as long as nobody gets hurt. Protest is one of our basic rights.

When it comes right down to it, the Red Scare was all about freedom vs. tyranny. The idea was that the West, with America as the shining city on the hill, was free. You could do what you liked for the most part, earn a living at a job of your choice, practice whatever religion you preferred, and have access to a free press and due process. Meanwhile, in the totalitarian east, you did and heard what the Communist government told you to do and wanted you to hear. Civil liberties were curtailed, the government watched every move you made, and dissenters were banished to labor camps or murdered.

The irony that, in an effort to preserve that freedom, the United States government went on a witch hunt focused on rooting out dissident political thought... well, let's just say it was pretty much lost on McCarthy. The wonderful paradox of true freedom is that it has the freedom to tolerate dissenting beliefs, even in the extreme and with weird costumes.

1. Was McCarthy's witch hunt on the side of freedom or tyranny? What side did he think he was on?
2. Was Welch truly striking a blow for freedom by defeating McCarthy? Was he also supporting orthodoxy in a different way?
3. In what ways was the United States government tyrannical in the 1950s? In what ways was it supporting freedom?

Some loss of freedom is a necessary price to pay for an otherwise free society.

McCarthyism was the epitome of tyranny.