# The 1950's weren't great

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1950s-werent-great/813479>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 2, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1950s-werent-great/813479 "2018-05-02T22:00:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 8

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**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2018, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1950s-werent-great/813479/141 "2018-05-23T17:06:42Z")

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> [@astorian](#):
>
> Just curious- is there ANY period of history that people are allowed to look back on fondly?

Of course! Hopefully, we all look back on our childhood fondly. It was an innocent time. Things were simpler. People looked out for you.

Just don’t go thinking that this myopic youthful view was indicative of the world at large.

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-1950s-werent-great/813479/142 "2018-05-28T03:12:37Z")

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> [@Shodan](#):
>
> Willful ignorance yourself. A communist takes over Chile, ruins the economy, shuts down the press, outlaws all other political parties, and attempts to ally itself with totalitarians. But it’s the fault of the US because it opposes the Soviet Union when it took over eastern Europe and East Germany and backed the invasion of South Korea and backed totalitarian rebellion in Cuba and attempted to subvert Greece and Turkey.

The economy was ruined by explicit U.S. interference. The efforts to cozy up to the U.S.S.R. and related nations was the result of isolation efforts engaged by the U.S. And it is not correct to say that “a communist takes over Chile.” Allende was elected and opposition parties continued to act. Allende never “shut down the press.” One paper’s owner moved to the U.S. as soon as Allende was elected, and then had the paper guarantee a loan to him that was more than the paper was worth. Banking regulators hassled that one paper over the illegal actions of the U.S. supported owner.

And none of the aggressive actions listed had anything to do with “communism” and everything to do with Stalin and his successors. The various states in the U.S. that actually outlawed belonging to a communist political party were not defending the U.S. from anything more than their own irrational beliefs.

Continuing to speak as if the U.S.S.R. was the same thing as the communist political philosophy simply promotes the old irrational fear (or reationalizes evil done by “democracies” in its name). It is very much the way that people who, instead of legitimately opposing _al Qaeda_, ISIS, and the Wahhabism of the Arabian peninsula, wave the word “Islam” to promote idiotic claims of the imposition of Sharia Law or the ludicrous fears of the coming “Eurabia” or to oppose mosques in Tennessee or preventing immigrants from those Muslim countries from whom no terrorist has ever come to the U.S.

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