We Are Not Amused

Reduced American presence in Europe and the talk of reducing America's role even more has freed Europeans to embrace their inner monarchs.

"Europe"--that is the European Union--is losing its freedoms:

State censorship is a fact in most of the West. In February our European allies began observing the Digital Services Act, which requires Internet platforms to enforce judgments of state-appointed content reviewers called “trusted flaggers.”

The "trusted flaggers" are the state-approved censors:

Trusted flaggers are special entities under the DSA. They are experts at detecting certain types of illegal content online, such as hate speech or terrorist content, and notifying it to the online platforms. The notices submitted by them must be treated with priority as they are expected to be more accurate than notices submitted by an average user.

Gosh, what are odds anything the trusted flaggers and the people who hire them will have views defined as hateful or terroristic under that act?

What have I been saying?

We forget the role that America played in creating the free and democratic Europe that we wrongly assume is the natural state of now-free Europe:

And that distance [between America and Europe] is allowing Europeans to revert to their pre-World War II nature of being a mix of autocracy, monarchy, and democracy. I had to be reminded by this author that our long period of influence in Europe during the Cold War had a role in making Europe truly democratic:

It is easy to forget--and this was a useful reminder to me--that Europe with its autocracies and monarchies was not fully part of a free West (although obviously part of the Western tradition) until we rebuilt Western Europe in that template after World War II. And NATO expansion after defeating the Soviet Union was more explicit in demanding democracy and rule of law for new members.

If left alone without the benefit of American influence, Europe as a political entity will evolve in ways hostile to America, as the proto-imperial body already exhibits:

The EU wants to help Iran despite Iran's record of terrorism and support for mayhem--on top of a nuclear program. And the EU wants to shield Russia from British anger over Russia's use of poison gas on British territory to kill people.

So yeah, basically I do want the EU to die with festering boils.

Forgive the nested quotes.

Not that America isn't marching down this same path. And Britain even after Brexit has succumbed to this impulse to use the power of the state to silence unapproved voices. But at least Americans have a First Amendment and a history of "don't tread on me." Hopefully that makes a difference.

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