Below is my column in the New York Post on the unhinged response to Vice President J.D. Vance’s historic defense of free speech in Europe. The chorus of criticism from press and pundits was immediate. Literally speaking through tears, German diplomat Christoph Heusgen responded to VP Vance: “It is clear that our rules-based international order is under pressure. It is my strong belief that this more multipolar world needs to be based on a single set of norms and principles.” Indeed, it is and that is a good thing. Vance was speaking truth to transnationalists who view free speech as a threat to the “international order” that they maintain. The response from the American left was even more bizarre. Not only did CBS’s Margaret Brennan suggest that free speech caused the holocaust, but Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said that Vance, in defending free speech, used “some of the same language that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust.”
Here is the column:
On Friday, Vice President JD Vance gave a historic defense of free speech at the Munich Security Conference. In front of a clearly hostile assemblage of European diplomats, Vance confronted our allies with their systemic censorship as they demanded more support to “defend democracy.”
For the free speech community, it was akin to Ronald Reagan’s call: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Vance questioned how our allies could claim to be the bastions of freedom while denying free expression to their citizens.
He then delivered this haymaker: “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.”
Not surprisingly, the Europeans sat on their hands while glaring at Vance for calling them out for their hypocrisy. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius declared Vance’s remarks were “not acceptable.” An unnamed German official in attendance declared, “This is all so insane and worrying.”
The outrage of the Europeans was only surpassed by our own anti-free speech voices in government, the media and academia.
Commentator and CNN regular Bill Kristol called the speech “a humiliation for the US and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.”
It appears that free speech is no longer viewed as pro-democracy.
Indeed, it could be outright fascism.
In one of the most bizarre attacks, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Vance’s support for free speech given the fact that he was “standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.”
In other words, it was free speech that brought Hitler to power and caused the Holocaust.
Brennan’s statement is completely detached from history and logic.
Germans did enjoy free speech protections after World War I, though the Weimar Constitution was more limited than the First Amendment. However, one of the first things that the Nazis did in coming to power in 1933 was to crack down on free speech and criminalize dissent. Censorship is the harbinger of authoritarianism and Germany is the ultimate example of how no censorship system in history has ever succeeded in killing one idea or stopping a single movement.
Brennan could not have picked a better country to utterly destroy the point that she was trying to make in favor of limits on free speech.
Germany continued to censor and criminalize speech after World War II, targeting the neo-Nazi movement and other prohibited viewpoints.
Authorities charged citizens for everything from wine labels to ringtones with banned content. The government has sought to force figures like X owner Elon Musk to censor Americans and others to combat anything that it deems “fake news” or “disinformation.”
Of course, Germany’s massive censorship effort has done little to deter the thriving neo-Nazi movement. What it has done is chill the speech of ordinary citizens. One poll of German citizens found that only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. Only 17% felt free to express themselves on the internet.
Other nations joined in the harrumphs with equally disingenuous statements, including the United Kingdom. British diplomats expressed shock despite their systemic suppression of free speech, including arresting citizens for simply praying to themselves near abortion clinics.
The British have doubled down on censorship with sweeping new laws. Hundreds have been arrested recently for speech crimes like spreading “fake news” or disinformation that could lead to “non-trivial psychological or physical harm.”
Previously, British citizens were arrested for criticizing religious groups or opposing homosexuality or immigration. In one case, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime.
The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
In 1963, John F. Kennedy went to Germany to declare “Ich bin ein Berliner” to express solidarity with those who were fighting for the right to live and speak freely behind the Iron Curtain.
More than 60 years later, Vance returned to essentially declare “Ich bin ein Amerikanischer,” affirming our commitment to a right that not only defines the United States, but once defined Western civilization. He argued that if we are to defeat our foreign adversaries, we must first protect those rights that distinguish us from them.
The response of our press and pundits only proved Vance’s point. We have returned to the moment described by Tom Paine during our Revolution, a time that would “try men’s souls.”
Those opposing free speech today are like “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” who, Paine warned, would “shrink” from the defense of our values.
The anti-free speech movement that has swept over Europe has finally reached our shores.
Vance drew a bright line in Europe and we will all have to decide on which side to stand. Some obviously have made the decision to stand with Europe.
For the rest of us, we will stand with free speech.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
We have to understand that the leftists of the world will take up any cause that will put more of our money into their worthless pockets or that will make them feel as if they are doing something worthwhile with their inabilities. When I attended U.C. Berkeley, it was the Free Speech Movement that the leftists used to disrupt the campus. Now, it’s the “disinformation” movement that is being used to disrupt the world. Next, it will be whatever works best for gathering fools into childish tantrums.
I recall a documentary that interviewed a Holocaust survivor.
In recounting the early days of Nazism as a boy, he said that the zoo put up a new sign on the park bench that read ‘No Jews.’ His parents told him not to make a fuss about it in order to keep the peace…
Prof Turley, I had asked this question to you in the past about the need to properly define and understand the working of Free Speech. We need a crash course on Free Speech, its ramifications and its consequences. We also need a course on the impact of censorship, its objective history, its strategy agenda, its ramification and its consequences. Should mandatorily learning in Higher institutions across the world.
More broadly, such a course should include propaganda, how to recognize it and avoid being swayed by it.