"Did Communism Threaten America's International Security After World War II?"

I agree more with Richard M. Fried's "no" argument. Communism's "red scares" share too many similarities with the Salem witch trials back in 1692, especially since Joseph McCarthy went severely overboard with his accusations. I do not truly believe that there were half as many Communists as he claimed there were. It is truly ridiculous how Hollywood actors, teachers, and other prestigious people were accused. They had done nothing wrong at all! In addition, Fried makes a good point when he says that Americans' first and fifth amendments were violated because they couldn't really do anything without being accused of being Communists. Many government officials were also wrongly accused. I think that McCartney was just trying to get attention, and that he went way off track when doing so. The lists that he had of supposed Communists did not even originate from a legitimate source! In conclusion, I believe that the "witch trials" of the 1950's and the McCarthyism that accompanied it posed much bigger threats to the American people than actual Communism did. A mountain was most certainly made out of a molehill.

Dropping the Atomic Bomb

Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not justified at all on our part. The main issue is that hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens were killed on impact either from the bomb or from the radiation that followed it. These were not just the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor, but rather innocent children and other innocent citizens who had done nothing to deserve their fate. I am sure that many more Americans would have spoken up about the catastrophe that we caused if they had known someone who was directly affected by it, but the sad fact is that, for many Americans, it did not affect them directly, so they kept quiet about the issue. We should have come up with some other way to punish the people who had directly attacked us, and only those people. At the time, Japan was believed to have been "leaving" the war soon anyways. America made an aggressive and ill-founded decision because the end of the war was coming shortly. In addition, the bombing made us look inhumane and uncaring. It also "singled us out" in a negative way. In conclusion, America's decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary, and it helped further portray us as a ruthless and aggressive country.