Lileks on McCarthy

[cema]

I recently watched a movie by Woody Allen (The Front) on the same topic. And I was feeling uneasy about it. But despite its being part of our weekly intellectual excersices, I did not feel like thinking much about it. Lileks did, although in his case it was a play, not a movie.

Comments

Re: And your point being...

[spamsink]

1. Close to what? To your understanding of the issue? Of course not, why else would we have that conversation?
Your fascination with the way McCarthy dealt with the commies is understandable, but don't try to portray him as a genius and a savior. He was lucky that his approach worked. Good for him (and for us too, up to a few years ago); let's move on to issues at hand where no such dumb luck is possible.

2. Should it be "I don't want to try to understand what in means in context", or "I dare not think in that direction"? On the other hand, granted, discussing what the commies could have done to outwit McCarthy is not very fruitful now.

3. I'm not bragging about it, I'm merely observing that certain topics require thinking in ways uncomfortable for some.

Re: And your point being...

[arbat.livejournal.com]

1. You need to choose - you can claim that you are saying the same thing as I do, or agree that your understanding is not close to mine, but not both.

Next, I did not portray him as a genius, nor as a savior. Neither did I express any "fascination with the way McCarthy dealt with the commies" - all these are just lies that you used for some third-rate demagoguery. I just said that he was determined and persistent, and he got results. Factual statements all.

On the other hand, your claim - that McCarthy was succesful only because Communists did not try harder - is a 100% banal, trivial and thus - meaningless statement. Not very much different then saying that Bulls only win over Nicks, if Nicks play worse then Bulls. I can not understand why would you want to keep saying it - does not even sound smart.

Oh, and when someone wins by being persistent, dedicated, pushing through the obstacles - only a lazy person looking for a self-validation may call it "luck".

2. "Meaningless" means "devoid of any meaning". As in "zero bits of invormation". Like the phrase "this guy won only because the other guy was worse" - no information whatsoever.

3. No, you do not "merely observe". And it has nothing to do with "uncomfortable ways". You keep make vague meaningless statements, and then insist that only you can possibly know what it is about.

Re: And your point being...

[spamsink]

If you had been more attentive to what I've written, you'd have seen why I say that McCarthy had been lucky: because Communists, despite their alleged intent to violently overthrow the Government, had enough respect for it to agree to play by its rules. The contemporary threat carriers have no such respect.

Re: And your point being...

[arbat.livejournal.com]

"because Communists, despite their alleged intent to violently overthrow the Government, had enough respect for it to agree to play by its rules"

Not true. They were refusing the testimony not because they had some respect for law - but because they were afraid to be imprisoned for perjury. If you read the protyocols, you'd see that the questions were very precise, showing that those who asked them knew a great deal about those they questioned.

Also, you argue that communists who planned violent overthrow of the Government and spied on behalf of Stalin, - they were ok with murder and treason, but they had great respect for the law - so great, that they could not lie about their spying and planning murder... I guess, your ties with reality are as strong as they look.