If history teaches us anything, it is that the loss of freedom never happens all at once. It comes slowly, often dressed up as “security,” “protection,” or “progress.” The great civilizations, Rome, Byzantium, even the old Soviet Union, did not wake up one day and decide to wage war on free speech. Instead, piece by piece, the walls closed in, always for the “greater good.”
Earlier this year at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance said something that Americans have not heard from our leaders in a long time. He warned that the greatest threat facing Europe, and by extension the West, is not some enemy across the border. It is the slow retreat from the values that made us strong in the first place: the right to speak, to debate, to challenge authority, and to vote in elections that actually matter.
Now, why does this matter to us? Because we are seeing the same slow erosion of freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. Across Europe, courts have canceled elections, comedians have been punished for telling the “wrong” joke, and citizens have been arrested for praying in public, sometimes blocks away from the supposed offense. France has gone so far as to ban certain protests and demand backdoor access to private messages, all in the name of order.
Of course, America is not innocent in this regard. Too often, both parties have reached for the censor’s pen when the debate gets uncomfortable. But the answer is never to silence dissent. It is to trust Americans to weigh the arguments and make up their own minds.
Free speech is not just a nice-to-have; it is the foundation of our strength. Our adversaries, whether in Moscow or Beijing, know that a nation where citizens cannot speak openly is a nation that cannot correct its course or renew itself. That is why every generation of Americans, from the Founders to the present, has had to defend the public square as a matter of national survival.
As Reagan once said, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We do not pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. When we see our allies retreating from free speech and honest elections, we owe it to ourselves and to them to speak up. Not because we are perfect, but because we know what happens when nations stop trusting their people.
Some will say, "But there are threats out there. Disinformation, foreign influence, bad actors online." That is true. But if your democracy can be destroyed by a handful of trolls, as VP Vance reminds us, then maybe your democracy was not as strong as we thought. The answer is not to shut down debate or hand more power to censors. The answer is to trust the American people, and the people of every free nation, to sort fact from fiction and to hold their leaders accountable.
It is easy to be discouraged by the headlines. But if history teaches us anything, it is that the American experiment has survived far worse. The Founding Fathers understood that liberty is a messy business. They gave us the First Amendment not for the easy times, but for the hard ones.
So here is the warning, and the hope. If we continue down this path, trading freedom for a little bit of supposed safety, we risk becoming what we once opposed. But if we remember who we are—if we stand up for free speech, open elections, and the courage to debate—we will come through stronger than ever.
Let us not be the generation that forgot what freedom really means. Let us be the one that proved, once again, that our best days are still ahead.
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