Munich Security Conference: Lecture on Democracy

I have rarely heard such a lecture on democracy as the one given by US Vice President JD Vance to the participants of the Munich Security Conference. One of the most remarkable speeches of recent years and one that the self-righteous who constantly talk about "our democracy" because democracy does not exist anywhere else will chew on for a long time.

He believes, says JD Vance, that the greatest threat to Western democracies does not come from outside, not from Russia or China, but from within,

• by people who want to rob their citizens of their voice,
• by people who hid behind concepts like “misinformation” to suppress free speech,
• by people who built firewalls against legitimate representatives of political interests: There is no place for a firewall in a democracy, says Vance.

However, he finds it astonishing that today's democracies - Steinmeier would speak of "our democracy" - are characterized by what used to characterize the Eastern bloc: repression, censorship and control of opinions, imprisonment of "dissidents" and threats to those who dare to express their different opinion.

He is particularly concerned about Germany and the United Kingdom, countries where freedom of speech is in decline and is being destroyed under the pretext that it must be defended against Russian influence. A democracy that can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars, money that Russia uses to buy influence, was worthless in the first place. But Western democracies are much more stable than the talk of disinformation and influence suggests, talk that comes from interested parties, from people who profit from pursuing their own interests in what they call "our democracy".

What irritates him most in the discussions he has had since coming to Munich is the inability to formulate a positive vision. His interlocutors [Steinmeier, for example] are always able to state clearly what they want to do, what they are fighting against. But all of them are more or less incapable of saying why, what they want to fight for. They simply have no vision and, moreover, are afraid of their citizens, who would vote en masse differently than the old fighters of days gone by would like. And the main reason for this is mass immigration.

One in five people in Germany today has a migration background. In recent years, the number of migrants has increased dramatically, and with it the burden on citizens. He thinks it is normal that citizens want to live in peace and security and in their own property and not pay for the political whims of their self-righteous leaders [the last is a pointed translation of the speech by us]. Mass immigration is the cause of the attacks that are occurring more and more frequently in Europe, mostly young men, rejected asylum seekers, who bring great suffering to local communities.

"How many more attacks like the one in Munich yesterday must there be before you change your course?" he asks the group. And the group is characterized by embarrassed faces and little applause. It is clear that most people in the room do not like what Vance is saying. They do not like the new wind of free speech from the USA. They like control and censorship and surveillance.

JD Vance returns to the victims of yesterday's attack several times in his speech. He has more empathy for German victims than the Federal President, who managed to utter a few platitudes on the subject. One gets the feeling that there is a culture war going on here between real democrats, real people and human shells who have been left behind as political zombies by their decades of clique rule.

Munich Security Conference: Lecture on Democracy