Europe’s Free Speech Problem

June 6, 2025

Vice President Vance spoiled a big transatlantic confab by lambasting Europeans over freedom of speech. Stunning hypocrisy, given the Trump regime’s moves against viewpoints it doesn’t like, and deporting people for criticizing Israel’s Gaza atrocities. Yet putting that aside, Vance was actually right (for once).

Open debate is central for any pluralistic democratic society. Which cannot properly be called a democracy without freedom to air opinions and thus have meaningful exchanges of views. There’s also the principle that we empower governments, giving up some liberties, to gain protection from harms. We shouldn’t have to give up something so crucial as free expression unless doing so prevents very big harms.

In striking that balance between liberty and harm, America’s First Amendment culture appropriately requires a high bar before limiting free speech. But many European nations lack that guiding star, taking an unduly broad view of what constitutes harm here.

Often considering offensiveness harmful. Mirroring some U.S. campuses, striving to keep students “safe” against the “harm” of words they might find disconcerting. Thus anyone being offended is grounds for acting against the offender. A slippery slope because almost anything might be deemed offensive by someone; and creating an open invitation for people to claim offense. Which some European nations even make a punishable crime.

Freedom from being offended is not a fundamental human right warranting governmental protection. If you want the benefits of living in a free society, you must accept being offended sometimes by what others say. Their offending you should not be against the law. And even if there were some right not to be offended, surely that’s trumped by a right not to be punished for voicing an opinion. The essence of democracy is people having freedom — exemplified by freedom of expression.

But some European countries have even enacted special proscriptions against nastiness toward public officials. That’s rationalized as needed lest people be deterred from serving. But it’s especially perverse because allowing criticism of public servants, holding them accountable to voters, is essential to democracy.

America recognizes this; under the Times v. Sullivan doctrine, rather than giving public officials special protections, what’s especially protected is criticism of them, disallowable only under extreme circumstances. Yet in contrast under Germany’s misconceived law, for example, Robert Habeck, recently vice-chancellor, filed 800 cases against citizens who dissed him. One for calling him a “professional idiot.” Something perhaps confirmed by Habeck’s litigiousness. How did he have time for his public duties?

This is no joke. Laws against “insulting the leader” are a staple of authoritarian regimes, used to persecute inconvenient people. The old version was “Lèse-majesté” — applicable for monarchs. Thailand applies such a law with ferocious assiduity. One dare not say a word construable as negative toward the King, who is not an admirable person. An Australian was jailed in Thailand for Lèse-majesté in a book — that sold a single copy. (So I cannot visit Thailand. Seriously.)

Thailand is a sham democracy, but even nations that are otherwise democratic have fallen into the syndrome. I’ve mentioned Germany. In 1990 around 80% of Germans felt able to freely express opinions; now it’s less than half.

Then there’s Great Britain, whose suppression of free speech has gone really haywire. Enacting a succession of laws giving authorities wide powers to clamp down on anything deemed offensive. And defining that is a vague mush.

This effectively hands much power to local policemen, which they’ve embraced with alacrity, setting up big task forces to monitor the internet, looking for people they can bust. In Great Britain, not China. The Economist’s article about this highlights the case of a guy arrested, with his partner, for the ghastly crime of posting online something negative about their daughter’s school.

That wasn’t an outlier. In fact, similar arrests total over 1,000 monthly. It’s not just public postings scrutinized; even private messages are subject to this criminalization. And these cases go to “magistrates’ courts” before laypeople generally clueless about how to apply the murky laws.

Why are policemen so keen on this wretched abuse? A “natural authoritarian streak,” The Economist suggests. While noting that charge rates for real crimes like burglary are way down. Well, solving such cases is hard work. Much easier for cops to just troll the internet and nab folks who’ve conveniently self-identified giving offense to somebody or other.

In Britain I might not risk posting this. America is still a free-speech oasis, but it’s endangered here too. Now the Trump regime looks to scour the social media of international students, searching for words that could be a pretext to bar them.

First they came for the socialists . . .

UPDATE, 6/8: On June 2 in London, Hamit Coskun was convicted and fined for publicly burning a Koran. Even though Britain’s blasphemy law was abolished in 2008. The Court ruled, however, that Coskun’s “disorderly conduct” offense was proven by two people assaulting him. Blame the victim? Or is it illegal to insult Muslims because they are prone to violence? The Economist’s report mentions no prosecution of Coskun’s attackers.