‘The Speech That Stunned Europe’
Echoing Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech that ushered in the Cold War and framed the geo-political landscape, Vice President J.D. Vance just delivered a speech in Munich, Germany that I believe will be viewed as historic.
In the speech, VP Vance robustly reinforced to that group of snobby, Leftist elites what many of us simply consider to be core national values. Specifically, Vance issued a clarion call to world leaders to end both mass illegal migration as well as the brutal political censorship that suppresses reporting on this issue and many other crucial public policy issues, which has created an ‘Iron Curtain’ barring free speech throughout Europe.
He stated, ‘if you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.” Wow, I thought. He is making the argument for America First to all the “free” nations of the world. It reminded me of President Reagan demanding that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down this wall.” It again reminded me of Winston Churchill during World War II exhorting the British people to stand firm against tyranny and the Nazi menace and to ‘never surrender.”
Unconcerned with gentle diplomacy VP Vance emphasized that suppression of, and attacks on, free speech are the biggest security threats of all. He singled out examples of censorship that included raids and arrests for so-called “hate speech” as well as broad social media restrictions generally. (Recall Elon Musk being threatened with a criminal indictment for “hate speech” simply because he allowed an address by President Trump to be viewed worldwide on his X platform).
Vance made clear that the Trump Administration will defend free speech rights and will not engage with countries that don’t support traditional democratic values. He described how national leaders are usually focused on “external threats” to the security of their countries. However, Vance contended, the greatest threat is not Russia or China but “the threat from within” represented by the abandonment of fundamental European values which are “values shared with the United States of America.”
He also conceded America’s faults saying ““… I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come, not from within Europe, but from within my own country,” targeting the censorship that took place during the Biden Administration when officials “threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation” including denials that COVID-19 came from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
Vance also underscored the sea change that has occurred with the 2024 election. “Just as the Biden Administration seemed desperate to silence people from speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite.”
Again, Wow. That is leadership!
Vance highlighted examples of political censorship “where EU-commissioned commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they judge as quote, ‘hateful content.’”
He directly called out Germany, stating German police forces raided the homes of citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments. These raids were justified, Vance stated, under the claim they were “combatting misogyny on the internet.”
Regarding Sweden, Vance described a conviction involving a Christian activist who participated in “Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder.” Vance then read the judge’s ruling which stated, “Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression, do not in fact grant a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.” If that’s so then Sweden doesn’t actually protect freedom of speech.
Vance recalled an event from two years prior where an individual was arrested for silently praying outside of an abortion clinic. “After British police spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for … he replied simply that it was on the behalf of his unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.” He was fined over 9,000 pounds, the BBC reported in 2024.
Vance asserted that “you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether that’s the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news.”
In retrospect, I’m not even sure VP Vance’s intended audience was the often weak and risk-averse world leaders in that conference room. I think it was the people of Europe he was speaking to and what a message of hope it is for them.
