Political Commentary

Mike Godwin, Cover Your Ears

13 Comments

Jonah makes an interesting point about conservative think thanks that I’d never considered before:

The reason many conservative academics (I obviously don’t include myself here) find their way to Washington think tanks is that they are treated with such hostility on and by college campuses. If the left hadn’t made free discourse and conservative ideas so unwelcome in higher education, we probably wouldn’t have the potent conservative think tanks we have today.

It’s actually quite similar to the way that the Nazis screwed themselves by chasing out their most brilliant physicists. It’s what “progressives” and Leftists do.

13 thoughts on “Mike Godwin, Cover Your Ears”

  2. Funny that you’d choose to highlight the Manhattan Project scientists. Yes, the Nazis screwed themselves. And after the Manhattan Project scientists helped win the war for us, some of them were blacklisted. Oppenheimer is the most famous example.

    Scientists David Bohm and Tsien Hsue-shen are even more analogous: both helped the USA win the war, and then left the country because of McCarthyism.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
    (Bohm worked alongside Oppie)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsien_Hsue-shen
    (Tsien was a bonafide rocket scientist. Fans of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010 – this the Tsien that the first ship to Europa is named for.)

    From the article on Tsien:

    The Undersecretary of the Navy at the time, Dan A. Kimball, tried to keep Qian in the U.S., commenting:

    “It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go.”

    —

    So, yes, regarding railroading, “it’s what ‘ progressives’ and Leftists do”. But it is also what Rightwingers and everyone else does too – it is a human foible.

    1. Of course there have been witch hunts. This is a human failing. But McCarthyism is pure smear. It turns out Joe was more right than even he knew.

      Now they’re trying to smear Allen West with the same brush.

      here, here, here.

    2. Yes, that whole genocide, purge thing is common on the right too. Why do leftists keep their thumb on the moral equivalence scale?

      1. Leftists keep it up because they know that the press is unwilling to actually commit journalism…

    4. If he wasn’t a communist, why’d he go to Mao’s China and help them? Even if the USA didn’t want him, he had the whole world to choose from. The most logical explanation for his going to help Mao is that the accusations were right and Kimball was wrong. Unless Kimball was at least a comsymp himself.

    5. If Bohm wasn’t a communist, why’d he invoke the fifth amendment? How could his testimony incriminate him if he had done nothing wrong?

  3. “it is a human foible.”

    Well, yes, but it isn’t like everyone does it. Only those with a will to power and a ruthless disregard for others do this. Sorry, but that is the definition of the modern left. It is an indulgence those on the right can’t afford or don’t like.

  4. Regarding Oppenheimer, it should be pointed out the the NKGB officer who ran the atomic spy project said he was a source.

  5. Many years after WW II a Japanese diplomat said that the biggest mistake Japan made during the war was that they didn’t offer refuge to Jews in Japan.
    He thought that if they did, they’d have won the war. African economies went into decline when they chased out their Asian citizens. The Arab countries suffered the same fate when they chased out the Christians and Jews.

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