I’m curious as to what it will take to stop this Witch Hunt of the 21st century. During the Salem Witch Hunts a woman only had to be accused of being a witch in order to destroy her life and those of the people she loved. Several people were tried; 19 women were hung. Most of us are familiar with the details and stories. It was a shameful time in our history. Today, we have people being falsely accused of egregious sins by the liberal left. The result is that the accused people lose their livelihoods, receive harassing texts and phone calls, and endure stress and social shaming. Thankfully we don’t hang the accused, but the loss of income, the social shaming, and the animosity from this hunt is destroying the lives of people whose only sin is to question the liberal dogma, make a bad joke, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   

In the last few weeks, as of this writing, we have seen a professional soccer player lose his job because of message his wife tweeted, a college coach forced to apologize over a shirt he wore bearing a conservative news network logo, google has de-funded conservative websites spearheaded by an effort from NBC who decided to actively attack a competitor for articles that NBC didn’t like (using the pretext of the comments section as fodder) And on and on it goes. I am reminded of the McCarthy hearings from the 1950’s when all you had to do to hurt your enemy was accuse them of being a communist. The accusation was all it took to destroy people’s lives.

I guess at this point I am curious about a few things.

1. When will we decide as a silent majority to stand up against this Witch Hunt and bullying and say “Enough!”
2. How can we, as mature adults, expect our children to understand the anti-bullying campaigns we want to encourage in our schools while as adults the behavior is actively pursued and encouraged? We have no moral ground to stand on when our children see the adults engaging in this behavior as well as promoting it. The New York Times recently wrote an article endorsing this behavior amongst teenagers under the guise that public shaming is simply holding someone accountable for perceived slights. For children, as well as adults, holding someone accountable does not necessitate bullying or destroying their livelihood. The message should be that bullying is bullying and shaming is simply a variant of the act.
3. This is just a matter of curiosity. When and how did Hollywood become so liberal? The McCarthy hearings that swept this country were against most liberal ideas and led by prominent Republicans like John Wayne. It is interesting to note that today the political ideologies have changed but the bullying from Hollywood continues.

It is my hope that someday soon we, as a society, will reach a tipping point much like we did with the McCarthy era.  We will say “Enough” and resume some semblance of sanity while assuming humility over the embarrassing behavior.  In times like this it becomes easier to see how the Salem trials and the McCarthy era evolved.  Eventually those chapters in our history ended as will this one. My hope is that it is sooner rather than later, and that when it is over most of us can claim that we did not participate, that we did not destroy peoples’ lives, threaten then with harm, or encourage the furthering of hatred.