The defense of free speech by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich, Germany, has led to open panic on the left in fighting to maintain European censorship and speech criminalization. The response of the American press and pundits was crushingly familiar. From CBS News to members of Congress, Vance (and anyone who supports his speech) was accused of using Nazi tactics. It is the demonization of dissent.
In one of the most bizarre examples, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Vance’s support for free speech given the fact that he was “standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.”
The suggestion that free speech cleared the way for the Holocaust left many scratching their heads, but it is an old saw used by the anti-free speech community, particularly in Germany.
When they came to power, the Nazis moved immediately to crack down on free speech and criminalize dissent. They knew that free speech was not only the “indispensable right” for a free people, but the greatest threat to authoritarian power.
Figures like Brennan appear to blame free speech for the rise of the Nazis because the Weimar Constitution protected the right of Germans, including Nazis, in their right to speak. However, the right to free speech was far more abridged than our own First Amendment. Indeed, it had many of the elements that the left has pushed in Europe and the United States, including allowing crackdowns on disinformation and fake news.
Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution, guaranteed free speech but added that it must be “within the limits of the general laws.” It did not protect statements deemed by the government as factually untrue and speech was actively regulated.
Indeed, Hitler was barred from speaking publicly. It was not free speech that the Nazis used to propel their movement, but the denial of free speech. They portrayed the government as so fearful and fragile that it could not allow opposing views to be stated publicly.
This ridiculous and ahistorical spin also ignores the fact that other countries like the United States had both fascist movements and free speech, but did not succumb to such extremism. Instead, free speech allowed critics to denounce brownshirts as hateful, dangerous individuals. To blame free speech for the rise of the Nazis is like blaming the crimes of Bernie Maddoff on the use of money.
Nevertheless, before the last election, the left was unrelenting in accusing those with opposing views as being Nazis or fascists. During the election, it seemed like a one-answer Rorschach test where Democrats saw a Nazi in every political inkblot.
While the narrative failed in spectacular fashion, the script has not changed. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) expressed sympathy for the “absolute shock, absolute shock of our European allies” to be confronted in this fashion. Rather than address the examples of systemic attacks on free speech, Moulton reached again for the favorite talking point: “if you listen, listen carefully it’s actually much deeper and darker. He was talking about the enemy within. This is some of the same language that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust.”
Like Brennan, Moulton is warning that free speech can be a path to genocide. However, his take is that anyone claiming to be the victim of censorship is taking a page out of the Nazi playbook. The logic is simple. The Nazis complained about censorship. You complained about censorship. Thus, ipso facto, you are a Nazi.
Others joined the mob in denouncing Vance and supporting the Europeans. CNN regular Bill Kristol called the speech “a humiliation for the US and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.”
By defending free speech, you are now viewed as anti-democratic. It is part of the Orwellian message of the anti-free-speech movement. Democracy demands censorship, and free speech invites fascism.
It is hardly a novel argument. It was the very rationale used in Germany after World War II to impose what is now one of the most extensive censorship systems in the world. It was initially justified as an anti-Nazi measure but then, as has occurred repeatedly in history, became an insatiable appetite for speech controls. Indeed, the country returned to the prosecution of anything deemed disinformation and fake news by the government.
The result has indeed silenced many, but not those neo-Nazis who are flourishing in Germany. Past polling of German citizens found that only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. Only 17% felt free to express themselves on the internet. As under the Weimar Constitution, fascist groups are portraying themselves as victims while finding alternative ways to spread their message.
Yet, the American media continues to peddle the same disinformation on the value of censorship. After its anchor made the widely ridiculed claim about free speech leading to genocide, 60 Minutes ran an interview with German officials extolling the success of censorship.
CBS’ Sharyn Alfonsi compared how the United States allows “hate-filled or toxic” speech while Germany is “trying to bring some civility to the worldwide web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine.”
German prosecutors (Dr. Matthäus Fink, Svenja Meininghaus and Frank-Michael Laue) detailed how they regularly raid homes to crack down on prohibited views with the obvious approval of CBS.
They acknowledged that “the people are surprised that this is really illegal, to post these kind [sic] of words… They don’t think it was illegal. And they say, ‘No, that’s my free speech,’ And we say, ‘No, you have free speech as well, but it also has its limits.’”
Alfonsi explained that the law criminalizes anything the government considers inciteful “or deemed insulting.” She then asked “Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?” The prosecutors eagerly affirmed, but added that the punishment is even higher to insult someone on the Internet.
Meininghaus started to explain that “if you’re [on] the internet, if I insult you or a politician …” Alfonsi could not even wait for the end of the sentence and completed it for him: “It sticks around forever.”
As CBS was completing the sentences of speech regulators, many in Europe were celebrating the Vance speech as breathing new life into the embattled free speech community. What is most striking is how the press and the pundits could not help themselves. They are eagerly proving Vance’s point. This is an existential fight for the “indispensable right.”
Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org.
