US JD Vance attacks Europe over free speech and migration - Euroids are coping and seething

Updated: 5 hours ago

---

BBC | Emily Atkinson

---

Link | Archive

---

US Vice-President JD Vance has launched a scalding attack on European democracies, saying the greatest threat facing the continent was not from Russia and China, but "from within".

It had been expected that Vance would use his speech at the Munich Security Conference to address possible talks to end the war in Ukraine.

Instead, he spent the majority accusing European governments - including the UK's - of retreating from their values, and ignoring voter concerns on migration and free speech.

The address was met by silence in the hall, and later denounced by several politicians at the conference. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said it was "not acceptable".

Vance repeated the Trump administration's line that Europe must "step up in a big way to provide for its own defence".

The Ukraine war was mentioned, with Vance saying he hoped a "reasonable settlement" could be reached, after US President Donald Trump's surprise announcement earlier this week that he and Russia's Vladimir Putin had agreed to begin peace talks.

But Vance's address otherwise focused on culture-war issues and key themes of Trump's campaign for the US presidency - a departure from the usual security and defence discussions at the annual conference.

He alleged European Union "commissars" were suppressing free speech, blamed the continent for mass migration, and accused its leaders of retreating from "some of its most fundamental values".

The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, characterised Vance as "trying to pick a fight" with Europe, home to some of the US's closest allies.

• Analysis: Vance's blast on Europe ignores Ukraine and defence agenda
• A quick guide to JD Vance
• Ukraine end game: What each side wants from a peace deal

Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, told Politico Vance's remarks were "insulting" and "just empirically not true".
Vance used his 20-minute speech to single out several European nations, including the UK.

He raised a legal case in which an army veteran who silently prayed outside an abortion clinic was convicted of breaching an 150-metre safe zone around the centre.

The safe zone, introduced in October 2022, bans activity in favour or against abortion services, including protests, harassment and vigils.

But Vance argued that the "basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular" were under threat.

Vance went on to criticise the use of laws enforcing buffer zones, saying that free speech was in retreat and alleging that the Scottish government had warned people against private prayer within their own homes.

In response, the Scottish government said Vance's claim was "incorrect" and the law was "carefully drafted to capture only intentional or reckless behaviour close to a small number of premises providing abortion services".

Nine days before a tense national election in Germany, he touched on a heated debate in the country around mainstream political parties maintaining a so-called "firewall" of non-cooperation with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

In the decades since democracy was restored in Germany after the defeat of the Nazis, there has been a consensus among its main political parties not to work with far-right parties.

"Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters," Vance said. "There's no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don't."

The AfD's candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, later shared parts of his speech on X, praising it as "excellent". The two reportedly met afterwards, according to German public broadcaster ZDF.

In his own speech, Pistorius directly addressed Vance, saying: "Democracy was called into question by the US vice-president for the whole of Europe.

"He speaks of the annihilation of democracy," Pistorius continued. "And if I have understood him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes... that is not acceptable."

Vance also made reference to the presidential election in Romania, which was annulled in December after declassified documents suggested it had been targeted by Russian state interference.

Vance told the conference: "If your democracy can be destroyed with a few $100,000 of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with."

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said his country remains "a defender of the democratic values that Europe shares with the USA".

"All RO [Romanian] authorities are committed to organising free and fair elections by empowering citizens and guaranteeing the freedom to vote," he wrote on X.

Vance later met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the conference, which has otherwise mainly focussed on Russia's full-scale invasion.

Zelensky said during the meeting that more work was needed on planning to end the fighting, while Vance said the pair shared a "fruitful" conversation.

Trump had said US, Russian and Ukrainian officials would meet in Munich, but Moscow has said it is not sending a delegation to the summit.

 

[quaawaa]

Everyone should watch the whole speech, it’s really good:

Spoiler: Archive

Spoiler: Transcript

One of the things that I wanted to talk about today is, of course, our shared values. And, you know, it’s great to be back in Germany. As you heard earlier, I was here last year as United States senator. I saw Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and joked that both of us last year had different jobs than we have now. But now it’s time for all of our countries, for all of us who have been fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective peoples, to use it wisely to improve their lives.

And I want to say that I was fortunate in my time here to spend some time outside the walls of this conference over the last 24 hours, and I’ve been so impressed by the hospitality of the people even, of course, as they’re reeling from yesterday’s horrendous attack. The first time I was ever in Munich was with my wife, actually, who’s here with me today, on a personal trip. And I’ve always loved the city of Munich, and I’ve always loved its people.

I just want to say that we’re very moved, and our thoughts and prayers are with Munich and everybody affected by the evil inflicted on this beautiful community. We’re thinking about you, we’re praying for you, and we will certainly be rooting for you in the days and weeks to come.

We gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many, many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine – and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense – the threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.

I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.

Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them. Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the cold war positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled 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, 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. And we believe those things are certainly connected. And 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 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.

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 citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. Misinformation, like, for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leaked from a laboratory in China. Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth.

So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.

In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square. Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.

Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.

And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still. Which, of course, brings us back to Munich, where the organisers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations. Now, again, we don’t have to agree with everything or anything that people say. But when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.

Now, 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.

Now, this is a security conference, and I’m sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defence 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?

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’re 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. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.

Have we learned nothing that thin mandates produce unstable results? But there is so much of value that can be accomplished with the kind of democratic mandate that I think will come from being more responsive to the voices of your citizens. If you’re going to enjoy competitive economies, if you’re going to enjoy affordable energy and secure supply chains, then you need mandates to govern because you have to make difficult choices to enjoy all of these things.

And of course, we know that very well. In America, 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. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like, who gets to be a part of our shared society.

And 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. It 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, rammed a car into a crowd and shatters a community. Unity. 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. But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they are voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration. Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don’t have to agree with me.

I just think that people care about their homes. They care about their dreams. They care about their safety and their capacity to provide for themselves and their children.

And 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.

I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy. Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference. Even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential – and trust me, I say this with all humor – if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.

But what no democracy, American, German or European will survive, is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is 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.

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 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. Thank you all. Good luck to all of you. God bless you.

 

[Romeo]

Posting this thread a day late because the salt in response to this is unbelievable.



Link: https://x.com/politicsusa46/status/1890535997978402907
Archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/rmbs5



Link: https://x.com/Bbmorg/status/1890659966752563506
Archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/bgj1R



Link: https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1890443355848413398
Archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/2bmZH



Link: https://x.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1890419338861015402
Archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/X1sRT

 

[Necrosan]

Posting this thread a day late because the salt in response to this in unbelievable.

You might want to throw Ukraine under the bus while stealing there mineral deposits, BUT EUROPE WILL NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN. I know for sure that the UK will not abandon the Ukrainian people. Our aid to GDP contribution already exceeds that of the US as does Poland, Germany Finland and others.

It's this kind of lunacy that I find fascinating. The US is already negotiating with both Russia and Ukraine, unless I'm mistaken, nobody in the EU seems to give a single fuck beyond virtue signaling and is not like the US was going to ask them anyway.

They inhale their own fumes to the point where they almost make you want to see how well they'd handle the Ukraine-Russia war without the US' intervention or at least see them having to tell the people they hate so fucking much "Go die for us, retard cattle".

 

[BrownPawsTypedThis]

"The most authoritarian regime in American History " Is British. Who ruled over America with a King.

 

[Der weiße Teufel]

The salt must flow and it's delicious.

 

[ChefKiss]

Politics USA 46, a political ad account in association with "We the People" and Vote Blue, funded by the DNC, is the true voice of the british people on the street

 

[Silence of the Troons]

That's nice. He's still a closeted gay scrote though.

 

[HyperboreanRightsActivist]

Fund your own armies, defend your own borders, stop holding your citizens hostage as perpetual vassals of the American fiefdom. Europoors criticize us for having shit healthcare and education; how are we supposed to build that welfare state of our own if 13% of our budget gets siphoned away to protect every european microstate under the sun?

 

[isalaide]

Imagine taking the opinion of a couch fucker seriously.

 

[Necrosan]

That's nice. He's still a closeted gay scrote though.

Imagine taking the opinion of a couch fucker seriously.

I've read this here and there and I also believe it but I don't really have to care as long as they aren't doing anything illegal. I care more about the job they are elected to do.

Also, if the couch fucker says "stop censoring people" and the immediate response is "you can't say that" it pretty much proves the couch fucker's point.

 

[BrownPawsTypedThis]

Imagine taking the opinion of a couch fucker seriously.

What is he wrong about ?

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

What is he wrong about ?

Nothing. Euros and Europhiles seething because the US isn't jumping aboard the "let's all hate Russia" train and instead talking about how uh.....despotic their own nations are looking.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

A month ago, I would have said "JD can go fuck himself, keep your yank politics out of Europe", just like when Elon was spouting off.

But now, seeing Trump deport illegals and uncover billions in spending going to MSM and SM companies to spread lies and propaganda, I say "You go, JD". The elite in Europe are causing the European citizens all of our problems.

If it came down to supporting JD and Trump or the European Union and the unelected faggot-pushing, nigger-loving, islam-defending cunts in charge, then MAGA me up baby.

 

[Chuckwagon]

Posting this thread a day late because the salt in response to this is unbelievable.

It's this kind of lunacy that I find fascinating. The US is already negotiating with both Russia and Ukraine, unless I'm mistaken, nobody in the EU seems to give a single fuck beyond virtue signaling and is not like the US was going to ask them anyway.

They inhale their own fumes to the point where they almost make you want to see how well they'd handle the Ukraine-Russia war without the US' intervention or at least see them having to tell the people they hate so fucking much "Go die for us, retard cattle".

The sheer frothing tantrum these Europoors are pitching now that they've been faced with a dissenter they can't ignore or throw in jail for a change is comical. Maybe another Suez Crisis is well overdue, except this time the Euros are so braindead & convinced of their own superiority that they'll actually go to war with the Kremlin even if the US goes through with cutting them off for being retarded chihuahuas in human form. But even that might be a good thing in the long run, Germany got into its current state in part by getting raped to death by Russians - perhaps another round of buckbreaking at Russian hands might actually be their ticket to unclowning themselves?

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

You know, I wasn't sure about Vance at first, being married to a street shitress and all. But I'm starting to like this guy.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

Lot of Europeans were very insulted by this.
In Brussels.
The overwhelming majority of Europe knows JD was right.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

Nothing. Euros and Europhiles seething because the US isn't jumping aboard the "let's all hate Russia" train and instead talking about how uh.....despotic their own nations are looking.

The Euros and Europhiles own nations have been despotic since the late 90ies and continually gotten worse ever since then. Wasn't until Trump that a U.S. president and vice president finally started calling them out on it.

 

[Justa Grata Honoria]

The Euros and Europhiles own nations have been despotic since the late 90ies and continually gotten worse ever since then. Wasn't until Trump that a U.S. president and vice president finally started calling them out on it.

Don't know about the 90s but the past decade they definitely lost the plot. They imprisoned grandma's over not repeating the correct narrative while letting rapists roam the cities .

Either way YESSSSS KEEP ON JD JUST BEND THEN OVER THE BARREL AND TELL THEM TO POUND SAND

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

What is he wrong about ?

Well he does prostrate himself before the Hindu Heebs and dilute his bloodline.