The EU members are responding badly to Vice President Vance’s speech in Munich, in which he attempted to call them back to a more moral, freedom-oriented ideology. They are becoming more and more authoritarian.
Free Speech Is In Retreat
On Friday at the Munich Security Conference, Vance said that he fears free speech is “in retreat” across the continent.
“To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election,” Vance said.
“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters,” he said. “There’s no room for firewalls.”
Germany Was Particularly Upset
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking a couple of hours later, said he couldn’t let the speech go without comment.
The German Defense Minister found it “unacceptable.”
“If I understood him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes,” Pistorius said. “That is unacceptable, and it is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and am currently campaigning.”
But he added that “democracy doesn’t mean that the loud minority is automatically right,” and that “democracy must be able to defend itself against the extremists who want to destroy it.”
Scholz posted on social network X to “emphatically reject” Vance’s comments.
“Out of the experiences of Nazism, the democratic parties in Germany have a joint consensus — that is the firewall against extreme right-wing parties,” he wrote.
Bavarian governor Markus Söder — a prominent figure in Germany’s center-right opposition bloc, which leads pre-election polls — told reporters that “we take every opinion seriously, but we decide ourselves with whom we form a coalition,” German news agency dpa reported.
Vance also told European leaders that “if you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.” He said no democracy could survive telling millions of voters that their concerns “are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.”
The EU is also angry with Secretary Hegseth because they were told they must pay more into NATO. They now pay only 1.6% of their GDP.
VP Vance Responded
Vice President Vance responded to their anger. “The goal wasn’t to hector European allies,” he said. “I admitted in the speech that many of these censorious impulses derive from bad American leadership, and that has now changed. See, for instance, what we’ve done with USAID.”
“I don’t think Europe is blameless. And we’re not going to change anything overnight. But reminding both our American and European friends that we have an administration biased towards open debate and expression was worth the effort,” he said.
Zelenskyy Exploits an Opportunity
President Zelenskyy is using the EU’s anger at Vice President Vance. We’re not looking for division. We’re looking for the EU to return to the sacred values of free speech, free markets, and borders. Zelensky is self-absorbed as his people are dying.
After all we have done for Europe, this is the tantrum we get from them and the likes of Zelensky. pic.twitter.com/cWjnVBiobh
— Noah Fencebutt (@Noah_Fencebutt) February 15, 2025
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This is just more leftist globalist whining.
Germany has failed again. It collapsed after WW1, after WW2, and again in recent years. These are weak people.
I don’t understand why they can’t see it. They’re convinced everyone who doesn’t agree with them is a Nazi.
This article is beyond off-base. Vance’s speech was atrocious, using doublespeak to claim the US was censored?! That is exactly what his admin is trying to do. Denying AP access because they aren’t renaming Gulf of Mexico based upon Trump’s unilateral EO. Now the House GOP is trying to impeach judges because they don’t like rulings. Cutting off the aid US provides countries. This is insanity and the US is giving up its leadership role. Now it’s trying to negotiate a deal with Russia without Europe or even Ukraine. This is amateur hour and we will all pay the price.
The speech was great and you have TDS. The only unfortunate thing is the EU has no self-awareness.
TDS is your response? LOL…enlightening
Doubling down on the comment by the author. TDS blocks a person from being able to critically think, and to discern truth in the face of nonsense. Previously no one doubted that controlling/stopping free speech was totalitarian tactic.
You all can’t see Trump’s callousness and awful decision making. You all lack the ability to see the truth. It’s amazing. Constant whataboutism where you accuse other side of doing the very thing you are doing. I hope you wake up soon.
LOL the visual matches your posts
Nonsense, the AP can cover anything they want, they just are not in the oval office or AF1. I also am not in those places. They can fly wherever Trump goes, just like OAN does.
Impeachment is a legal proceeding, it has nothing to do with censorship, it involves rulings which conflict with the Constitution.
Aid is voluntary, it has nothing to do with censorship either. Our USA is the most generous nation ever. USAID is NOT aid.
The west lost the Ukraine war. The left caused the Ukraine war, with multiple violations of neutrality agreements.
You just scored a zero.
Vance’s speech was atrocious ? why ? because he told too many truths about the European dictators?…..
Here is a small part of Vance’s speech, where he tells the world what ATROCIOUS things Europe is doing to its people…. this is NOT opinion, this fact Vance is telling them,
” ….. I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be ‘hateful content.’. Or to this very country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny’ on the internet.
I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant – and I’m quoting – a ‘free pass’ to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.
And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs.
A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Conner, a 51-year-old physiotherapist, and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.
After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of his unborn son.
He and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. Now the officers were not moved.
Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new Buffer Zones Law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution. …..”
It doesn’t come anymore concise and factual than what Vance laid-out to them. Vance also told European leaders that “if you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”
Their pretending, projecting, dictating, oppressing, and are not presiding in rational reality.
Like January 6th
The fact of the matter is we have to concern ourselves in their affairs, when their actions are effecting our well being, as in the NAZI era; they didn’t restrict their irrational dictatorial behavior to their own borders, they went for global domination, same as they’re attempting to do today. BIG RED FLAG.
And when the people that were eventually convicted of pushing Nazi propaganda/censorship, and of war crimes were asked why they did it, they said that they were just following orders, and that they thought they were doing the right thing. Not so though in an objective reality with checks and balances.