HomePoliticsTRUMP LIKE REAGAN NEEDS TO DEMAND GERMANY PROTECT CITIZENS FREE SPEECH RIGHTS Politics TRUMP LIKE REAGAN NEEDS TO DEMAND GERMANY PROTECT CITIZENS FREE SPEECH RIGHTS Michele Tantussi / Contributor Editorial December 2016 As Germany suffered a horrendous terror attack last week when a muslim refugee drove a truck through a crowd shopping for Christmas, killing twelve innocent German civilians, the people of Germany, not the terrorists became the target of its Socialist government for simply speaking out against the open borders policy that predictably lead to the attack. In fact, following President Elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US and Brexit in England, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Facebook and other social media sites to curb free speech and censor critics of her government. Germans who speak out against the liberal open borders policies will be been arrested and charged with “hate” crimes, Merkel announced. According to Daily Wire, Chancellor Angela Merkel backed a federal program to monitor and police internet activity on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. In an attempt to control the recent uptick in xenophobia and racism, largely exacerbated by sudden demographic shifts linked to Berlin’s refugee-intake program, German authorities are now prosecuting arbitrarily-defined “hate speech,” otherwise known as free speech, with what appears to be de facto blasphemy laws. On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel backed a federal program to monitor and police internet activity on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The Orwellian program is being led by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, or BMJV and the Interior Ministry, implicating several branches of government in the campaign to suppress free speech online. Vowing to exploit nearly every shred of power at his disposal, Justice Minister and SPD (social-democratic party) member Heiko Maas has vowed to weaponize legislation to purge “hate” from online space in Germany if social media companies fail to effectively restrict the conduct of their users towards this end. “Under a program that runs until March, German authorities are monitoring how many racist posts reported by users of social media sites are deleted within 24 hours,” reports Reuters. After March, Berlin will reassess the political climate online determine whether or not to implement stricter and more punitive measures to restrict speech. “I support efforts by Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere to address hate speech, hate commentaries, devastating things that are incompatible with human dignity, and to do everything to prohibit it because it contradicts our values,” stated Merkel in a self-righteous speech delivered to the Bundestag lower house of parliament. President Trump should side with the people of Germany who deserve the same freedoms as we do. The freedom of speech to criticize your government is a basic human right. BTW that goes for Russia and the rest of Europe. European Liberals, as usual, are trying to control speech that criticizes them by calling it racist or hate speech or “Right Wing” speech. One thing Congress can do is expand legislation that outlaws US social media companies from cooperating with foreign governments’ efforts to limit their citizens’ free speech rights. We have anti-foreign corruption laws making it a federal crime in the US for US companies to bribe foreign governments in pursuit of contracts. I would argue any US company that limits free speech at the direction of foreign governments is violating that law. But when US companies stand up to foreign governments the Trump Administration needs to back them up. . As free people we need to stand up and voice our demands for the freedom of others around the world or one day we will find ourselves without a voice too. President Reagan once said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” . Rob Lauer Political Reporter NEWSMAXTV LAS VEGAS
