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Originally Posted by Moejoe
We're all, as British or Americans on very shaky ground when it comes to the examples you're citing. We British (as a a nation state) instituted the concentration camp and were responsible for mass slaughters across several continents during our Empire. The Americans, famously, interred their Japanese-American population during WWII and lest we forget the whole genocide of the Native populace. And if we go even further we'll see that the American Nation, especially its corporations were inexorably linked with the death camps of the Nazi's (the kind of corporatism and capitalism that prompted the Cocal Cola company to invent Fanta because they couldn't make a profit from Cola in Nazi Germany).
Mcarthyism did not only 'deprive people of an income', it forced many into exile to avoid imprisonment, most famously being Ring Lardner Jr, the Screenwriter. There were plenty of imprisonments during the HUAC, only not of the highly public figures. A Witch hunt isn't really a Witch hunt if when you find the Witch you don't do anything with her now, is it?
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Which I pointed out in my quote, quite openly and explicitly. We have done bad things to our own people.
Once again, was the HUAC worse that the above mentioned items?
Once again, where are McCarthy's prisons. I can point to the "Tiger Cages" of South Vietnam after the North Vietnamese took over. They are still uncovering mass graves in Siberia from Stalin's Gulags. All of Cambodia was turn into one great re-education camp. These are things I can point to. Show me McCarthy's prisons.
All you have shown me is jailing for Contempt of Congress, going to standard prisons. Why Contempt of Congress? For refusing to testify or lying under oath. Not for taking the 5th, refusing to testify. Guess what, if you are subpoenaed, either by a court or Congress, and you refuse to testify, you go to jail - today. No matter what you are asked to testify on. That's been around since the late 1790's in the US.
You may think certain questions shouldn't be asked. Change the Constitution. I might back you.
As to exile, I guarantee you most of the people in re-education camps would have taken exile in a heartbeat....