Have you heard the term 'sexual McCarthyism' recently? Do American's remember where the term 'McCarthyism' came from?
Joseph R. McCarthy was born into a Wisconsin farm family Nov. 14, 1908. He received a law degree from Marquette University. Later he was elected a circuit judge. In 1942, he entered the Marine Corps. He left the Corps in 1945 with a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal with four gold stars for his service as a tail gunner and an intelligence officer. Twice elected a U.S. Senator, he was known throughout the world for his opposition to international communism.
Sen. McCarthy helped uncover a number of secret communists in the government.
Some liberals and communists in government and media took a dim view of McCarthy's 'witch hunt' and branded it as 'McCarthyism,' a term still used today to describe all that is thought to be bad in politics. McCarthy died in 1957 at age 48.
Sen. Karl Mundt said this of McCarthy: 'All of us owe Joe McCarthy a great debt of gratitude for the fact that he did help us focus, through a considerable period of time, the attention of a great many Americans, and the attention of people in many other countries of the world, to the fact that communism is here and needs to be destroyed and cannot be ignored, and that communism must be fought with different types of rules than can be used in fighting against the ordinary type of conspiracy or the ordinary type of criminal groups which seek to destroy America.'