The Left’s promotion of censorship has shifted into high gear. Formerly in the vanguard of demanding freedom of speech, Leftists now openly advocate for the censorship of views they dislike.
There is no First Amendment freedom in Europe, where new rules are being drafted by the European Union (EU) to punish disfavored online speech. There is nothing democratic about this push for censorship.
The European Commission is the unelected body of bureaucrats that governs the European Union, whose membership fell to 27 when Britain exited in January 2020. The Commission is expected this week to approve censorship of online speech critical of LGBTQ+, which can mean anything contrary to traditional gender norms.
These new rules against free speech on the internet have not yet been fully released, but they will take aim at vocal conservatives in Poland and Hungary unsupportive of the direction in which the EU is trying to take those pro-Trump countries. Economic pressure keeps those countries inside the liberal confederation.
In April, at the Istanbul Convention, the additional Eastern European countries of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic also pushed back against the attempt by the EU to erode family values. Like Russia, all of these formerly communist countries have seen firsthand the immense harm that liberals cause, and those countries are not returning to the bad old days.
There is nothing democratic about the European Union, as these and other rules are created by a handful of Leftists without any popular support. It is ironic how liberals clamor for democracy when it suits their agenda, while doing the opposite in overriding the will of the people who are supportive of family values in Eastern Europe.
Even Ireland recently heard a public call for it to consider leaving the EU for reasons of nationalism, as espoused by its champion MMA fighter Conor McGregor. A Dubliner, McGregor pointed out that being in the EU makes the Ireland government merely “messengers” and “lap dogs” rather than the independent sovereignty the Irish people sought when they broke away from the United Kingdom a century ago.
Totalitarian new Covid confinement rules imposed by the EU against its member nations, including Ireland, sparked McGregor’s ire. There seems little point in holding elections in Ireland and throughout Europe if an unelected commission of the EU can invent and impose whatever suffocating laws it likes.
Later this week Biden is holding an online Democracy Summit to which he invited more than 100 countries, many of which, like Ukraine, have too much corruption to qualify as functioning democracies. Biden snubbed Hungary, even though it is one of the most democratic countries in the world, and Hungary promptly retaliated by vetoing resulting decisions that would require unanimity by EU member states.
A third of Americans recognize that many elections in our own country are not honest. Democracy assumes that voters should fill out their own ballots without pressure for certain candidates, but liberal political operatives harvest and deliver ballots for a candidate like Joe Biden who does not even have full mental faculties.
Fortunately, pockets of remaining democracy in the United States are reflected in how voters continue to move right in reaction to the tactics by the Left. The highly respected Cook Political Report has just changed its assessment of 3 key governor races to describe them as toss-ups after they were previously listed as leaning toward reelection of the incumbent Democrats.
These are the battleground states of Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin, all essential to the Democrats’ quest to win the next presidential election. Most notably in Michigan, with its prize of 15 electoral college votes, the incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faces continued dissatisfaction with her dictatorial lockdowns during the pandemic.
Remarkably, the Cook Report also updated its assessment of the Democrat strongholds of Oregon, New Mexico, and Maine in order to reflect growing Republican strength there. Longtime Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) surprisingly announced his retirement from Congress, rather than stand for reelection in 2022.
The real democracy in the United States is in Republican primaries, where elections are not stolen and people are willing to vote out incumbents who fail to accomplish what they promised. On Monday that was illustrated by the entry of former U.S. Senator David Perdue into the Republican primary race for the governor of Georgia, against the turncoat incumbent Brian Kemp.
Immediately Donald Trump endorsed David Perdue, who will bring a choice, not an echo, which was sorely lacking in the anti-Trump governor’s bid for reelection. Governor Kemp presided over a takeover of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats by liberal Democrats, and then he obstructed restoration of election integrity there.
A sweep of the Georgia primaries by pro-Trump candidates would be a big step toward saving our country. If liberals truly supported democracy, they would be applauding.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.