While I agree with your underlying premise your examples of recent suppression of free speech by the “right” do not remotely rise to the level of what we have witnessed over the past 4 years. The whole slope is very slippery and I’m not optimistic about the future.
Even if I agreed with you, it's no longer "the past four years." It seems very obvious that there is zero moral difference between the two administrations when it comes to speech: free for me, not for you.
I expect much, much, MUCH better of my politicians in the United States. I've been disgusted by the way the progressives have handled speech policing (and have been since the 90s' political correctness). If there was any principle in the new administration's defense of free speech, they'd stop attacking it. Vance is totally right about Europe (and Canada) and its utterly bankrupt approach to free expression. The problem is that he doesn't care about the principle. He cares about his side getting to dictate its values to others, to maintain its power by restricting criticism. Because of this, Vance and the new administration get zero points for principle.
I completely agree with your view. I was so disgusted with both political parties that I opted to not vote last November. Welcome to human nature. Our motives have changed little since we emerged from caves.
I find this free speech absolutism in the face of proven malign activity by foreign adversaries to be the epitome of head-in-the-sand, whistling-past-the-graveyard "optimism." Some of the examples provided are assuredly overreach, but to deny they are being taken in a decidedly hostile and adversarial environment is specious. Yes, let's address the overreach, but not while neglecting the elephant in the corner: democracies are under attack from hostile foreign powers seeking to divide them externally and undermine them internally. This is likely attacking a cancer victim for not sitting up straight. We've tried to have private actors act as guardians, only to see them crumble in the face of diminishing clicks. Government censorship is unwelcome, but what is the alternative--pretending the attacks aren't happening? And is a government committed to the welfare of its citizens really expected to do nothing when hack cures and worse are pushed by those whose major bugaboo is the "deep state" and whose notion of freedom care nothing for responsibility to others? I'd rather see governments and private citizens seeking for a middle way rather than remove the guardrails altogether in the name of an ideal that ignores what's happening in plain sight.
The answer is in the masthead of this publication. In its very name. It's the only answer that's free from coercion. Yes, free speech cannot be absolute (e.g., free speech cannot be a defense against fraud or imminent threats). But we should get as goddamned close as we can. That means persuasion is the answer to "what do we do about the people spreading all this misinformation?"
"Yes, free speech cannot be absolute (e.g., free speech cannot be a defense against fraud or imminent threats)." My point exactly. We are the under attack in a hybrid war and we're acting as though we're making sure everyone gets a say at the PTA meeting. I'd be satisfied if we simply lived in a country where the government could admit we're under attack and the citizenry would respond accordingly, but information warfare turns our fellow citizens into enemy combatants. If Persuasion is the answer then I think those who advocate for it should step up to the plate and repeat loudly as long as necessary that this is not normal, that we are in a battle space of information, and that we need to learn how to defend ourselves--and each other. But face it, that alone won't stop the self-anointed Chatterati from playing contrarian even when people are dying. Unless I'm mistaken, Trump is still pimping invermectin. And even if you allow unvaccinated people to get sick and even die, the vaccinated are not free from harm. Some, despite vaccination, remain less immunologically robust than others. I will agree with you that persuasion is the path when I see its advocates doing all that is needed to win this fight.
Freedom of expression is not about PTA meetings. To pretend that your offhand dismissal of it is anything but a dismissal of THE core tenet of both the Unitied States Constitution *and* liberalism itself would be to, as the someone else put it, solve a headache by cutting off the head.
As for the rest, you are arguing that we're under attack, but everyone you post about is progressive red meat. I don't think the appointments Trump has made are good in most cases, but that's not an attack. That's a party that's won a majority in two branches of government getting to decide what it wants to do. That *is* the system *working* even if I don't like it. COVID was never as broadly serious as was originally claimed (it was certainly very serious to the elderly and those with high comorbidity). The vaccine was not effective enough to stop the spread of COVID19.
We don't need to start restricting core aspects of both our government and the underlying principles of liberalism because we elected someone bad. The fact that this is what Democrats' response has been in the face of MAGA for the last 10 years is a huge part of the problem.
Your misreading of my response is telling. I did not associate free speech with PTA meetings, I was saying that in the context of hybrid warfare we were treating the issue cavalierly. The rest of what you say flows from that tendentious misreading so I have little to respond to that would bear merit, except to remark that if you're referring to Anne Applebaum and David Frum as "progressive red meat" you've either not read them or you've misunderstood them. And I said nothing about restricting anything--I said that we need to take seriously the threat and not pretend that it doesn't dangerously distort the public space. If we can do that and preserve "THE core tenet of the Constitution and liberalism" I'm all for it. Ignoring the deliberate use of disinformation to undermine our democracy is not a viable option.
If your argument is that we should talk very plainly about external forces trying to influence American culture (and thus politics), hey, I'm all for it. I agree there are foreign actors polluting our discourse, but most of it is ourselves. It would help if our government talked about foreign influence openly.
It would be nice if you were more specific about what that means. You spent all your arguments talking about COVID vaccines and Elon Musk. What's the foreign element there? I mean, other than the fact that Musk is from South Africa, but I'd assume that is not what you mean. And that's what I meant about red meat: two of the bigger obsessions of progressives over the past 4 years were COVID and Musk. The rest of the country has resoundingly rejected the progressive positions on COVID because they took the wrong positions and then tried to force those positions on everyone anyway, and argued that to even question their position was not just wrong but immoral. It's actually an almost *perfect* example of how progressives lost a whole lot of the country: by, when their (poor) attemps at persuasion failed, trying to use both raw power and social / moral shaming to coerce.
I generally like Anne Applebaum, though I've lost much of my respect for the magazine she and Frum frequently write for. She's certainly always struck me as a proponent of freedom, including freedom of expression, though I haven't read much from her in the past year or so. Frum got far too never-Trumper for me (a person who despises Trump); it seemed to distort his perspective on the world.
As for PTA, you directly compared the concerns for free speech to "acting as though we're making sure everyone gets a say at the PTA meeting." I'm not really sure how else I was supposed to read that.
"It would be nice if you were more specific about what that means." I would like an acknowledgement that the West is in a hybrid war with Russia specifically and Iran, China and North Korea as well, and to inform Americans what that means and how to recognize its malign influence--even if, as you say (and I agree), it is mostly Americans spreading it and amplifying it. I brought up COVID because the misinformation in that instance was particularly dangerous, resulting in 250% more deaths in strong pro-Trump regions post-vaccine than strong pro-Dem. Your claims that the progressive approach to COVID has been resoundingly rejected by "the rest of the country"--where exactly is that? Red states? Natch. I live in upstate NY and the response is a little more nuanced. And David Frum, whom you apparently now dislike because he loathes Trump more than you do, laid out the progressive COVID overreach in great detail in the piece I mentioned. And I would hope by naming Applebaum and Frum I would make it clear I'm not captive to the progressive camp. I appreciate you're making it clearer exactly what it was I said that you disagree with, but I would appreciate it even more if you did not turn me into the progressive straw man you so conspicuously disdain.
Has persuasion worked? From David Frum in this month's Atlantic: "Ahead of COVID’s fifth anniversary, Trump, as president-elect, nominated the country’s most outspoken vaccination opponent to head the Department of Health and Human Services. He chose a proponent of the debunked and discredited vaccines-cause autism claim to lead the CDC. He named a strident critic of COVID- vaccine mandates to lead the FDA. For surgeon general, he picked a believer in ydroxychloroquine, the disproven COVID-19 remedy. His pick for director of the National Institutes of Health had advocated for letting COVID spread unchecked to encourage herd immunity. Despite having fast-tracked the development of the vaccines as president, Trump has himself trafficked in many forms of COVID-19 denial, and has expressed his own suspicions that childhood vaccination against measles and mumps is a cause of autism."
All of the above is in response to this penultimate sentence: "In the 21st century, America can still be a bulwark against authoritarianism and a model for how democracies handle disinformation, hate speech, and extremism without betraying core principles. But that requires leading by example." Great--but what example is provided by the author? How to accomplish this bulwark without committing some of the sins he finds so egregious? I'm all ears--or, in this instance, eyes.
The body of law addressing the right to free speech is voluminous and at times contradictory. The state of play at the moment is decidedly fluid. Your response is indicative of the problem--the solution isn't as simple as you think. Especially in the middle of a unique kind of war where information is weaponized.
I think the difference between Trump and liberals is that he's being specific (don't burn the American flag, don't lie about polls that are important to me, don't favorably alter my opponents interview, don't shoot me, don't have the government subscribe to news publications, etc.). In other words he's being specific about what's good for him and his supporters.
The problem with liberals and free speech is that the terms of abuse are so broad nobody knows exactly what they mean. For example, Harvey Weinstein thought he was a good feminist liberal. He was helping these women in their careers! and they were free to walk away. Or take racism, i.e., what offends black people. Are blacks offended by white people hogging all the "opportunities?" It's like all the good highways are in the US, and not Mexico! How come, gringoes?
See? All those racisms and sexisms are so vague even liberals can't figure them out. Let alone climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, haters, bigots, etc. Whereas, Trumpsters are laser-focused on what's good for them. Food for thought, eh?
Every culture has prosribed speech/behavior, what;s acceptable and what isn't. I'm critiquing the form of mofern liberalism in my comment, it's vagueness and lack of clarity.
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you properly. You're saying that it's good that we have authoritarians instead of mini-totalitarians? I assume I'm misunderstanding what you are saying. I want to have a liberal democratic republic instead. That's what our Constution and all the national values we espouse suggest.
Why does it matter how easy it is to figure out? The only thing that comes to mind is that the less easy it is to figure out, the easier it is to use for power that self-replicates. That's why totalitarians tend to use these very big ideologies. Authoritarians, on the other hand, tend to be, as you say, quite focused on thes specifics that benefit them. Hence, my question about what I'm supposed to think about the difference between them.
All of Europe's actions bring the enormous weight of government down on private individuals expressing their own political views. Trump's actions concern willful misconduct by huge news organizations. Enormous difference.
This is a poorly argued position by this author who is just trying to take the shine off the Trump administration huge success and honesty in Vance's speech, by firstly suggesting some support for Vance's speech, then offering puerile statements against actions of the Trump administration on home soil.
Some thought that this speech was absolutely superb even Churchillian in tone and import. Hell's teeth this needed saying, saying loud, and saying now. Europe is headed for a very bad & dark place. The Fascists are back again, I'm sad to say (and they are most definitely NOT 'The populists.')
"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? To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice.”
Vance went on: “Embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. They’re smart. I think this is one of the most important things I’ve learned in my brief time in politics. Contrary to what you might hear, a couple of mountains over in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don’t generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy. And it’s hardly surprising that they don’t want to be shuffled about or relentlessly ignored by their leaders. And it is the business of democracy to adjudicate these big questions at the ballot box."
From all reports it was a brilliant 'truth bomb' of a speech from an underestimated American Vice President who called out directly the weak EU and UK leaderships in office today. His timing was impeccable. Its mission has already been accomplished - promoting emergency talks and 'commitments' to increased military funding.
The demise of Europe and the UK are self inflicted. Is it too late for the EU and Britain to reverse their decline? That is the higher question of the tough but truthful message in this speech. Time will tell.
Can you name anyone who thought Vance's speech was Churchillian, rather than a clear indication of the move of the US away from democracy and towards autocracy?
I’m intensely curious to see who Vance actually is when Trump is finally out of the picture (which may require more than simply leaving office). He performs conspicuous oratorical contortion to avoid outright factual lies while still fully defending the biggest liar in American political history. That’s gotta mean something, I just don’t know exactly what.
Jacob’s post is well written and persuasive but we need to ask how we got here. Free speech is central to our political culture in a degree seen nowhere in Europe.
How did both major parties in our country, of all places, develop habits of censorship and intolerance?
Nothing this important can be traced to only one cause, but my money is on the money: the arms race in campaign fundraising that began in the 1980s and dramatically escalated after Citizens United.
Candidates self-censored to avoid alienating potential donors. One after another, social problems and policy solutions became taboo. For example, when was the last time we spoke of poverty as a problem we might address, as opposed to a natural and unchanging feature of the landscape? From censoring yourself to censoring others is only a baby step.
Long ago we stopped being elected officials’ constituents. Their donors became the constituents and we became a nuisance. We the people are a necessary evil - they still need our votes to take office but can offer us little for fear of displeasing this or that donor.
No longer striving to persuade us with ideas, they seek to manipulate us with slogans and expensive media buys. We’re a problem to be managed, and shielding us from “harmful” ideas is one of their methods.
While I agree with your underlying premise your examples of recent suppression of free speech by the “right” do not remotely rise to the level of what we have witnessed over the past 4 years. The whole slope is very slippery and I’m not optimistic about the future.
Even if I agreed with you, it's no longer "the past four years." It seems very obvious that there is zero moral difference between the two administrations when it comes to speech: free for me, not for you.
I expect much, much, MUCH better of my politicians in the United States. I've been disgusted by the way the progressives have handled speech policing (and have been since the 90s' political correctness). If there was any principle in the new administration's defense of free speech, they'd stop attacking it. Vance is totally right about Europe (and Canada) and its utterly bankrupt approach to free expression. The problem is that he doesn't care about the principle. He cares about his side getting to dictate its values to others, to maintain its power by restricting criticism. Because of this, Vance and the new administration get zero points for principle.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
I completely agree with your view. I was so disgusted with both political parties that I opted to not vote last November. Welcome to human nature. Our motives have changed little since we emerged from caves.
He is not right. Did you even read the article here?
Which "he"? Vance? Eric Decker?
I find this free speech absolutism in the face of proven malign activity by foreign adversaries to be the epitome of head-in-the-sand, whistling-past-the-graveyard "optimism." Some of the examples provided are assuredly overreach, but to deny they are being taken in a decidedly hostile and adversarial environment is specious. Yes, let's address the overreach, but not while neglecting the elephant in the corner: democracies are under attack from hostile foreign powers seeking to divide them externally and undermine them internally. This is likely attacking a cancer victim for not sitting up straight. We've tried to have private actors act as guardians, only to see them crumble in the face of diminishing clicks. Government censorship is unwelcome, but what is the alternative--pretending the attacks aren't happening? And is a government committed to the welfare of its citizens really expected to do nothing when hack cures and worse are pushed by those whose major bugaboo is the "deep state" and whose notion of freedom care nothing for responsibility to others? I'd rather see governments and private citizens seeking for a middle way rather than remove the guardrails altogether in the name of an ideal that ignores what's happening in plain sight.
The answer is in the masthead of this publication. In its very name. It's the only answer that's free from coercion. Yes, free speech cannot be absolute (e.g., free speech cannot be a defense against fraud or imminent threats). But we should get as goddamned close as we can. That means persuasion is the answer to "what do we do about the people spreading all this misinformation?"
"Yes, free speech cannot be absolute (e.g., free speech cannot be a defense against fraud or imminent threats)." My point exactly. We are the under attack in a hybrid war and we're acting as though we're making sure everyone gets a say at the PTA meeting. I'd be satisfied if we simply lived in a country where the government could admit we're under attack and the citizenry would respond accordingly, but information warfare turns our fellow citizens into enemy combatants. If Persuasion is the answer then I think those who advocate for it should step up to the plate and repeat loudly as long as necessary that this is not normal, that we are in a battle space of information, and that we need to learn how to defend ourselves--and each other. But face it, that alone won't stop the self-anointed Chatterati from playing contrarian even when people are dying. Unless I'm mistaken, Trump is still pimping invermectin. And even if you allow unvaccinated people to get sick and even die, the vaccinated are not free from harm. Some, despite vaccination, remain less immunologically robust than others. I will agree with you that persuasion is the path when I see its advocates doing all that is needed to win this fight.
Freedom of expression is not about PTA meetings. To pretend that your offhand dismissal of it is anything but a dismissal of THE core tenet of both the Unitied States Constitution *and* liberalism itself would be to, as the someone else put it, solve a headache by cutting off the head.
As for the rest, you are arguing that we're under attack, but everyone you post about is progressive red meat. I don't think the appointments Trump has made are good in most cases, but that's not an attack. That's a party that's won a majority in two branches of government getting to decide what it wants to do. That *is* the system *working* even if I don't like it. COVID was never as broadly serious as was originally claimed (it was certainly very serious to the elderly and those with high comorbidity). The vaccine was not effective enough to stop the spread of COVID19.
We don't need to start restricting core aspects of both our government and the underlying principles of liberalism because we elected someone bad. The fact that this is what Democrats' response has been in the face of MAGA for the last 10 years is a huge part of the problem.
Your misreading of my response is telling. I did not associate free speech with PTA meetings, I was saying that in the context of hybrid warfare we were treating the issue cavalierly. The rest of what you say flows from that tendentious misreading so I have little to respond to that would bear merit, except to remark that if you're referring to Anne Applebaum and David Frum as "progressive red meat" you've either not read them or you've misunderstood them. And I said nothing about restricting anything--I said that we need to take seriously the threat and not pretend that it doesn't dangerously distort the public space. If we can do that and preserve "THE core tenet of the Constitution and liberalism" I'm all for it. Ignoring the deliberate use of disinformation to undermine our democracy is not a viable option.
If your argument is that we should talk very plainly about external forces trying to influence American culture (and thus politics), hey, I'm all for it. I agree there are foreign actors polluting our discourse, but most of it is ourselves. It would help if our government talked about foreign influence openly.
It would be nice if you were more specific about what that means. You spent all your arguments talking about COVID vaccines and Elon Musk. What's the foreign element there? I mean, other than the fact that Musk is from South Africa, but I'd assume that is not what you mean. And that's what I meant about red meat: two of the bigger obsessions of progressives over the past 4 years were COVID and Musk. The rest of the country has resoundingly rejected the progressive positions on COVID because they took the wrong positions and then tried to force those positions on everyone anyway, and argued that to even question their position was not just wrong but immoral. It's actually an almost *perfect* example of how progressives lost a whole lot of the country: by, when their (poor) attemps at persuasion failed, trying to use both raw power and social / moral shaming to coerce.
I generally like Anne Applebaum, though I've lost much of my respect for the magazine she and Frum frequently write for. She's certainly always struck me as a proponent of freedom, including freedom of expression, though I haven't read much from her in the past year or so. Frum got far too never-Trumper for me (a person who despises Trump); it seemed to distort his perspective on the world.
As for PTA, you directly compared the concerns for free speech to "acting as though we're making sure everyone gets a say at the PTA meeting." I'm not really sure how else I was supposed to read that.
"It would be nice if you were more specific about what that means." I would like an acknowledgement that the West is in a hybrid war with Russia specifically and Iran, China and North Korea as well, and to inform Americans what that means and how to recognize its malign influence--even if, as you say (and I agree), it is mostly Americans spreading it and amplifying it. I brought up COVID because the misinformation in that instance was particularly dangerous, resulting in 250% more deaths in strong pro-Trump regions post-vaccine than strong pro-Dem. Your claims that the progressive approach to COVID has been resoundingly rejected by "the rest of the country"--where exactly is that? Red states? Natch. I live in upstate NY and the response is a little more nuanced. And David Frum, whom you apparently now dislike because he loathes Trump more than you do, laid out the progressive COVID overreach in great detail in the piece I mentioned. And I would hope by naming Applebaum and Frum I would make it clear I'm not captive to the progressive camp. I appreciate you're making it clearer exactly what it was I said that you disagree with, but I would appreciate it even more if you did not turn me into the progressive straw man you so conspicuously disdain.
Has persuasion worked? From David Frum in this month's Atlantic: "Ahead of COVID’s fifth anniversary, Trump, as president-elect, nominated the country’s most outspoken vaccination opponent to head the Department of Health and Human Services. He chose a proponent of the debunked and discredited vaccines-cause autism claim to lead the CDC. He named a strident critic of COVID- vaccine mandates to lead the FDA. For surgeon general, he picked a believer in ydroxychloroquine, the disproven COVID-19 remedy. His pick for director of the National Institutes of Health had advocated for letting COVID spread unchecked to encourage herd immunity. Despite having fast-tracked the development of the vaccines as president, Trump has himself trafficked in many forms of COVID-19 denial, and has expressed his own suspicions that childhood vaccination against measles and mumps is a cause of autism."
An even more compelling statement of the case is made by Anne Applebaum in the same current issue of the Atlantic: "CAN EUROPE STOP
ELON MUSK? He and other tech oligarchs are making it impossible to conduct free and fair elections anywhere."
All of the above is in response to this penultimate sentence: "In the 21st century, America can still be a bulwark against authoritarianism and a model for how democracies handle disinformation, hate speech, and extremism without betraying core principles. But that requires leading by example." Great--but what example is provided by the author? How to accomplish this bulwark without committing some of the sins he finds so egregious? I'm all ears--or, in this instance, eyes.
Simply by following the constitution
The body of law addressing the right to free speech is voluminous and at times contradictory. The state of play at the moment is decidedly fluid. Your response is indicative of the problem--the solution isn't as simple as you think. Especially in the middle of a unique kind of war where information is weaponized.
I think the difference between Trump and liberals is that he's being specific (don't burn the American flag, don't lie about polls that are important to me, don't favorably alter my opponents interview, don't shoot me, don't have the government subscribe to news publications, etc.). In other words he's being specific about what's good for him and his supporters.
The problem with liberals and free speech is that the terms of abuse are so broad nobody knows exactly what they mean. For example, Harvey Weinstein thought he was a good feminist liberal. He was helping these women in their careers! and they were free to walk away. Or take racism, i.e., what offends black people. Are blacks offended by white people hogging all the "opportunities?" It's like all the good highways are in the US, and not Mexico! How come, gringoes?
See? All those racisms and sexisms are so vague even liberals can't figure them out. Let alone climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, haters, bigots, etc. Whereas, Trumpsters are laser-focused on what's good for them. Food for thought, eh?
So basically , you are in favor of free speech but against free speech because you support Trump?
Every culture has prosribed speech/behavior, what;s acceptable and what isn't. I'm critiquing the form of mofern liberalism in my comment, it's vagueness and lack of clarity.
Is that supposed to be good? "Hey, at least we're not mini-totalitarians. We're merely authoritarians!"
Well, yes, it's good if you're a normal white guy and/or you don't hate what they built, i.e., western civ., minus modern liberalism, of course.
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you properly. You're saying that it's good that we have authoritarians instead of mini-totalitarians? I assume I'm misunderstanding what you are saying. I want to have a liberal democratic republic instead. That's what our Constution and all the national values we espouse suggest.
Biden said repeatedly that something called white supremacy was the greatest threat to the US. What does that mean?
Why does it matter how easy it is to figure out? The only thing that comes to mind is that the less easy it is to figure out, the easier it is to use for power that self-replicates. That's why totalitarians tend to use these very big ideologies. Authoritarians, on the other hand, tend to be, as you say, quite focused on thes specifics that benefit them. Hence, my question about what I'm supposed to think about the difference between them.
All of Europe's actions bring the enormous weight of government down on private individuals expressing their own political views. Trump's actions concern willful misconduct by huge news organizations. Enormous difference.
What do you mean? Trump is targeting individuals as well
Private individuals for expressing political opinions? Please cite them.
This is a poorly argued position by this author who is just trying to take the shine off the Trump administration huge success and honesty in Vance's speech, by firstly suggesting some support for Vance's speech, then offering puerile statements against actions of the Trump administration on home soil.
Some thought that this speech was absolutely superb even Churchillian in tone and import. Hell's teeth this needed saying, saying loud, and saying now. Europe is headed for a very bad & dark place. The Fascists are back again, I'm sad to say (and they are most definitely NOT 'The populists.')
"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? To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice.”
Vance went on: “Embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. They’re smart. I think this is one of the most important things I’ve learned in my brief time in politics. Contrary to what you might hear, a couple of mountains over in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don’t generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy. And it’s hardly surprising that they don’t want to be shuffled about or relentlessly ignored by their leaders. And it is the business of democracy to adjudicate these big questions at the ballot box."
From all reports it was a brilliant 'truth bomb' of a speech from an underestimated American Vice President who called out directly the weak EU and UK leaderships in office today. His timing was impeccable. Its mission has already been accomplished - promoting emergency talks and 'commitments' to increased military funding.
The demise of Europe and the UK are self inflicted. Is it too late for the EU and Britain to reverse their decline? That is the higher question of the tough but truthful message in this speech. Time will tell.
What is your problem? Are you in favor of free speech or not?
Can you name anyone who thought Vance's speech was Churchillian, rather than a clear indication of the move of the US away from democracy and towards autocracy?
I’m intensely curious to see who Vance actually is when Trump is finally out of the picture (which may require more than simply leaving office). He performs conspicuous oratorical contortion to avoid outright factual lies while still fully defending the biggest liar in American political history. That’s gotta mean something, I just don’t know exactly what.
Either spineless or opportunist. I'm hoping for the latter, though it doesn't speak very well of him, that's hardly a distinction for a politician.
Jacob’s post is well written and persuasive but we need to ask how we got here. Free speech is central to our political culture in a degree seen nowhere in Europe.
How did both major parties in our country, of all places, develop habits of censorship and intolerance?
Nothing this important can be traced to only one cause, but my money is on the money: the arms race in campaign fundraising that began in the 1980s and dramatically escalated after Citizens United.
Candidates self-censored to avoid alienating potential donors. One after another, social problems and policy solutions became taboo. For example, when was the last time we spoke of poverty as a problem we might address, as opposed to a natural and unchanging feature of the landscape? From censoring yourself to censoring others is only a baby step.
Long ago we stopped being elected officials’ constituents. Their donors became the constituents and we became a nuisance. We the people are a necessary evil - they still need our votes to take office but can offer us little for fear of displeasing this or that donor.
No longer striving to persuade us with ideas, they seek to manipulate us with slogans and expensive media buys. We’re a problem to be managed, and shielding us from “harmful” ideas is one of their methods.
www.savedemocracyinamerica.org