CBS Makes It Springtime for Censors in Germany– www.newsbusters.org
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04 Culture
U.S. Vice President JD Vance stood before world leaders in a Munich, Germany speech in which he challenged Europe’s resistance to free speech. He highlighted the arrest of a British citizen for silently praying outside an abortion clinic.
Vance stated, “I can tell you plainly: There can be no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your own people. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”
JD Vance rebukes anti-free speech, anti-Christian discrimination in Munich speech – The Christian Post
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Delivering a speech in Germany, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance criticized European governments for suppressing free speech and discriminating against Christians. He urged leaders across Europe to reverse the ongoing crackdown on conservative voices and religious freedoms.
In his address at the Munich Security Conference in Munich on Friday, Vance noted that conservatives have been investigated, arrested, prosecuted or fined for protesting abortion and posting views on social media.
He also criticized attempts to exclude populist parties from political collaboration, saying they pose a threat to democracy.
Last month, the European Union introduced fresh measures to enforce the Digital Services Act, which limits American speech on social media platforms. While EU lawmakers claimed the initiative was to target “foreign interference” and “illegal content,” it raised concerns among free speech advocates in the U.S. The Act compels social media companies to remove “illegal content” or face penalties of up to 6% of their global annual turnover.
Paul Coleman, executive director of the legal advocacy group ADF International, warned at the time that a “new bipolar order of speech” was unfolding. “On the one hand, Europe is doubling down on censorship, while the U.S. is recommitting to its free speech heritage.”
“I can tell you plainly: There can be no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your own people,” Vance said in Munich. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”
In what could be seen as a symbol of the death of cancel culture, former DOGE staffer Marko Elez saw his promising career cut short because of racist tweets from the past, only to be restored by two acts that could serve to blunt the social power of “cancellation.” First, Vice President VD Vance called for Elez to be restored, then Musk vowed to bring him back.
Elon Musk shows us how to kill cancel culture once and for all– www.theblaze.com
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Elon Musk knows how to end cancel culture.
Earlier this month, a member of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team, Marko Elez, resigned after the Wall Street Journal reported that the young DOGE staffer once posted “to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.” The story primarily focused on the DOGE’s efforts and offered little evidence to support the serious accusation, giving readers only two examples.
For liberals angry over the DOGE’s mission to uncover and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, the story proved to be confirmation that Musk is operating a rogue campaign with immature and inexperienced loyalists.
A watershed moment?
What happened after Elez’s resignation may prove to be a turning point that erodes cancel culture.
It began when Vice President JD Vance spoke up.
“Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance said. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”
That prompted Musk to promise Elez’s return — for an important reason.
“He will be brought back,” Musk vowed. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
CBS News saw the anchor of its show “Face the Nation” espouse the assumption that free speech is what gave rise to Nazism. The counter is that Nazis did NOT, in fact, allow free speech, but she MIGHT BE claiming free speech BEFORE Hitler gave rise to Hitler. However, while the Weimer republic ended a lot of press censorship, they still had many anti-free-speech laws, including hate speech laws.
The host, Margaret Brennan, made this claim to Secretary of State Rubio: “Well, (Vice President Vance) was standing in (Germany) where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that.”
Nazis ‘Weaponized’ Free Speech to Conduct the Holocaust– www.breitbart.com
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Excerpt:
CBS’s “Face the Nation” anchor Margaret Brennan said Sunday on “Face the Nation” that Nazis “weaponized” free speech to conduct the Holocaust during an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what happened in Munich, Germany, at the Security Conference. Vice President Vance gave a speech, and he told U.S. allies that the threat he worries about the most is not Russia, it is not China. He called it the “threat from within,” and he lectured about what he described as censorship, mainly focusing, though, on including more views from the right. He also met with the leader of a far-right party known as the AfD, which, as you know, is under investigation and monitoring by German intelligence because of extremism. What did all of this accomplish, other than irritating our allies?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion? We are, after all, democracies. The Munich- Munich Security Conference is largely a conference of democracies in which one of the things that we cherish and value is the ability to speak freely and provide your opinions. And so, I think if anyone’s angry about his words, they don’t have to agree with him, but to be angry about it, I think actually makes his point. I thought it was actually a pretty historic speech, whether you agree with him or not. I think the valid points he’s making to Europe is, we are concerned that the true values that we share, the values that bind us together with Europe, are things like free speech and democracy and our shared history in winning two world wars and defeating Soviet communism and the like.
These are the values that we shared in common, and in that cold war we fought against things like censorship and oppression and so forth, and when you see backsliding, and you raise that, that’s a very valid concern. We can’t tell them how to run their countries. We are- he simply expressed in a speech his view of it, which a lot of people, frankly, share. And I thought he said a lot of things in that speech that needed to be said. And honestly, I don’t know why anybody would be upset about it. People are- you know, you don’t have to agree on someone’s speech. I happen to agree with a lot of what he said, but you don’t have to agree with someone’s speech to- to at least appreciate the fact they have a right to say it and that you should listen to it and see whether those criticisms are valid. I assure you, the United States has come under withering criticism on many occasions from many leaders in Europe, and we don’t go around throwing temper tantrums about it.
BRENNAN: Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that. That the censorship was specifically about the right–
RUBIO: — Well I have to disagree with you. No- I have- I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that they- they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany, they were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that’s not an accurate reflection of history. I also think it’s wrong- again, I go back to the point of his speech. The point of his speech was basically that there is an erosion in free speech and intolerance or opposing points of view within Europe, and that’s of concern because that is eroding.
That’s not an erosion of your military capabilities, that’s not an erosion of your economic standing, that’s an erosion of the actual values that bind us together in this transatlantic union that everybody talks about, and I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years, should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, insulted, or upset. And I spoke to Foreign Ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn’t like the speech or didn’t agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us. So again, at the end of the day, I think that, you know, people give all- that is a forum in which you’re supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing. That’s not always going to be the case when it’s a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these.