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Comment by fuzzybeard

7 years ago

That's how we got the Salem witch trials and why mere accusations aren't usually enough.

I'm not saying it's the only evidence required but just that it counts > 0. I don't think that should be particularly controversial.

Particularly when you get many people saying the same thing independently, in a social context rather different to that of Salem in 1693.

>That's how we got the Salem witch trials and why mere accusations aren't usually enough.

That's how plenty of hard-working, innocent, Americans got blackballed and had their careers ruined by McCarthyism.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities resulted in many things, but the Hollywood Blacklist alone was something like 150 names of almost entirely innocent people. Those people couldn't get work because someone accused each of them of being communists, often with zero evidence.

  • > Those people couldn't get work

    Wasn't it revealed that most on the list continued to work in Hollywood under pseudonyms?

    I mean, certainly denying work was the intent of the list, but...