For 20 minutes, the millennial vice-president upbraided the assembled grey-faced dignitaries over their backsliding from the virtues of the Enlightenment. He lamented ‘the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values’. He invited us to rediscover ‘the blessings of liberty’. Judging by the fits of pique in certain quarters – Vance ‘shocked delegates’ with his ‘blast at Europe’, wailed the babies at the BBC – many an ear is still deaf to his cry for freedom. But some of us are listening.
It was on the liberty to utter, the bedrock virtue of every civilised society, that he issued his most stinging rebukes. ‘Free speech, I fear, is in retreat’, he said. He recounted Europe’s recent acts of nutty censorship. He reminded his audience that German cops raided the homes of citizens ‘suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online’. The old Stasi felt your collar if you criticised your Stalinist betters – the new one comes a’knocking if you mock PC ideologies.
He spoke, with righteous alarm, about how Sweden recently convicted a Christian activist for the blasphemy of burning a Koran, shortly after his friend was murdered for doing the same. He seemed genuinely aghast, as well he might be, that modern Europe would do something as heartless as convict a man for the ‘speechcrime’ his pal had just been killed for. He reserved his greatest concern for ‘our very dear friends, the United Kingdom’. The ‘basic liberties of religious Britons’ are being sacrificed to PC, he said. He cited the arrest of Christians for the thoughtcrime of ‘silently praying’ close to abortion clinics that have had ‘buffer zones’ erected around them. Prayercrime, if you will.
gisd O
Good for him. To what group was J D Vance speaking? I’d like to hear it - do you have a link?