USA truly was *beep* up back in the days...

We had adjustments to make in the 50's, agreed. But having done so with censuring that goof ball senator, things smoothed out and that decade and a half after WWII was the best up to now.
We were brought up short by Oswald, and those magical times ended.


Gott ist tot.
Nietzsche

"Was it really that much better than Soviet?"

Yes, with all our faults we did not kill millions of our own people or put them into gulags.

The madness of McCarthyism lasted just four years. Yes, there were other witch hunts that McCarthy had nothing to do with. Don't give him all the "credit." But, as bad as these witch hunts were, they were nothing near the repression of the Soviet Union.

Read some history.


Sam Tomaino

You can never even ask was America in the 50s much better than the Soviets: It was a free and open media that brought McCarthy down via Murrow's stance. It was a free and open Congress that brought McCarthy down via the Army's counsel, Joe Welch. It was a free and open press that brought McCarthy down via the editorials of Jack Gould and cartoons of Herb Block. While President Eisenhower may not have wanted to lower himself to McCarthy's level, thankfully others did. The Soviets had none of these basic Democratic tools.