Re: Amendment to RMS/FSF GR: Option 5
On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 10:36:39PM +0200, Philip Hands wrote:
>
> You'll need to ask Craig what he actually meant by that.
>
> My assumption would be that it was an allusion to McCarthyism, and the
> associated anti-communist moral panic in the 1950s that Arthur Miller
> dramatised in The Crucible.
>
> The term's been given a recent retread as a thing that strong-man
> leaders use as a weapon against investigative journalists who are doing
> their jobs, but I doubt Craig meant that.
>
> The problem I see with his proposal is in the way it uses the term
> 'witch-hunt' as though it is an undisputed fact that such a thing is
> currently in progress.
>
> The way things normally go in a witch-hunt is that some people are
> accused of something, then those in authority coerce the accused into
> naming conspirators, and then people start inflating the charges being
> made in order to distance themselves from the accused and prove their
> own purity -- defending any of the accused just gets you added to the
> list of wrongdoers.
>
Good point. What I described is probably more like scapegoating.
Thanks for pointing out the more sensible meaning that I missed.
Regards,
-Roberto
--
Roberto C. Sánchez
Reply to: