Limitations on Freedom during the Cold War - Essay Example

July 5, Limitations on Freedom during the Cold War The Cold War, which lasted from roughly 1946 to 1991, had similaritieswith the Red Scare which happened after World War I, particularly in limiting freedoms of speech and association. This paper compares and contrasts the nature, laws, and justifications of these limitations for these two eras. It also explores the reactions of Americans in each era. The main similarities between the Cold War and the Red Scare are that they were both based on “fears” against the “leftist” other and they also led to reckless accusations and curtailment of freedoms of association and speech.

The fear of communism both stimulated the Cold War and the Red Scare. It was during the Red Scare that the federal government exercised its full power against the labor and political left-wing parties. During the Red Scare, a national anti-radical hysteria ensued, because there were fears for a Bolshevik revolution in America. This Bolshevik revolution threatened to reshape the American way of life and basic social institutions, such as home and family. From 1916 to 917, the Industrial Workers conducted several strikes, which the media portrayed as leftist and anti-democratic.

The government systematically arrested and detained people who were suspected as spies and among those affected were labor organizations, anti-war activists, members of different communist organizations, journalists and writers, African American activists, and other groups that fought for just wages, better benefits, and child labor laws. On January 2, 1920 alone, 10,000 people were arrested without warrants. The Congress, however, could not tolerate such wide-scale abuses of constitutional rights and by 1922, the Red Scare ended.

The same wide-scale arrests and imprisonments also happed during the Cold War. Even Hollywood has been affected, as its radical writers and personalities were also arrested and imprisoned. The main differences between the Cold War and Red Scare is that during the latter, the Congress did not support limitations placed on freedom, while the Congress of the Cold War times supported it, and the American public also reacted much more rapidly during the Red Scare. As mentioned, the Congress did not allow widespread arrests and detentions to continue during the Red Scare.

The people were still shaken after World War I, but they were also fearful that their civil freedoms would be indefinitely terminated by the Red Scare. The leftist organizations were also very powerful during this time and they had the numbers and influence to affect the Congress’s reaction to the Red Scare’s government tactics. During the Cold War era, the government had been much more successful in intensifying the fear against Communism. It enacted several laws that directly affected freedoms of speech and association.

The Congress enacted the 1950 Internal Security Act (McCarran Act) which mandated Communist Party members to register with the U.S. attorney general over the veto of President Harry Truman. The Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, under Senator Joseph McCarthy, harassed public personalities also during the 1950s, on the basis of their past and present behavior. During the Cold War, there was an increasing momentum coming from the Civil Rights movement. They also fought these limitations to freedoms, but the Congress during the Red Scare responded much more swiftly.

The labor movement in the Progressive age, for instance, expanded the meaning of freedom of expression by promoting freedom of the press and freedom from private forms of oppression (Jimenez 75). My assessment is that these limitations on civil liberties were never justified for both eras, because fear is not a logical rationale for curtailing freedoms. Fear only incites xenophobia instead of international communication and understanding. If there are genuine threats to national security, the Constitution and state laws are enough to pursue these threats in a systematic and lawful manner.

There is no need to use the media and create laws that incite fear against leftist organizations. Instead, the government should have followed laws in determining potential criminals, instead of cracking down on indefinite numbers of suspected individuals. Work Cited Jimenez, Jillian. Social Policy and Social Change: Toward the Creation of Social and Economic Justice. California: SAGE, 2010. Print.