Have You No Sense of Decency?: Questions
Have You No Sense of Decency?: Questions
- Was it inevitable that someone was going to stand up to McCarthy eventually? If not, what would have changed?
- Were Welch's tactics acceptable? Should he have met McCarthy's demagoguery with reason rather than emotion?
- How does the transcript help illuminate the thought processes of both Welch and McCarthy? How rehearsed are they? How spontaneous? Does it matter?
- Welch's anguished "Have you no sense of decency?" strongly resonated with people at the time. What kind of reaction would it have now?
- Modern politics is often characterized as strongly partisan, but there's nothing like the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950s. Have the tactics just grown more subtle?
- Is calling McCarthy's crusade a "witch hunt" unfair? Was Communism a dangerous enough enemy to warrant that?
- What made McCarthy think he could take on the Army?
- Is McCarthy's smear against Mr. Fisher at all relevant to anything? A legitimate strike against Welch?
- How might seeing this hearing on TV affected people's perception of what went down?