How the Alger Hiss Case Explains the Tea Party

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-29/how-the-alger-hiss-case-explains-the-tea-party.html

Many Americans have forgotten, or never learned about, the Alger Hiss case. One of the most dramatic trials of the 20th century, it helps explain not only the rise of McCarthyism in the early 1950s and the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, but also the contemporary roles of Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz and the Tea Party.

The Hiss case casts light on why conservatives and liberals are suspicious of each other, on their different attitudes toward elitism, on their understandings of patriotism and on the parallel universes in which they seem to live.

In his 1948 testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Whittaker Chambers, a writer and editor for Time magazine and a former Communist, identified Hiss as a Communist. Hiss adamantly denied the charge. He said he didn’t know anyone named Whittaker Chambers. Encountering his accuser in person, Hiss spoke directly to him: “May I say for the record at this point that I would like to invite Mr. Whittaker Chambers to make those same statements out of the presence of this committee without their being privileged for suit for libel?”

Chambers took Hiss’s bait. In an interview on national television, Chambers repeated his charges. In response to the libel suit, he produced stolen State Department documents and notes that seemed to establish not merely that Hiss was a Communist, but that he had spied for the Soviet Union. Hiss was convicted of perjury.

[Igel]

1. "they are puzzled, and rightly object, when they are accused of holding positions that they abhor"

"they are puzzled, and rightly object, when they are accused of holding positions that they abhor"

That's a fairly common thing when somebody outside a group tries to characterize the views and values inside a group they view as a foe.

I don't recognize my own values when somebody who doesn't like me accuses me of something. I find myself consistent; they only see what they want, and interpret it in the way that's most advantageous to their own views.

Chalk it up to pervasive ill will that only serves to promote and foster increased ill will. Partisan, but neither Xian nor progressive (if I may be allowed to let these stand in at least partial opposition).