The Trump Administration is making some fairly serious moves, and one of those moves involves pushing Europe to stand on its own two feet — for the first time in nearly a century.
Since the end of World War II, the United States has bankrolled European security. That’s because Europe destroyed itself during World War II. The United States had to prop up Europe afterward so that it didn’t become a communist-ridden hellhole.
And then Europe essentially became a sick man reliant on the ministrations of the United States and our taxpayer dollars in order to uphold itself against the Soviet Union.
Then the Soviet Union fell. And rather than Europe actually getting its act together, Europe simply continued to live on largesse from the United States. We helped prop up their security arrangements; we helped prop up NATO.
Meanwhile, they themselves got more robust in their stupidity. They decided they could play with house money — meaning, they decided they could be as Left-wing as they wanted while also knowing the United States would provide an almost endless security guarantee for them.
So, they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea. They decided to pass forms of blasphemy laws in their own country in order to facilitate their idiotic notion that a post-colonialist society ought to be invaded by many of the areas that had once been colonized. They believed they would put those policies in place without any negative side effects.
WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show
Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference, and the Europeans became enraged. In his speech, he addressed some problems in Europe involving, for example, China and Russia. But the biggest problem is that Europe has forgotten what Europe is about.
Europeans don’t like being told this. The Europeans like to believe they’re the sophisticates on the block. They like to believe they are more nuanced and knowledgeable than brash, annoying Americans.
But what Vance said was 100% true. He called out the fact that Europe decided to let terrorists into their own borders and to crack down on free speech, free market, and economics — all of their own choice. He further questioned why America should have to pay for it, precisely.
Vance stated:
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.
This should be considered alongside the speech Vance gave three days prior at the Paris AI Action Summit. In it, he chided the European Union for being so risk-averse that they were basically cracking down on their own ability to innovate in the AI space.
Dominic Green, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
Combine the two speeches and you have the classic American one-two. Economic and individual freedom support each other. Innovation, competitiveness and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech and democracy. Europe should be the natural partner of the U.S. and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment. But Europe is divorced from reality.
Green is correct. One of the seeming policies of the Trump administration is to force the Europeans to own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past. And that stupidity is very, very real.
For instance, if you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail for as long as some of the people engaged in trafficking of young white girls in Rotherham. CBS’ “60 Minutes” reported that German officials have openly acknowledged they will criminally prosecute people for insulting others in public. A German official added, “The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the internet. Because on the internet, it stays there.”
“60 Minutes” is pushing for this. How do we know? Because this is the overall view of the legacy media: Only things the legacy media like being said should actually be said.
Margaret Brennan of CBS’ News “Face the Nation” interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She chided Vance for going to Europe saying of Vance in Germany, “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.”
“I have to disagree with you,” Rubio fired back. “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 had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none.”
By the way, there was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany. The Weimar Republic had many laws on the books that restricted speech. In fact, Adolf Hitler ended up spending some time in jail, not because of his speech but because he tried to lead a revolt. And then afterward, he wasn’t allowed to speak publicly for several years. Joseph Goebbels, the publicist for Hitler, actually was forced not to speak publicly. There were numerous lawsuits against Goebbels.
In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis. In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people thought the Nazis might have something to say but were being suppressed.
There is a normal human tendency to buck against censorship by suggesting the person has something to say.
This is in accordance with the Left-wing perspective that you can shut down opinions you don’t like to magically protect yourself from the impact of those opinions.
JD Vance was saying in Europe, “Guys, you’ve given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place.”
All of this is part and parcel of a much broader attempt by the United States to force the Europeans to stand up on their own two feet. And that is most evident when it comes to Ukraine.
Ukraine is exceptionally close to the rest of Europe. Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, among others. Though Europeans have increased their defense spending, they have been hesitant to take further action. They want the United States to foot the bill.
Thus, the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, “Listen, we’re tired of footing the bill. This is on your continent. Why don’t you take a leading role here? And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending. Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously when you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security. Why is it that the United States always gets dragged into your domestic squabbles?”
Precisely. The Trump administration is not saying the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin. They are trying to cajole the Europeans to do what they’re supposed to do.
According to the Associated Press, top diplomats from Russia and the United States met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. No Ukrainian officials attended the meeting.
On the surface, the United States might appear to be leaving Ukraine out of the loop or, perhaps, making a deal to then cram down on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine.
But this is also a way of forcing the Europeans to the table. If they say, “We want to hear what the United States is saying,” and they want to come to the table, the question becomes: “What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation?”
This is one way of getting the Europeans to step up and do what they are supposed to do.
All of this makes perfect sense, to say to the Europeans: “Listen, you want to sit down at the table? You don’t get a free ride anymore.” It doesn’t get to be like the U.N., where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security.
If you want to be part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game.
We’re going to find out very quickly who’s willing to put their money where their mouth is.
[#item_full_content]
[[{“value”:”
The Trump Administration is making some fairly serious moves, and one of those moves involves pushing Europe to stand on its own two feet — for the first time in nearly a century.
Since the end of World War II, the United States has bankrolled European security. That’s because Europe destroyed itself during World War II. The United States had to prop up Europe afterward so that it didn’t become a communist-ridden hellhole.
And then Europe essentially became a sick man reliant on the ministrations of the United States and our taxpayer dollars in order to uphold itself against the Soviet Union.
Then the Soviet Union fell. And rather than Europe actually getting its act together, Europe simply continued to live on largesse from the United States. We helped prop up their security arrangements; we helped prop up NATO.
Meanwhile, they themselves got more robust in their stupidity. They decided they could play with house money — meaning, they decided they could be as Left-wing as they wanted while also knowing the United States would provide an almost endless security guarantee for them.
So, they decided open immigration from radical Islamist countries would be a great idea. They decided to pass forms of blasphemy laws in their own country in order to facilitate their idiotic notion that a post-colonialist society ought to be invaded by many of the areas that had once been colonized. They believed they would put those policies in place without any negative side effects.
WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show
Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference, and the Europeans became enraged. In his speech, he addressed some problems in Europe involving, for example, China and Russia. But the biggest problem is that Europe has forgotten what Europe is about.
Europeans don’t like being told this. The Europeans like to believe they’re the sophisticates on the block. They like to believe they are more nuanced and knowledgeable than brash, annoying Americans.
But what Vance said was 100% true. He called out the fact that Europe decided to let terrorists into their own borders and to crack down on free speech, free market, and economics — all of their own choice. He further questioned why America should have to pay for it, precisely.
Vance stated:
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.
This should be considered alongside the speech Vance gave three days prior at the Paris AI Action Summit. In it, he chided the European Union for being so risk-averse that they were basically cracking down on their own ability to innovate in the AI space.
Dominic Green, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
Combine the two speeches and you have the classic American one-two. Economic and individual freedom support each other. Innovation, competitiveness and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech and democracy. Europe should be the natural partner of the U.S. and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment. But Europe is divorced from reality.
Green is correct. One of the seeming policies of the Trump administration is to force the Europeans to own their own policies or to dissociate from their own stupidity of the past. And that stupidity is very, very real.
For instance, if you say something insulting about Islam in Britain, you might go to jail for as long as some of the people engaged in trafficking of young white girls in Rotherham. CBS’ “60 Minutes” reported that German officials have openly acknowledged they will criminally prosecute people for insulting others in public. A German official added, “The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the internet. Because on the internet, it stays there.”
“60 Minutes” is pushing for this. How do we know? Because this is the overall view of the legacy media: Only things the legacy media like being said should actually be said.
Margaret Brennan of CBS’ News “Face the Nation” interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She chided Vance for going to Europe saying of Vance in Germany, “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.”
“I have to disagree with you,” Rubio fired back. “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 had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none.”
By the way, there was not a lot of free speech prior to Nazi Germany. The Weimar Republic had many laws on the books that restricted speech. In fact, Adolf Hitler ended up spending some time in jail, not because of his speech but because he tried to lead a revolt. And then afterward, he wasn’t allowed to speak publicly for several years. Joseph Goebbels, the publicist for Hitler, actually was forced not to speak publicly. There were numerous lawsuits against Goebbels.
In fact, hate speech laws in Weimar Germany did not prevent the rise of the Nazis. In many ways, they actually facilitated the rise of the Nazis because people thought the Nazis might have something to say but were being suppressed.
There is a normal human tendency to buck against censorship by suggesting the person has something to say.
This is in accordance with the Left-wing perspective that you can shut down opinions you don’t like to magically protect yourself from the impact of those opinions.
JD Vance was saying in Europe, “Guys, you’ve given up the thing that made you Europe in the first place.”
All of this is part and parcel of a much broader attempt by the United States to force the Europeans to stand up on their own two feet. And that is most evident when it comes to Ukraine.
Ukraine is exceptionally close to the rest of Europe. Ukraine borders a number of European countries, including Hungary, Poland, and Romania, among others. Though Europeans have increased their defense spending, they have been hesitant to take further action. They want the United States to foot the bill.
Thus, the Trump administration has been saying to the Europeans, “Listen, we’re tired of footing the bill. This is on your continent. Why don’t you take a leading role here? And if you want to take a leading role in the negotiations, perhaps you should step up to the table and increase your defense spending. Perhaps you should make the kinds of moves that might lead people to take you seriously when you guarantee, for example, Ukrainian security. Why is it that the United States always gets dragged into your domestic squabbles?”
Precisely. The Trump administration is not saying the United States should leave Ukraine to the predations of Vladimir Putin. They are trying to cajole the Europeans to do what they’re supposed to do.
According to the Associated Press, top diplomats from Russia and the United States met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. No Ukrainian officials attended the meeting.
On the surface, the United States might appear to be leaving Ukraine out of the loop or, perhaps, making a deal to then cram down on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine.
But this is also a way of forcing the Europeans to the table. If they say, “We want to hear what the United States is saying,” and they want to come to the table, the question becomes: “What is it that makes you valuable in this conversation?”
This is one way of getting the Europeans to step up and do what they are supposed to do.
All of this makes perfect sense, to say to the Europeans: “Listen, you want to sit down at the table? You don’t get a free ride anymore.” It doesn’t get to be like the U.N., where France has a seat on the Security Council without doing anything for collective security.
If you want to be part of this conversation, you should have some skin in the game.
We’re going to find out very quickly who’s willing to put their money where their mouth is.
“}]]
