Vance in Europe

Much-needed truths for the Europeans:

US Vice President J. D. Vance just recently gave a powerful address while in Europe. It may not have been what many of these European leaders and bigwigs expected or wanted, but it sure is what they needed to hear. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference he had much to say that was of vital importance.

Among the topics covered, Vance expressed deep concern about how freedoms are being whittled away in Europe today. He noted how during the Cold War Europeans and Americans battled for democracy and liberty, but it seems now that all this is vanishing. He said:

Within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against tyrannical forces on this continent. Consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, closed churches, and canceled elections. Were they the good guys?

Certainly not. And thank God they lost the Cold War. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty—the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build. As it turns out, you can’t mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can’t force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe.

We believe those things are certainly connected. Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn 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: A Day of Action.”

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 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 Britain in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and 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 the 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 zone” 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. Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke—a one-off crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no.

This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called Safe Access Zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.

Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizen suspected guilty of thought crime. In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

Another theme he hammered away on was the need for European nations to carry their fair share of the load. America cannot keep bankrolling Europe. But more importantly, what values does Europe now stand for? He said:

Now, this is a security conference, and I’m sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defense spending over the next few years, in line with some new target. And that’s great.

Because as President Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent. We don’t think—you hear this term “burden sharing”—but we think it’s an important part of being in a shared alliance together, that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger.

But let me also ask you—how will you even begin to think through the kinds of budgeting questions if we don’t know what it is that we are defending in the first place? I’ve heard a lot already in my conversations, and I’ve had many, many great conversations with many people gathered here in this room. I’ve heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course, that’s important.

But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly, I think, to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you’re defending yourselves for. What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important? And I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people.

Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. 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 who elected me and elected President Trump.

What he said on immigration was also spot on:

Of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States—also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And, of course, it’s gotten much higher since. And we know—the situation didn’t materialize in a vacuum.

It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade. We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday, in this very city. And, of course, I can’t bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims—who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined.

Our thoughts and prayers are with them, and will remain with them. But why did this happen in the first place? It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately, too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rams a car into a crowd and shatters a community.

How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction? No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.

Vance closed his talk with these words:

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle, or you don’t. Europeans—the people—have a voice. European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future.

You can embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence, knowing that the nation stands behind each of you. And that, to me, is the great magic of democracy. It’s not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotels. It’s not even in the great institutions that we have built together as a shared society. To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice.

And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said: “Do not be afraid.” We shouldn’t be afraid of our people, even when they express views that disagree with their leadership.

European reaction

As can be expected, not everyone was thrilled with what Vance had to say. For example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuked Vance for what he said about Europe’s stance on free speech and the way it deals with those on the right, saying Vance should not tell Germany and Europe what to do.

But other Europeans were thrilled with what he had to say, including the noted Dutch Freedom fighter Eva Vlaardingerbroek. The other day I mentioned her in an article about the Afghan vehicular jihadist attack in Munich. I quoted her saying this:

“An Afghan migrant drove a car into a crowd this morning in Munich, killing a woman and injuring another 27 people. A child is fighting for its life. We’re always warning that civil war ‘is coming’, but with these migrant-on-native attacks happening on a daily basis in Europe, aren’t we already there?”

Yet we just had another Islamic terror attack, this time in Austria. Eva said this: “It happened again. This Syrian migrant stabbed a 14 y/o Austrian boy to death and injured 5 others today in Villach, Austria. He proudly smiles after the fact. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said this happens daily in Europe: A one-sided civil war is waged on us Europeans.”

And speaking directly to the Vance talk, she tweeted this: “Thank you, VP JD Vance for holding European leaders responsible and telling them how it is: ‘[The demographic change in Europe] is a result of CONSCIOUS decisions made by politicians over a single decade.’ The Great Replacement is real and its consequences are disastrous.”

She would speak for so many Europeans. They have had enough of the woke idiocy, the wide-open borders, the Islamisation of Europe, and being treated as second class citizens in their own nations. Indeed, Pamela Geller just said this about the same thing happening in Britain: “UK Muslim Attacks, Stabs Man Who Insulted Islam: Police Remand Victim, Attacker Released and Allowed to Go Home. This is Islam in the West. This is sharia law. This is the UK. Dead and gone.”

So whether it is getting Europe to carry its fair share weight and not expect America to bankroll and subsidise everything there, or reminding Europeans that there is a place for tighter borders and that European values, built on the Judeo-Christian past, as still worth defending, Vance was fully right to tell it like it is.

You can watch him give his speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCOsgfINdKg

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