[aeneasmackenzie]

Just say witch hunt. McCarthy was entirely correct that there were a lot of communists and communist sympathizers, so many that many of the people he thought were helping him were themselves communists or communist sympathizers. Witches on the other hand are not real.

[tomrod]

But Platonists, ironically on many levels, are also real. Sometimes complex. But never fully imaginary.

[jfactorial]

There are no Platonists, only imitations of the one true heavenly Platonist.

[bee_rider]

He missed most of the actual Soviet agents, though, right? Both seem to have mostly focused building up a lie to suppress some outside-the-norm element that the guy in charge wanted to hunt. That McCarthy also managed to have some real agents to miss is not a big difference.

[aeneasmackenzie]

So you claim it was a total coincidence he went after Soviet agents? The witch analogy here is that there are real witches but they are so powerful/well hidden witch hunters cannot find them and are diverted to patsies. This wouldn't mean witch hunting is bad, just that we needed better witch hunters.