Vance stands up for free speech against European censorship
If JD Vance’s wit and confidence could be turned into a vaccine against leftism, I’d take it every year to ward off weakness and wokeism.
Germany’s Scholz rebukes JD Vance over hate speech, far right
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivered a strong rebuke to JD Vance on Saturday, after the U.S. Vice President attacked Europe’s stance toward hate speech and the far right. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Scholz defended German political parties’ decision to not work with the far right.
Now that Kamala Harris is no longer vice president, can I say the quiet part out loud? She was embarrassing and clumsy. She made me cringe.
Watching Harris speak to a crowd or give an interview made me feel humiliation for our country. I’d think, this is our best? This is who we brought to the world stage to represent us?
After listening to Vice President JD Vance defend free speech and blast censorship last week in Europe, I don’t feel like that anymore. Vance has brought clarity, inspiration and leadership to the vice presidency, and he took it on the road to show Europeans who America is now and why we hold Western values so dear.
Vance is the kind of vice president Americans deserve.
Vance blasts European leaders for censoring free speech
At the Munich Security Conference, attended by high-ranking international leaders, the vice president blasted European leadership for favoring mass migration and government censorship. To say he was on point is an understatement. I relished every word.
“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” Vance said. “What I worry about is the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”
“For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values,” he continued. “Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.”
The vice president wasn’t shy about using a sense of humor to blast Europeans for melting down over Elon Musk’s comments about Germany’s elections when the Tesla CEO spoke of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, “I’m very excited for the AfD, I think you’re really the best hope for Germany.”
“If American democracy can survive 10 years of (climate activist) Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” Vance said.
If Vance’s wit and confidence could be turned into a vaccine against leftism, I’d take it every year to ward off weakness and wokeism.
Insulting someone can get you arrested in Germany
Vance is right to call out European governments for abandoning free speech. Europe’s move to censor political dissidents and religious people has been bone chilling.
A recent episode of “60 Minutes” showed German police raiding the home of a citizen for the crime of posting a meme online. In Germany, posting a personal insult on social media or stating something that government officials decide is a lie can lead to a fine or even arrest.
Not everyone understands the importance of free speech in America, either ‒ including, sadly, some journalists. On Sunday, in response to Vance’s speech, “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan asserted in an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the Nazis rose to power in Germany by taking advantage of the freedom of speech.
“(Vance) was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide,” Brennan said to Rubio.
To his credit, Rubio immediately corrected Brennan: “Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities.”
In fact, the Nazis murdered anyone who exercised their inalienable right to freedom of speech to criticize the regime.
Exchanges like the one between Rubio and Brennan are why we need Vance’s clarity more than ever.
Have you ever been in a toxic, dysfunctional relationship then met someone healthy and new and thought, “Wow, I didn’t realize how bad things were until now?” That is how millions of Americans feel now that Vance is representing the United States here and abroad.
Now that we’ve seen his clarity and courage so clearly, the Democratic Party looks weaker than ever. Americans deserve a vice president who is a powerful envoy − an ambassador of our ideas.
With humor…
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