Vance (shown in a file photo above) didn't pull any punches in his address to the Munich Security Conference. Its main focus is looking at military and security threats from countries like Russia and China, but Vance struck at a target much closer to home.
“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. In Britain and across Europe, free speech I fear is in retreat,” he told the audience.
Pro-life efforts in England are one glaring example.
“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,” Vance said.
He then took aim at thought crimes and fundamental religious freedom in Scotland.
“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,” Vance said.
He called out government censorship of social media posts, both in the EU, where commissar-like officials threatened to shut down Facebook and X for what they've judged to be "hateful content," and even at home in the U.S., where the Biden administration pressured Big Social to shutter dissident posts about the Covid lab leak theory, for example.
“Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth,” Vance said.
European officials hit back
Germany’s defense minister has pushed back hard against Vance’s complaints about the state of democracy in Europe. He said nine days before his country’s election that it is “unacceptable” to draw a parallel between the region and authoritarian governments.
“If I understood him correctly, he is comparing conditions in parts of Europe with those in authoritarian regimes," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. “That is unacceptable, and it is not the Europe and not the democracy in which I live and am currently campaigning.”
Another prominent center-left European politician, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, took issue with how Vance urged European officials to stem irregular migration in the same speech. Vance said the European electorate didn’t vote to open “floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.”
“He speaks as though we are not focused on immigration in Europe,” Gahr Støre said. “I mean, this is the big theme in every country, that we want to have control of our borders.
“I don’t agree with him that what’s happening in Ukraine, what’s happening in Russia, what’s happening in China is less important than the presumed loss of freedom of speech in Europe,” he said.
Associated Press contributed to this article.
