Salem Witch Trails Vs Mccarthyism

How can two events that happened hundreds of years apart be strikingly similar? The themes and events of the Salem witch trails and McCarthyism era are very similar but still very different. The two events happened in the US history. The Salem witch trails happened in the year 1692 , while the McCarthyism era was going on in the 1950-60 . The events happened 258 years apart. In both the witch trails and McCarthyism the accusations where based on pointless facts. “They be telling lies about my wife” (miller214). People where lie about people that they think where different or that stood out from the normal. These pointless rumors can affect people’s life and effect people that had no actual involved in it. Some of these cases would violate the civil rights of people. “Protect themselves from violations of civil rights”(Schrecker). Often time’s people would try to protect themselves but the government did not care. The lies and accusation soon became a wide spread hysteria.
Wide spread hysteria often lead to people living in fear of everyone and ever action that doesn’t fit the.
“Mr.Chezer have a warrant down for all these people”(Miller 213). In the Salem witch trail a potion was signed to try and protect a lady but they tried to arrest every one that signed it. The main cause of all this hysteria is the people don’t learn what’s actually happening so they fear it. The fear for McCarthyism is that people where communist. This is also what happened with the Witch trails the people just became obsessed with witches. After you where accused it was hard not to get some type of punishment, just for being mentioned in the
court. The punishment was very different from McCarthyism and the Salem witch trails. “The punishment was primarily economic” ( Schrecker). In the McCarthyism era the most used punishment was being blacklisted. If a persons name got on this list it basically ruins their life. It is extremely hard to get a job that is worth anything. While in Salem the punishment that was used was that the person would be excommunicated and if they did not confess they got hung. Many innocent people died by being hung. If you confessed you would not be hung but you would still be excommunicated. Even know that the punishment where not even close to being the same the end result was the same. People would be blocked out of society and they lives for the most part where destroyed. The main difference between the two events was that McCarthyism was though the state, but the Salem witch trails went more thought the church. “I confess to god and god only has seen my name on this” (Miller 214). Many people in the 1700s thought that god was the only thing that the had to live by because the government was tied deeply into the church. This changed though the 250 years. In McCarthyism every thing was based though the government not the church. That is why the punishment is more economic then being religious There are people in the world that will use any opportunity for personal gain . “this man is killing neighbors for land”(Miller 214). The people where using the peoples fear and panic to get things that they wanted . this is one of the main problem people have with the witch trail because there are just to many thing that when put together make it seen really fake. During the McCarthy era some of the politicians where trying to use the hysteria to get rival contenders a bad name. This would cause it be to easier to win the election. There are many differences and similarities in the Salem Witch trails and McCarthyism themes and events. Both of them where based on pointless accusations, this cause wide spread hysteria. If accused the people would be punished. The state was more used in McCarthyism, while in the witch trails the church was the main source of information. Some people where using these events for their own personal gain. The Salem Witch trails and the McCarthyism era were both bad times in the US history; they both could have been prevented with some logical thinking.