Meme - @JustinList: "Strengthen Democracy against populists. Wow . By democracy they mean the world order and populists they mean the people I assume?"
Meme - Ralph Schoellhammer: "Germany: Go full communist and give more power to the least popular government in recent history to strengthen democracy Via @MichaelAArouet"
"BUSINESS INSIDER. Berlin Manifesto: Influential economists call for more government and less market to strengthen democracy against populists"
Manish Gill on X - "Germany can never progress because you get sued the shit out of you for a 1-star review on Google Maps"
Blair Dulder CPA™ 🧃 on X - "germany has an unwavering, rock-solid commitment to civil liberties and free speech. the only things that are forbidden are: leaving a negative google review; publicly criticising places, politicians, countries, or really any group of people; being too left or too right (the government will decide what's acceptable); insulting anyone, especially police officers; insulting foreign heads of state; blasphemy, just in case anyone's feelings get hurt; defaming anyone; maliciously gossiping; even minor insults of political figures; glorifying war; denying the holocaust; displaying a swastika or giving a nazi salute even as a joke; distributing any propaganda deemed "unconstitutional"; glorifying violence in any form; online harassment of any kind; "extreme" pornography; disclosing trade secrets even for whistleblowing purposes; producing, sharing, or even possessing certain banned symbols; saying anything that might "disturb public peace" (loosely defined, naturally); threatening anyone with pretty much anything; advocating for changing the constitutional order even through peaceful means; and of course, anyone at any time can request a takedown of any information about them, including valid, well-sourced journalism, under the right to be forgotten"
Heads I Win, Tails You’re a Threat to Democracy - "Interesting to watch Democrats take both sides of arguments. For example, when they make arguments for and against gerrymandering at the same time (good when they do it, bad when someone else does) and the same when it comes to free speech (our speech is protected, yours is disinformation and violence, so not protected), you begin to understand how a political party that has come to be built on radical, irrational positions can survive. When you consider how standing on both sides can be true, you come to understand that their power is based on two things - process and structure - and the control of both - and not the will of the people. They depend upon controlling the processes of government and defining a structure that gives them permissions that are denied to anyone else (packing the Supreme Court, racially gerrymandered districts, and potential statehood for DC and PR are “structural” changes that would advantage Democrats). The last thing they want is a true representative republic that freely expresses the actual will of the people. That, my dear friends, is why they drone on and on about “democracy” because through process and structure, the outputs of “democracy” can be controlled and managed to produce a desired outcome - and when it doesn’t, it can be ignored. At first glance, this looks like hypocrisy. At a surface level we all understand, it is, but stopping there misses the more important point. This isn’t random inconsistency or careless contradiction. It reflects a deeper operating logic and one that prioritizes control over process and structure rather than persuasion or consensus. If you can control the process, you don’t have to win the argument. If you can shape the structure, you don’t have to rely on the unpredictable will of the electorate. That’s where the conversation moves from rhetoric to strategy. Consider the recurring calls to restructure foundational elements of American governance: expanding the Supreme Court, admitting new states like Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, or drawing districts in insane ways to lock in durable advantages. Each of these proposals is framed in moral or democratic language of fairness, representation, and equity, but each also has a clear and predictable partisan effect. They are not neutral reforms, they are structural adjustments designed to produce specific political outcomes. From this perspective, the apparent contradictions begin to make sense. If your primary objective is to secure and maintain power through institutional means, then consistency in argument becomes secondary. What matters is whether a given position advances or threatens that objective in the moment. This also helps explain the persistent emphasis on the language of “democracy.” It is invoked constantly, almost reflexively, as both justification and shield but the word itself does a lot of heavy lifting. Democracy, in its pure form, suggests majority rule—the unfiltered expression of the people’s will. Yet the reality of modern governance is far more mediated. Processes can be designed, rules can be written, and structures can be built in ways that shape outcomes long before a single vote is cast. In other words, if you control the inputs, you can largely predict—and manage—the outputs, and when the outputs don’t align with expectations, the response is often not reflection but recalibration. Change the rules. Adjust the structure. Redefine the terms. The goal is not to abandon the system, but to refine it until it produces the “correct” results. I think the 2020 election is a prime example. I think the 2020 election is a prime example. I have stated before that I personally don’t have evidence the 2020 election was corrupt – but I also don’t have evidence it wasn’t. I think the brilliance of Democrat operatives was that while the GOP was snoozing, they began efforts in key states years before election day 2020 to shape the process to their advantage – the Covid pandemic was a godsend that shot a mix of steroids and adrenaline directly into mainline arteries of a sort of legal malfeasance and gamesmanship. Mail out/mail in ballots that were simply not traceable, ballot “drop boxes” and ballot “harvesting” served to create a situation where ballots could be corrupted before they were counted under prying eyes, and combined with relaxed validation processes, made finding proof of chicanery virtually impossible. No amount of recounting cooked ballots, the origin of which was impossible to determine, would change the outcome but it would produce results consistently enough to defend against challenges. Or as we saw, would reveal only minor issues that could be used to substantiate the “it’s just a very few bad actors but not enough to change outcomes” defense. Ironically, finding just a few fraudulent operators served to justify the premise the entire election was clean – the most secure ever as we were told."
Like in the EU, "Democracy" means pushing the left wing agenda
John Ʌ Konrad V on X - "You don’t understand. I’ve watched a ton of congressional defense hearings. In EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. the Admirals and Generals say “we are only strong because of our allies.” At first I believed it. Then I started attending defense conferences overseas. I watched U.S. GOFOs get treated like royalty. Five-star hotels. Wined and dined. Told how great they are for “being such great allies.” The pattern became obvious. Europeans spend lavishly on ego-boosting, awards dinners, and fine wine… and in exchange, every GOFO goes home and tells Congress how indispensable our allies are. And our “allies” save a fortune on defense. Then a buddy got a job at European Command and confirmed everything—except it wasn’t just GOFOs. There are entire departments of people working in “intelligence” who are basically travel agents for generals and members of Congress. Then I started digging into the UN. Guess what? They hold a massive number of “security” conferences too—except most of theirs are in straight-up resort towns. Then I got inside a few think tanks. You want to see posh surroundings and excellent wine and food? Buddy up with them. I started posting about all this a few years ago and got MASSIVE pushback—which I knew meant I was on the right track. But I still wasn’t 100% sure. Most of it was grift, but maybe some parts were essential… until Midnight Hammer. Then Maduro. Now this. My European friends were totally blindsided by all of it. And guess what? We performed better without these great “allies.” Why? Going all the way back to Korea, one thing has remained true: Europeans don’t fully trust us—and they like having a little power over us. So they are absolute sticklers for Rules of Engagement. They wine and dine our JAGs. They hold endless conferences about “the rule of law” to reinforce the “importance of ROEs.” And ROEs are what kills our military. Nobody is suggesting soldiers should do anything immoral. Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be consequences for atrocities. What I am saying is that having a battalion of JAGs and a dozen allied nations—each with their own ROEs—breathing down every commander’s neck is why we lose wars. That includes Vietnam, where most “allies” refused to fight but every one of them put serious diplomatic pressure on DC to tighten ROEs. All of this “allies are our strength” dogma gets reinforced at these conferences, at war colleges, by European-influenced media, and through think tanks. The reason we’re suddenly so effective is because @PeteHegseth has cut all this out. Our allies are flying blind. They can’t throw up a million legal objections because they don’t know the details behind these missions any sooner than we do. Just look at Starmer’s body language. He’s clueless. And it’s not just our allies that no longer get to micromanage everything but media and UN diplomats and think tanks and bureaucrats and more. Now if we could just cut Congress off from this “allies are great” grift, we could probably start passing legislation too.
P.S. I see no signs of Hegseth or DoW weakening our allies or alliances. They genuinely seem to want Europe to be stronger. They just aren’t asking permission anymore or giving allies veto power over everything like before."
Again, international law is designed to destroy the West
Cynical Publius on X - "America was nearly lost to a cabal of NGOs, think tanks, foundations, specialty media organizations, compromised mainstream media organizations, quasi-governmental organizations and all other manner of other well-funded (often with taxpayer dollars) players dedicated to preserving extra-governmental controls over the average American, all outside the scope of what Americans vote for. The men and women behind these organizations claim to want to benevolently advance public policy, when in reality their singular purpose is to maintain and grow the nefarious personal power they have achieved. Above all else they must defend their fiefdoms, the good of the nation be damned. When reformers try to undo any part of this cabal, those reformers are inevitably smeared, libeled, slandered and threatened. The goal is to prevent them from engaging in that necessary reform by intimidating them into silence. Food for thought."
To Defend Democracy, we need to remove power from voters with technocracy because they stand in the way of the left wing agenda. Trust the "Experts"! i.e. let left wing elites do what they want
Meme - "The people that push for hate speech laws and censorship are "fighting authoritarianism""
"Ten US. mayors from cities such as Chicago and Cincinnati have joined a pact with European mayors to defend democracy and progressive values and fight right-wing populists and authoritarianism. npr.org. Liberal U.S. mayors team up with European counterparts to fight authoritarianism"
Finnish MP convicted for saying homosexuality is ‘developmental disorder’ - "A Finnish member of parliament has been found guilty by the country’s supreme court of inciting hatred after claiming that homosexuality was a “developmental disorder”, in a conviction that prompted criticism from far-right government ministers... The verdict has elicited strong reactions from Räsänen’s party and top politicians including the minister of justice, Leena Meri, who called for a change in the law."
Left wingers are adamant that Europe has more freedom of speech than the US - because anything that hurts the left wing agenda is hate speech and deserves to be banned
NEXTA on X - "Kaja Kallas said that there is less freedom of speech in the United States than in Estonia “I come from a country that ranks second in the freedom of speech index, and for me to hear lectures about free speech from a country that ranks 58th in that same index is… interesting,” Kallas said, commenting on criticism from Marco Rubio about freedom of speech in Europe."
Europa.com on X - "🇩🇪 German police have launched an investigation against a pensioner who called Chancellor Friedrich Merz “Pinocchio” in a Facebook comment.The man wrote “Pinocchio is coming to HN” under a police post announcing a visit by Merz and Baden-Württemberg’s PM Winfried Kretschmann.Three months later, he was informed he is being investigated under Article 188 of the German Criminal Code — a 2021 law that criminalises insults against politicians if deemed “harmful to their public work,” carrying penalties of up to five years in prison.Follow: @europa"
Hans Mahncke on X - "The German authorities who targeted a pensioner for calling Merz “Pinocchio” have now withdrawn the case and moved on as if nothing happened. But something did happen. Germans have just been reminded that criticizing their leaders will bring the weight of the state down on them. Even if this prosecution was abandoned, few will want to be the next test case. That is the real purpose of such actions. It is not about locking up this or that random individual, but to terrorize an entire population into silence."
Proof that free speech exists in Europe!
THE ISLANDER on X - "An NGO bankrolled 47% by the German federal government and 26% by the EU is now suing X for “access” to Hungary’s election data. They dress it up as transparency. It’s nothing of the sort. This is institutionalized surveillance masquerading as democracy promotion — the same Brussels–Berlin complex that lectures nations about sovereignty while quietly trying to override it. When a foreign-funded NGO like Democracy Reporting International demands privileged access to a sovereign country’s electoral discourse, that’s not oversight — it’s power projection. Hungary’s elections belong to Hungarians, not EU technocrats, not German ministries, and certainly not NGOs operating as policy cut-outs. This isn’t an isolated lawsuit — it’s part of a familiar EU playbook. First comes the moral framing: “foreign interference,” “risk assessment,” “democratic safeguards.” Then comes the demand for access, leverage, and narrative control. Data isn’t neutral here; it’s power. Whoever controls the interpretive layer of an election controls how legitimacy is manufactured after the fact. Hungary has already been tried, convicted, and sentenced in advance by Brussels for the crime of non-compliance, for acting as a sovereign power. This lawsuit is simply the next procedural step in converting dissent into pathology. And notice the asymmetry. Elections in Germany, France, or the Netherlands are treated as sacrosanct domestic affairs. Question them and you’re a conspiracist. But elections in Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia — anywhere outside the approved Atlantic corridor — are framed as inherently suspect, requiring external supervision. That’s not democracy, but conditional sovereignty. The EU doesn’t export values anymore — it exports compliance audits, wrapped in NGO letterhead and paid for by the same governments pretending to be neutral arbiters. Hands off Hungary’s elections."
THE ISLANDER on X - "Germany is quietly building a new model of governance — one that doesn’t need to cancel elections, ban parties, or openly censor speech, because it has learned how to administer the art of "legitimacy" upstream. In a striking interview with Neue Zurcher Zeitung, researcher Andrew Lowenthal describes an industrial-scale opinion-management architecture inside Germany. His research maps roughly 330 interconnected actors spanning federal agencies, state ministries, publicly funded NGOs, universities, fact-checking organizations, think tanks, and foundations. They do not operate in opposition to the state. Increasingly, they operate as part of it. This is not blunt censorship. It is far more refined and eloquent in an Orwellian sense. What Lowenthal outlines is an epistemic management system: a closed feedback loop in which political judgment is processed into technical expertise and then returned to the public as neutral truth. The most unsettling detail is not coordination — it is belief. Many participants no longer recognize their work as political at all. They see themselves as custodians of reality, even as they define the boundaries of acceptable thought. The inversion is decisive. NGOs were once adversarial watchdogs. In Germany, they now function as extensions of state capacity, openly coordinating with ministries and regulators. Cooperation with government is no longer viewed as a conflict of interest; it is the baseline. Civil society has been absorbed into administrative infrastructure, while retaining the moral authority of independence. The funding makes the architecture visible. Programs such as Demokratie leben! distribute roughly €200 million annually, sustaining a sprawling ecosystem tasked with combating “hate,” “extremism,” and “disinformation.” These categories are intentionally elastic. Dissent is not banned; it is reclassified. Speech is not silenced; it is managed, filtered through grants, compliance regimes, and platform partnerships, and relabeled democratic resilience. Layered on top is the EU regulatory spine — particularly the Digital Services Act, which pressures platforms into continuous risk assessments, moderation alignment, and privileged “research access.” Transparency is the branding. Narrative leverage is the function. When the same institutional family defines risk, enforces standards, and evaluates outcomes, neutrality becomes circular logic. What makes this moment especially revealing is that Germany is not in a federal election cycle. There is no campaign emergency, no imminent vote, no populist surge forcing extraordinary measures. This system is being expanded mid-cycle, quietly, as routine governance. That matters. It tells us this is not a temporary response to instability. It is the permanent operating environment. Mature systems of control do not wait for crisis. They pre-condition legitimacy long before citizens are asked to participate. Voters are not told what to think; they are trained over time which thoughts are reasonable, which questions are responsible, and which positions fall outside the perimeter of seriousness. Hovering over this architecture is Friedrich Merz — a figure whose authority rests less on popular enthusiasm than on institutional insulation. Legitimacy becomes procedural rather than participatory. Elections persist, but their risk to power is steadily reduced. That is the signature of a system confident not because it is trusted, but because it is buffered. This is not a German aberration. It is a systems test — a warning etched in procedure, a calibration point where democracy is preserved in name while being redesigned in practice, measuring how much trust can be withdrawn from citizens before the result stops resembling freedom."
Meanwhile ICE asking for electoral data is "fascism"
Meme - Dries Van Langenhove: "This is so cynical. I literally got one year in jail for bar jokes made by my friends in a private group chat."
"IN SOME COUNTRIES, BAR JOKES CAN COST YOUR FREEDOM. NOT IN THE EU. PROTECT WHAT MATTERS."
How ignorant. Doesn't he know that jokes should Punch Up, so jokes that hurt the left wing agenda don't count as jokes and aren't and shouldn't be protected?
New Direction AFRICA on X - "🚨🇪🇸 BREAKING: Spain's PM Pedro Sánchez just called for a common European army. Not in 10 years. Not in 2 years. Now. As soon as tomorrow. NATO is cracking. The US is pulling away. Europe is waking up to the fact that its security blanket is gone. A European army means no more waiting for Washington's permission. No more begging for US troops. No more wondering if Trump will answer the phone. The world just got more complicated. The US just got more isolated. And Europe just took its first real step toward strategic independence. This is not a headline. This is a turning point."
Chico Muya on X - "Not so long ago, I would have applauded this idea. Especially after Americas treatment of Ukraine. But today, this idea makes me chuckle wryly. I’ve been working as an assistant to an MEP for about a year now. I’ve been able to see the inner workings of the EU. I’m sorry to say, but I cannot see a “European army” forming at all. If it did, they would do nothing but militarily exercises—if they even get that far. They would never agree to act on the world stage. In fact, most European countries would rather have “diplomatic relations” with bad actor, even if it’s harmful. Even if those actors stand against everything they claim to uphold. Most of Europe’s leaders are like Chamberlain. They all want to wave flimsy agreements and call it peace. Without the US, Europe is lost. It’s a difficult pill to swallow. But it’s true. There is no denying that without Europe, America will have a difficult time projecting power across the globe. But the US is absurdly powerful—even then."
James Holland on X - "EU has a serious problem. It has lost control of the narrative in Europe. It gave billions to media, academia, charities and NGOs for decades so that they would buttress Brussels’ agenda. It worked for years. Now, that’s over. Technology moved faster than they ever could. People switched off their TVs, cancelled their newspaper subscriptions, and started to watch, share and discuss whatever they wanted. This democratisation of information quickly relegated the curated content of the blob to insignificance, and with that, people started to develop the knowledge and confidence to question things they’d never considered before. During this tech revolution, X became the main public square. It also then inevitably became the focus of the blob’s counter offensive. Governments sought to shut down free speech. Presidents and Prime Minsters had social media execs on speed dial and rooms of officials requesting and securing the censorship of people and posts they disliked. Then Elon Musk came in, and freed the public square from the authoritarians in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin and London. The blob didn’t much like that, and so sought to create alternative town squares. You all remember the pleas to close your X account and head on over to where the “good” people were having better conversations. Mastodon and BlueSky tried to repackage the magic of social media in govt approved versions, but they never stood a chance. Today, X is about to report its most monthly downloads in its history. People rarely give away their freedoms easily after they’ve won them. The blob continues to lose, but rather than engage with the new discussions, they keep reaching for those tempting authoritarian leavers that all insecure leaders struggle to resist. They want kids disconnected first. That’s easiest, as you can claim to be protecting them. But just like their parents, this new generation’s unparalleled access to information means they are drawing conclusions that no longer match-up to the ones the blob prefers. Banning them from social media won’t stop that. They’re far too smart to be held back by bureaucrats. Another leaver that’s currently tempting Eurocrats in Brussels is to forcibly merge X with BlueSky.
@griptmedia reports: “Brussels has drawn up plans that would effectively see the operations of US-owned social media platforms — including Elon Musk’s X — forcefully merged with those of their more EU-favoured counterparts, such as BlueSky and Mastodon. The 275-page document published on April 29 discusses the feasibility of forcing both vertical and horizontal interoperability onto all major social media applications, naming X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as major targets. According to the study, these platforms could be forced to platform content from their more moderation-focused rivals, as well as be legally obligated to make their recommender algorithms, news feeds, and user accounts interoperable with websites more favoured by Brussels, such as BlueSky. Platforms could also be forced to allow third-party “moderation” systems to access their digital infrastructure, which would enable enhanced censoring of certain content for some users. It also claims that while forcing the horizontal merging of social media systems within the EU could lead to some difficulties when it came to moderating content, these problems could be alleviated by making platforms use the same “existing technology” to limit what is allowed on their platforms.” I have little doubt these efforts will also fail, but at least we now know what they are up to."
Ursula von der Leyen on X - "Today, we put forward a strategy to prevent and reduce poverty. We are taking decisive action with a strengthened Child Guarantee, better prevention of homelessness and full inclusion for persons with disabilities."
Rob Roos 🇳🇱 on X - "First, build a monstrous bureaucracy. Then “solve” it by redistributing other people’s money in the name of equality and in the name of compassion. Add Brussels propaganda and censorship “to protect democracy” and you have Mao’s playbook of the 1960’s. If it looks like communism, quacks like communism… it’s probably communism. Or soon will be. The @EU_Commission is starting to look like a Politburo, too much power concentrated in unelected hands. The @EUCouncil must slam on the brakes immediately. 🚨 It’s time for We The People to fight back! #EU #Freedom"
Róisín Michaux on X - "EU staff told they cannot criticize the EU, even in their free time, and anon accounts will be investigated
“EU and national investigations capabilities exist”, staff at the European Commission were told last week in relation to anonymous/pseudonymous social media accounts From my newsletter this week: EU staff were invited to a training session, hosted by one of the staff unions and the head of DEI, on what they can and cannot say in their private life. The webinar title singled out “UKRAINE-GAZA-IRAN-VACCINES-POLITICS”, as touchy subjects, but they didn’t dare mention gender, even though it is by far the most toxic topic inside the EU bureaucracy. Here’s some proof: at the exact same moment that the webinar was ongoing, there was a street protest by EU staff against Commission’s policy towards Gaza and Israel, on Place du Luxembourg in Brussels. I happened to walk past it, and I approached the protestors to ask if they knew they were probably breaking some rules. They said that they hadn’t heard that there was any interdiction on their very loud, very critical, very regular, and very EU-branded protests (and bake sales, and marathon participation, and so on…) The Commission tried to ban all internal talk of gender a couple of years ago, and eventually fired me a few weeks ago for it. There is nothing in this world more sensitive among the elites than the sex-erasure issue. Not even Israel-Gaza."
Michael Smith | Facebook - "Watching EU officials trying to implement processes and software that prevents the use of VPN's to avoid identification contrasted against their complete lack of concern about what "migration" is doing to their countries, it puts me in the frame of mind that there is a class of neo-authoritarians that have gravitated to government positions, not because they want to help people but because they want to "help" them by controlling them. The interesting thing about this that the new migrants are refusing to be controlled and the officials are accepting that refusal as legitimate as they crack down on people who assume compliance is the right thing to do to preserve a civil society. Being that the "help" they want to give is necessarily finite, when some refuse to be governed, the remainder of the "help" that would otherwise be consumed in helping the ungovernable is piled on top of those who will allow it - and those who allow it continue to put the neo-authoritarians in positions of power for the same reason - they want to preserve a civil society (which is an insane premise). The lesson that most are missing from the situations we see across Europe and the UK is that being ungovernable works because the leadership class is filled with cowardly bullies who only seek to abuse the compliant. Let us not forget that the American experiment in individual liberty began when the colonists became ungovernable. There is power in saying no to blustering, bullshitting bureaucrats. Something to think about as we inch closer to our 250th birthday."
POLITICOEurope on X - "Is an EU ban on social media possible? Legally, sure, said the European Commission’s Martin Harris-Hess. But implementing such a measure “will face practical difficulties.” #POLITICOAITech"
James Holland on X - "This reminds me of when 17.4 million British voters chose independence over EU membership. That was an opportunity for Brussels to engage with voters and learn what it was doing wrong. Sadly, it chose a far easier path, and concluded that the people must be the problem. Today, unable to connect with voters and communicate effectively, they again won’t entertain the idea that they are perhaps at fault, with Eurocrats openly discussing the banning of social media as a way to maintain control. It seems mad, and suicidal, but the echo chamber is resilient in Brussels and sensible, critical voices have long been sidelined."
