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. Within living memory of many in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. 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. They lost because they neither valued nor respected the extraordinary blessings of liberty: the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to 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.
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 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,” a so-called Day of Action.
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. 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.”
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-Connor, 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 that it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.
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.
– J.D. Vance speaking at the Munich Security Conference 2025
Great speech.
That was a hell of a speech.
And he got an incredibly stony reception. Lots of people with that sour “he can’t say that to us!” look on their faces.
Sides are clearly being picked.
J.D. Vance is correct – one does not “defend freedom” by censorship and persecution of dissent (such as sending people to prison for their words – or for being “near” a protest the establishment opposes, whilst NOT sending people to prison for violent disorder in protests the establishment approves of on “Diversity” grounds), and one does not “defend democracy” by cancelling elections because the “wrong” people are winning, or one thinks the “wrong” people might win.
What is the NATO alliance based on, what is it trying to defend? When the alliance was founded that was an easy question – it was alliance against Marxism. It was alliance against totalitarian Marxism. But whatever Mr Putin is (my own view is that he is an Al Capone style criminal POSING as an Orthodox Christian and Russian patriot) – he is not a Marxist.
His regime rigs elections with a biased media and worse, and he censors (viciously) his opponents.
So if one wishes to stand for the opposite principles to Mr Putin one MUST have Freedom of Speech and Free and Fair Elections.
Johnathan Pearce – yes it was.
bobby b – not just a stony reception from the officials and politicians in the hall, but from the media as well.
Even GB News – the only conservative television station in Britain (full disclosure it has fired people I rather like – so I may have a bias against it) presented people to attack the speech (as well as people to defend it – but not defend fully) – perhaps to appease the swine of “Ofcom” (state censorship Quango).
If someone is not in favour of censorship of “Hate Speech”, not fully in support of mass abortion, not supportive of “Trans Rights” for children, and (of course) not fully on board with “Diversity”, “Inclusion”, “New Zero” and Open Borders – then one is an enemy of “European Values”.
Well if they are “European Values” there is no good reason why the taxpayers of the United States should pay for European defense.
And most ordinary Europeans themselves reject these “European Values”.
For example, some 70% of Swiss voters in a referendum just rejected the Net Zero agenda that the European Court of “human rights” (the “right” to totalitarian tyranny) and the establishment generally, are forcing upon them.
What to do? Send 70% of the population to prison? I am sure that, for example, the Blairite British judges would love to do that, but it is not very practical.
Now GB News has had on a few people who understand a bit more – who understand that “defense” must be defending something worth defending, and the evil (yes evil – see above) “European values” of the establishment elite, which are totally OPPOSED to the beliefs of ordinary French, German, British, Dutch…. people, are nothing that the United States should be supporting, with military force or any other way.
Why do the establishment elite of so many Western nations hate their own people? Hate their history, their culture, even biologically hate them and wish them to be replaced by other groups of people. The “Great Replacement” used to be a “Conspiracy Theory” now it appears to be official policy in many nations (and people who express disapproval of it, get punished) – but why? Why do the establishment elite wish to kill off the historic nations of Western Europe – and elsewhere. Why?
Can the United States have a real alliance with nations whose establishment elite (yes, NOT, the ordinary people – but very much the establishment elite) think the Bill of Rights (limits on government power) is “crime-think”, which they very much do.
That is the real question – and the answer is NO. Either his pro tyranny establishment elite loses power or the alliance will break down.
There is no longer the glue of mutual opposition to Marxism to hold the alliance together, so it is natural to look at beliefs, and the beliefs of the establishment elite (including in the United States itself – hence their election defeat in November 2024) are not compatible with the philosophy behind the Bill of Rights – with rights as limits on state power, rather than as benefits and services from the state.
Thinking about this a bit more, I can’t recall the last time an American politician has delivered a speech such as this: roasting a whole gathering of European bureaucrats and politicians and calling them authoritarians, cowards and shitheads. The Atlantic alliance is more or less dead.
European nations have a choice. Change course, or they are finished. They need to reassert the case for freedom.
Vance may have done Europe a favour by scaring some into action. Unfortunately, too many are still in denial about the hole Europe is in, culturally and economically.
I don’t like how Trump initially seemed to go over Ukraine’s head. He’s made his stance weaker than it should be. Putin will conclude that he’s gotten away with it. But this is also a damning indictment of the prevarication of Europe and a lack of seriousness. For decades, we have had “comfort democracy”. That is over.
Thank goodness for America. Without it, the free speech situation in Europe would be truly dire.
We’ve reached a point where we need to consider “the people” and their governments as separate and disparate things.
I recall watching as Biden admin people went out into the world and purported to speak to it on my behalf, and on behalf of the people of the US. It didn’t feel right. Even though the election was close, I still feel as if even many of those who voted for Biden did not subscribe to the professed views of that admin.
And now I see the same situation In Europe. The governments of Europe, more and more, sit at the top of societies that do NOT share their philosophies.
And so, I look at the reception that Vance got, and I don’t think “boy, the English/Germans/Italians/etc really don’t agree with him.” I simply see a greater and greater disconnect between people and government.
More and more, I think the Atlantic alliance is going to persevere – not because of the governments of Europe, but in spite of them, and because of their people.
I honestly feared that a Biden win would eventually cause a kinetic split in the US. We avoided that, thank goodness.
Now we need to find a way to accomplish the same thing in Europe. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I don’t believe all of Europe is as woke and progressive as its governments would indicate.
@Bobby b Absolutely!
I found the looks of disgust on the faces of many in the audience rather amusing.
Frank Gardiner, a journalist I often admire asked “what use is this”? and I wanted to scream at him “call it an intervention “.
Led on by some immoral people, you have been behaving very badly. Now your friendly uncle comes up to you and says “you know, if you keep behaving like this, no-one is going to help you anymore, because you won’t be the nephew we cherish”. That’s a really important message, and our politicians respond “who are you to tell us that?”
What we weren’t willing to defend isn’t ours anymore. When 20 per cent of your population is from somewhere else, the invasion was a success.
We have neither the ability nor the will even to stop it, never mind to reverse it.
The ones that are here are staying, and more will be along every day.
Instead, he shocked delegates on Friday by roundly attacking Washington’s allies, including Britain, in a blistering attack decrying misinformation, disinformation, and the rights of free speech.
It was a very weird 20 minutes – one met largely with silence from delegates in the hall.
and
Vance’s speech went down very badly – unequivocally badly. It was extraordinarily poorly judged.
But who was it aimed at?
A US commentator said to me afterwards: “That was all for US domestic consumption.”
The bbc speaks. A “US commentator”, undoubtedly a fellow traveller, replies in kind. They simply cannot take it in.
How very dare he say that?
I seem to recall that last time Trump was in Europe he warned about reliance on Russian gas and told them to ramp up defence spending.
Ignore at your peril, again?
Two headlines I read back to back were Starmer saying Ukraine joining NATO is ‘irreversible’ and then the next was his energy secretary Ed Miliband planning to ‘permanently’ ban fracking.
I don’t take the British political class remotely seriously. Under the Starmers of the world NATO (or at least the British contingent) will be armed with swords and muskets. We’ll have no industrial capacity for much else.
bobby b – yes, but it is very hard in Western European (and some Eastern European) nations for the people (the ordinary people) to have any influence on policy – even harder than it is in the United States.
In Italy the right overwhelmingly won the elections – but have there been real changes to policy?
In the Netherlands and Austria the right won the election – but a “rightist” was not even allowed to be nominally in charge of the government, forget about changing policy – the establishment elite will not even allow a pretence of democracy by giving a “rightist” the title of Chancellor or Prime Minister.
In Germany the most likely result of the elections is that the CDU (the “conservatives”) will, after the elections, form a coalition with one or more of the openly leftist parties (NOT AfD), and policy will remain the same.
And I can not even bring myself to long discuss the 14 years of British history from 2010 to 2024 when the British people repeatedly voted for an end to mass immigration (and to leftist domestic policies) only to get more and more of it – and the election of 2024 when on-the-doorstep people wanted a shift in policy to-the-right but the election system produced the biggest leftist majority in Parliament in British history. And, no Nigel Farage, Proportional Representation would NOT help – that is the system that so many European nations have and it allows the establishment to “shut out” the right.
Of course, the above comment assumes that Nigel Farage is, for example, “Islamophobic” as the parties of the right in Continental Europe are – he denies that he is, and I suspect he is being truthful (check who the Treasurer of the Reform Party is). In which case the ordinary people voting for him in the hope that he is “Islamophobic” would have a shock if he ever became Prime Minister. A repeat of 2010-2024?
Still one must not be obsessed with the United Kingdom – an overpopulated (especially in the south east of England) country that can not feed itself, and whose government is deliberately destroying what is left of manufacturing industry with the “Net Zero” agenda – the future of the United Kingdom is likely to be horrific (people who think the Credit Bubble “City” can support a population of 60 to 70 million people are deluded), if I could prevent this disaster I would – but I am powerless.
The question was about Europe as a whole – and Johnathan Pearce is quite correct, one can not “defend freedom” by censorship and persecution, by punishing people for what they say-or-write rather than what they do. And one can not “defend democracy” by cancelling elections because the “wrong people” are winning, or one fears they might win.
The European establishment elite, like the Western establishment elite generally (including the United States and Japan) is rotten, rotten to the core.
How refreshing to have the USA lecturing the Europeans about their behaviour rather than the other way around.
Paul,
I note that in the USA the left seem to prefer “Mr. Trump” to “President Trump.”
Roué le Jour
I note that in the USA the left seem to prefer “Mr. Trump” to “President Trump.”
FWIW, I’m ok with that. I hate the practice of treating job titles as if they were titles of nobility. I’m the president of my company but nobody calls me Mr. President. Whether it is Senator Feinstein, or Representative Cortez, or Ambassador Haley or Secretary Clinton, these are their jobs not their titles. And what is particularly loathsome is the practice of continuing to use the highest title some person has had long after they have left the government.
It promulgates this idea of “government service” as if you are somehow special and sainted if you took on that job. When in fact the people who do so are some of the worst human beings we have. People who hide behind pretended “service” really just to make themselves rich and powerful. Then they demand that we peasants give them the genuflexion and respect they demand as Dukes of their Dukedoms. We the serfs, they the elite. The whole thing makes my skin crawl.
One of the great things about the Constitution is the banishment of titles of nobility, and if you read the federalist papers they chose “president” as the most benign, un-overlord like title they could come up with.
Excellent speech — partly because it was not as confrontational as i would have been (and have often been on Samizdata, and elsewhere). The BBC might claim that it was intended for US audiences, but if US conservatives had been talking like that* to the people of Europe and Britain for a couple of decades, there would not be so much anti-Americanism, in my opinion.
* instead of hysterically ranting about the supposed antisemitism of nations that accepted Jewish refugees turned back by FDR, and later suffered under Nazi occupation.
Of course, now we know that anti-Americanism was partly funded by US taxpayers, via USAID. It is strangely comforting to know that the BBC is part of this racket.
During Brexit a wise man said the political divide is not vertical between left and right. More horizontal between the political class and the people.
Or as Steyn put it, the Liblabcon-media. All Social Democrats.
One quibble that i have is that i believe (possibly wrongly) that the Swedes did not ban Koran burning out of wokeness. My understanding is that, until recently, Koran burning was protected speech, and violent counter-protests by “youth” actually led to arrests. But then, Swedes took to Koran-burning with such enthusiasm that policing all such events became too much of a hassle.
I’d be interested to hear from people who have better knowledge about Sweden.
In general, i think that the problem countries wrt speech in Europe are the Big 3: Germany, France, and UK. In most other countries, it seems that the “””far-right””” has become a legitimate partner in debate.
But it is true that we have not yet seen a tsunami such as unleashed in Argentina by Milei, and now in the US by Trump/Musk.
And this I don’t understand. How is it that the winners put up with such a thing? “Yes, y’all won, now please go stand over in the corner out of the way while we adults continue on.”
I think it’s maybe the difference between our two-sides system and your bunches-of-choices coalitional governments. It’s easier to grab and use power when your side has clearly won, rather than “we got 32%, and can combine with those guys and thus govern.”
It’s like this bobby: You have the elected government and their appointees, and then you have the permanent government of career bureaucrats.
In theory the permanent government is subordinate to the elected government, but in practice it largely is not. And the permanent government (in Europe, in the US, everywhere) is pretty much all lefties.
Fraser Orr:
I hate the practice of treating job titles as if they were titles of nobility. … Whether it is Senator Feinstein, or Representative Cortez, or Ambassador Haley or Secretary Clinton, these are their jobs not their titles. And what is particularly loathsome is the practice of continuing to use the highest title some person has had long after they have left the government.
Absolutely. That isn’t the case in Britain. “Prime Minister” is the job title only, not a title. He is called “the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer” or “Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister” or some such, but not “Prime Minister Keir Starmer”. American journalists, no doubt assuming the American usage is universal, often miss that point.
One of the great things about the Constitution is the banishment of titles of nobility, and if you read the federalist papers they chose “president” as the most benign, un-overlord like title they could come up with.
One of the things the first Senate discussed was how to refer to the Executive. The Vice-President, John Adams, who was also the leader of the Senate, suggested he be called “His Highness, the President of the United States of America and the Protector of their Liberties”. This led one of the Senators to suggest the Vice-President be called “His Pomposity”.
@bobby b
And this I don’t understand. How is it that the winners put up with such a thing? “Yes, y’all won, now please go stand over in the corner out of the way while we adults continue on.”
I think here in the USA we have, to use that overused cliché, a perfect storm. It is a combination of Trump’s normal “Teflon Don” along with the fact that he doesn’t need to be re-elected so doesn’t give a fuck, and the fact that they have done so much bad to him that he holds nothing sacred. And you add to that the unique talents of Elon Musk who also has zero fucks to give, and finally a public who have been so utterly shafted by the left for four years that they figure anything is better than what they have had, and a USSC which he seeded last time around with great jurists, and the fact that the democrat opposition is still reeling and utterly feckless, and utterly blindsided and out run by the Trump team. They have used all their ammo, utterly denuded the power of their “racist”, “mysoginist”, “Hitler” taunts that they fade into background noise. And, maybe a small thing, but that gal Karoline Leavitt is a monster. She makes the press look like a kindergarten class.
It is a perfect storm, and it won’t last which is why his ridiculous speed is so important.
I don’t think winning an election is enough, you have to have the chutzpah to do what the others wouldn’t do, the utter disregard for what the bien pesant think, an utter disregard for the sacred cows, and perhaps most importantly, have nothing to lose. And even then you need to have a remarkably high level of skill in deal making and analytics.
If you want to understand the Trump administration look at Tom Homan. He is on a mission and he just does not give a fuck what anyone else says. He grids the press to a pulp and is totally focused on his job. He is fearless tearing down sacred cows. He is utterly non politically correct. He doesn’t want praise, he doesn’t want money, he doesn’t want anything except to get his job done to the very best possible. And it seems that a lot of Trump’s team is like that. The establishment, so used to dealing with slimy scumbag politicians looking for fame, money and success, has no idea what to do with someone like that.
Like I say. A perfect storm. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it will save the USA. Musk can cut a trillion dollars of spending and we will still run a deficit. We still owe effectively 150 trillion dollars, which is to say half a million dollars for every man, woman and child, if you include unfunded liabilities. And we are still, even with the scythe of Elon, spending far more than we take in. But I think the decline, or at least the rate of growth of the decline will slow under this presidency. Bankruptcy happens slowly until it happens all at once.
But Trump has left me utterly flabbergasted again and again in a good way. So maybe I am wrong.
Snorri,
But then, Swedes took to Koran-burning with such enthusiasm that policing all such events became too much of a hassle.
It’s not “hassle” but fear.
It’s called “Stockholm Syndrome” for a reason.
It also happens in Manchester. Note the passive voice here, “The court also heard how the defendant suffered poor mental health following the death of his daughter in the war in Gaza.”
His daughter was murdered (also raped and tortured?) by Hamas.
So, who actually caused the, “racially or religiously aggravated intentional harassment or alarm.”?
I am seriously fecked off with all of this. I am not alone. And that is what our “betters” really fear.
I wonder. I don’t think the cutting of spending is going to drive much in the way of saving us. That’s a temporary and easily-reversible thing.
I look more to the clearing out of progressive nits from the Deep State. If there is a way forward for us, I think it lies in wiping that world out. Civil Service protections were designed to keep us from ever arriving at this point. Now that they gamed the system, those protections must be removed.
I am still amazed at the spiderwebs of funding from every conceivable government branch for every progressive impulse one can imagine. Abortion marketing being paid for with defense dollars. FEMA picking up such a huge portion of illegal alien enrichment. Homeland security funding censorship efforts.
And it was all only subjected to light by the efforts of the techie analysts brought in by Musk. Had that not happened, we’d still really have no clue how interrelated every spending path was.
And, with the clearing-out of the entrenched ‘crats who designed and ran these systems, I see less of a chance that they can be redeveloped. Without this huge personnel genocide, it would all be right back very quickly.
So, no, it’s not fixed, not by a mile. But I see hope for a fix out of this that I didn’t see before.
Vance for ’28! (I believe the Civil War cry was “keep up the skeer!”)
NickM: I’ll go out on a limb and claim that you do not know about the situation in Sweden.
In fact, even in the UK, i doubt that anti-anti-Islamism is motivated primarily by fear of Islam: more like fear of losing elections.
Snorri – it is motivated by a crude (“vulgar”) form of Marxism – which sees everything in the world as divided between “rich oppressors” and “poor oppressed” – the Jews are seen as “rich oppressors” and the Muslims are seen as “poor oppressed” – by the left everywhere, not just in Britain.
And this includes the modern breed of judges.
There is also the Frankfurt School “Critical Theory” or “Woke” form of Marxism which sees Britain, indeed all Western nations, as inherently evil – and regards any force that opposes the West as useful.
They do not fear Islam (perhaps they should – but they do not), the BBC, the Guardian, and the rest of the left establishment see it as a useful “tool” in their war to destroy Britain.
It is much the same in other Western nations – the left does not fear or love Islam, it, in a horribly patronizing way, sees Islam as just a “tool” to help destroy America, Australia, Britain and other Western nations.
It is much the same in your own Netherlands.
The reaction to the speech of J.D. Vance by the left, including in the United States, is instructive.
His logic was clear – one does not defend freedom by censorship and persecution, and one does not defend democracy by cancelling elections, or ignoring the results of elections – and demanding that policy remain the same regardless of what the people want.
Did this give the establishment pause for thought? Did it lead to any introspection and self doubt?
No it did not – the only response was hatred-and-contempt.
This is because the left already knew their policies were destroying freedom and democracy – indeed that was their intention, so they were not shocked by J.D. Vance pointing it out.
To the left (to the establishment) the destruction of both individual liberty and democratic government is not some sort of “bug” in their policies – it is the objective of their policies, it is not a bug, it is a feature.
This is why both Colbert (chief minister of Louis XIV – the Sun King), Thomas Cromwell a century before Colbert and Robespierre, a century after Colbert, were all really the-same-type.
They all hated individual freedom – whilst pretending not to. And they all hated the people having any say in policy – whilst pretending to speak for the people.
Much of the contemporary European political elite (a few exceptions would be Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia) have spent most of their lives being pawns of the American elite. Admittedly with some grumbling (like during the Iraq war) and snearing (eg about abortion and guns in America). But on the fundamentals they’ve largely done what the US elites have wanted them to. The US election hasn’t overthrown that American elite as such, but is shaking things up for sure. The way the ‘Atlanticist’ Euro elites responded to Vance makes me think they are a bit like people who have been at a big company for 30-40 years that they’ve done well under by sucking up to the old boss even while the company slowly declined. Now there’s been a hostile takeover of the company and the new boss has laid down the new rules. And the old timer workers are outraged. Outraged as they’re buttsucking no longer counts for much. But also befuddled because they have very little idea how to cope under the new boss, or even worse, how they’d cope if the new boss fires them.
There are many valuable insights in many comments here, but i’ll stick to quibbling about issues that i think worth quibbling about.
I n particular, i’d like to respectfully make Paul Marks aware of a contradiction between his 2 latest comments. He wrote:
A.
But also
B.
A and B cannot both be true: either the goal of the Establishment (“the left”) is to protect oppressed minorities, or it is to increase the oppression of the majority.
My own view is that B is correct as it is, not just now in the West, but almost any time, anywhere. A can be made correct, and reconciled with B, by replacing “motivated” with “legitimized”.
Frankfurt Marxism is a principle of legitimization, just like Divine Right, the Social Contract, the General Will, etc.
This is why both Colbert …………were all really the-same-type.
His present day namesake is a bit of a tit as well (and that’s being kind).
Snorri – there is no contradiction between the two statements, both statements are true.
It is precisely because the left (or the Progressives – if you do not wish me to use the word “left”) regard Western nations as “rich oppressors” (“exploiters”) that they wish to destroy the United States, Britain, the Netherlands and so on.
And, please remember, this hatred is based on what we ARE not on what we DO – Western nations, to them, are inherently “oppressors and exploiters” simply by existing.
We must, to them, be exterminated – repentance is not an option for us.
Steady on, old chap!
Martin the ANTI American elite – that is who the European elite are on the same wavelength with.
The “Brain’s Trust” who advised Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 was not made up of people who loved the “capitalist” United States – it was made up of intellectuals who passionately hated American principles and wished to destroy America (this Franklin Roosevelt never seemed to understand – even though it was clear that some of his personal advisers reported to Moscow, or admired Fascist Italy). The New Dealers knew (they KNEW), in 1933, that millions (millions) of human beings had been eliminated in the Marxist Soviet Union – and they were fine, totally fine, with that.
As for Franklin Roosevelt himself – he appears to have had no principles, good or bad (which is, I suppose, better than having utterly evil principles – as many of his advisers did), but also to have been indifferent to even massive levels of human suffering (the opposite of how he is presented in the school “history” books) – see Paul Johnson’s “A History of the Jews” for Franklin Roosevelt’s indifference to the Holocaust (of which President Roosevelt was well aware). Franklin Roosevelt could be charming to Jews he thought could be of use to him (for example voters in New York) – but he cared nothing for their fate if they were not useful to him. This was not a special hatred of Jews – it appears to have been his attitude to everyone.
In the 1960s “Cloward and Piven” and the rest, were not designing “Great Society” policies because they loved America and wanted it to be even better – they passionately hated and despised America and their policies were designed to destroy America, as was the activity of Saul Alinsky and his Community Organizers – wildly admired by fools (or worse).
Some conservatives (and others) assume that the Progressive establishment elite have good intentions – they do not, and they never did.
A classic example of the type is Rousseau.
He is presented as a supporter of freedom and democracy – but he really supported NEITHER.
The “General Will” was NOT the “Will of All” – not what ordinary people wanted, but rather what they SHOULD want.
The “Law Giver” was to decide what people SHOULD want – the “General Will”, and the “Will of All” was to be exterminated, either by education (indoctrination – for the “freedom” that Rousseau thought children should have did NOT extend to having dissenting opinions) or by killing those who refused to give up the “Will of All”.
Far from individual freedom this was to be a tyranny that would make even the Sun King Louis XIV (let alone that well meaning weakling Louis XVI) look harmless by comparison.
People such as Robespierre did not “betray” the ideas of Rousseau, any more than “Lenin” betrayed the ideas of Karl Marx – Robespierre was loyal to the ideas of Rousseau.
If you are looking for a French language thinker who stood for liberty and constitutional government in the 18th century – your man is not Rousseau, your man is Montesquieu.
Hey! I’m not that . . . .
Okay, nevermind.
Paul: you make a valid point, but i still believe that it is important to distinguish between the constant (the Hobbesian craving of the ruling class for more power) and the variable: the official narrative, the hegemonic culture, the “political formula” (to use G.Mosca’s clumsy terminology), the principle of legitimization, which is used to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the power grab.
Voltaire also despised Rousseau. He saw right through him, and understood that JJR was an intellectual degenerate and proponent of tyranny worse than that of a French monarch.
The late Isiah Berlin had Rousseau right as one of the great intellectual dies of liberty.
Damn him to hell.
@bobby Don’t feed the
trollsnake!Johnathan Pearce – yes indeed Sir, both Voltaire and Isiah Berlin saw through Rousseau – they understood that, for all his fair words, he stood for evil.
Rousseau and Plato are often presented as totally different – but, in reality, they are much the same in their political philosophy. An intellectual elite (the “Guardians” or the “Law Giver”) controlling every aspect of the lives of ordinary people – who are to be indoctrinated (brainwashed) into thinking that this totalitarian (total control over all aspects of life) tyranny, is “freedom”. The Marxists use the same trick as Rousseau – they call tyranny freedom – indeed they scream it endlessly.
Snorri – yes you are correct, sometimes I lump people together when I should make careful distinctions.
Once I establish that someone is an enemy of liberty and of civilisation (in the Kenneth Clark sense of that word) I tend to then go into “how do we defeat them” thinking – as opposed to, as I should, carefully distinguishing what sort of enemy they are.
There is, after all, a vast difference between many ordinary local leftist activists (say a local lady who has become a “Green” because the media and the education system constantly tell her that C02 is a deadly poison that will kill all the beautiful flowers and cuddly animals that she loves), and some philosopher fresh from torturing people to death (and getting off because they pretend to be insane) – someone whose thinking is much like the “Black Guardian” from the Doctor Who television show when it was actually good.
“You misunderstand Doctor – my objective is not power, my objective is DESTRUCTION!”
Neonsnake? Oh, not a troll.
A troll would be a non-libertarian arguing on a lib site. He differs from a lot of people here on several of the other dimensions that define us politically, but he is on the liberty side of that particular continuum.
@bobby I would say the threats to people who disagree with him disqualify him as a libertarian. I also query whether a troll is automatically non-libertarian.
I see that JD Vance has told Mr Zelensky to be quiet about any criticism he has on the shameful peace deal that Mr Trump wants to arrange with Putin.
It seems as if Vance’s commitment to free expression has its limits.
I think there’s a difference between telling someone they cannot speak, and telling them to fuck off for their own good.
Vance re: Z: “His country wouldn’t exist without the generosity of the United States of America. Say thank you. It’s stupid. Badmouthing Trump in public will not change his mind. Zelenskyy needs better consultants.”
This is not a censor enforcing censorship. Claiming that this IS censorship is not a good faith argument. It’s almost a “shut up, you can’t say that” argument in itself.
I think there’s a difference between telling someone they cannot speak, and telling them to fuck off for their own good.
Bobby, you can think what you like. The fact is that JD Vance, who gave one hell of a good speech in Munich, has told the democratically elected leader of a country that has been subjected to a criminal attack to be quiet. About “peace talks” affecting his own country.
Well, Mr Vance and go and pound sand in that regard, frankly.
Pity. He’s sort of ruined the effect of a good speech, although his boss’s comments are in a whole fresh level of insanity.