Tag: Europe

Guest Post: Britain Stands at a Crossroads

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Good ol’ Tom over at Free Speech Backlash graciously sent along this powerful post about the state of free speech—or the lack thereof—in Great Britain and Europe.

American readers are likely aware of the rapid erosion of free speech in the nation that birthed the very concept, and it serves as an object lesson on the importance of the First Amendment, which has so far protected Americans from the worst excesses of government censorship.  As Tom notes, though, paper guarantees are worthless if not supported for every American.

However, government censorship has rarely been the issue in the United States; rather, corporate censorship is what haunts free speech in the United States.  The various attempts by the tech giants to censor free speech on their platforms in 2016, 2020, and 2024 indicate that the platforms that serve as our de facto public square are often restricted at the whims of the rich and powerful.  Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter did much to restore free speech online, but even that is imperfect.

Further, American banks have the nasty habit of “debanking” account holders with unflatteringly Truth-based views.  Many conservatives found their deposited funds inaccessible, or unable to accept payments through popular payment processors, because of publicly-voiced opinions that did not fit the globohomo narrative.

But, ultimately, we have the protection of the Constitution to criticize the government, even when the ostensibly private sector platforms for doing so are often censored.  Great Britain and Europe at large lack that basic protection.

Tom links this destruction of free speech to the massive influx of Third Worlders.  The two go hand-in-hand—if you need an imported slave class to a.) do all of your work for cheap and b.) make you feel good about yourself, you don’t want the native-born proles complaining.  The solution—especially in a system like Britain’s where the party in power controls the executive and legislative functions simultaneously (usually) by default—is to make it illegal to criticize the massive influx of dusky hordes into your homeland.

That brings me to another point:  why does Britain have a Home Secretary—or anyone in power—named Shabana Mahmood?  It reminds me of this clip from The Simpsons:

But I digress.  Here’s Tom with more:

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TBT: Make Greenland American

The Portly Politico16 Comments

Yours portly has a lengthy post over at Free Speech Backlash today about Trump, Venezuela, and the intersection between American nationalism (“America First”) and American imperialism (the piece is called “Trump: Nationalist or Imperialist?“).  “Imperialism” is a dirty word, but America is an empire, whether we like it or not.  Indeed, we’ve been an empire since at least 1898, when the United States gained Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain, and occupied Cuba for several years.  Cuba became nominally independent, but remained a virtual American protectorate until Fidel Castro’s Communist revolution in the 1950s.

Many on the Right are concerned that the Maduro capture is something of a “heel turn,” to use wrestling parlance, for Trump’s foreign policy, and that he’s abandoning America First principles in favor of open-ended American adventurism abroad.  My piece details why Maduro’s arrest is not another quagmire, and how it’s very consistent with traditional American foreign policy dating back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.

Similarly, Trump’s desire to annex Greenland, which sounds like a joke or someone playing a True Start Location Earth map in Civilization VI, is quite serious.  Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere, which—whether we like it or not—is America’s hemisphere.  American geopolitical strategy since 1823 has been to dominate this hemisphere to avoid a balance-of-power situation like Europe’s in the nineteenth century.  It is also seeks to prevent foreign intervention into the independent nations of this hemisphere.  One reason for the Maduro operation was to prevent Maduro from selling his country off to the Chinese, which would put America’s primary geopolitical rival in our backyard.

Similarly, China and Russia have designs on the Arctic, with the former particularly attempting to gain influence over the tiny Greenlandic population.  Denmark is entirely too venal to combat foreign intervention in its colony, so greater, more serious powers will do so.  With ice caps receding, the Arctic is the great oceanic chokepoint of the twenty-first century, and America needs Greenland to secure our interests in the Western Hemisphere—and to keep China out.

It’s unpleasant to think about Great Power politics in the twenty-first century, when we’re supposed to be beyond all that foolishness.  But it is the rules-based international order of the 1990s that is the aberration, not the kinds of aggressive power plays we’re seeing today.

Taking Greenland—which the Trump Administration seems intent to do—is part of the broader return to Reality the world is experiencing.  Reality is often hard, but it cannot be ignored.

I wish no violence upon Greenland or Denmark—far from it!  Greenland does not need to be taken by force.  At a certain point, the United States can offer Greenlanders a package so enticing, they cannot refuse.  Denmark should be eager to offload an expensive asset that they are not using—and that the bankroller of their social welfare state is willing to go to great lengths to obtain.

With that, here is 15 January 2025’s “Make Greenland American“:

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MAGA Monday: Zelensky Gets Zapped

The Portly Politico15 Comments

A quick note:  apologies to SubscribeStar readers; apparently, Saturday’s post, which was scheduled to pop at 6:30 AM EST that morning, never popped!  I posted it manually yesterday.  —TPP

Yours portly is once again playing catch-up, so I’m sharing the full meeting/press conference between President Trump and the little twerp from the Ukraine, President Zelensky:

To be clear, I don’t think Russia is good; their attempted conquest of the Ukraine has been incredibly disruptive to the lives of the Ukrainian people (to put it mildly) and to global order.  But that doesn’t make Ukraine and Zelensky saints, nor does it mean the United States should be getting involved in what is essentially a border conflict between similar peoples in a distant part of the globe.

Zelensky is perhaps the most entitled and disrespectful world leader I’ve ever seen.  He’s jetted around the globe cosplaying as some kind of freedom fighter.  He doesn’t even have the decency or respect to wear a coat and tie when begging us for money.  Even someone looking to get a bank loan to open up a mechanic’s shop changes out of coveralls and into a suit when asking the banker for money.

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Make Greenland American

The Portly Politico2 Comments

We’re just five days away from President/President-Elect Trump’s inauguration, and I’m as giddy as a schoolboy at the candy shop.  There is much to be excited about in a second Trump administration, but lately I’ve been whooping like a silver-backed gorilla (at the candy shop, presumably) over the prospect of purchasing Greenland from Denmark—and taking back the Panama Canal.

The coverage of President-Elect Trump’s desire to take Greenland features a mix of bemusement and alarm, which is pretty on-brand for Trump’s pronouncements.  There is a lot of chest-thumping from the European Union and the Danes, who both vow that the United States will never have Greenland.  President Trump, for his part, seems to be having fun trolling the stuffed shirts in Europe and the hostile American press, especially with his talk of annexing Canada (which is trolling; I think Trump is just having fun at Justin Trudeau’s expense).

What I like about all this annexation talk is that it hearkens back to the presidency of James K. Polk.  It was under Polk that the United States expanded to (mostly) its present borders, at least in the contiguous, lower forty-eight States.  Polk similarly struck an aggressively expansionist tone, proclaiming “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight” in reference to the upper border of the Oregon Territory.

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TBT: The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau”

The Portly Politico26 Comments

In “The Worst of 2021” post, there was a much-neglected gem amid all the filler:  this January 2021 post about Czech composer Bedřich Smetana‘s The Moldau.  My good friend and former colleague H. L. Liptak—herself a noted writer and a recent subscriber, *hint, hint*—praised it in her a comment on “The Worst.”

That got me thinking about this post, and that it deserved a comeback.  Thus, here is January 2022’s “The Joy of Romantic Music II: Bedřich Smetana’s ‘The Moldau’“:

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Saint Patrick’s Day

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day throughout the Western world, a day to venerate and celebrate the life, death, and Christian service of Saint Patrick (the day coincides with the supposed date of St. Patrick’s death).  Of course, now the holiday has devolved into a drunken festivity in which everyone pretends to be Irish for a day, downing pints of green beer and wearing green.

The real story of Saint Patrick is far more interesting than the debauched modern celebration.  Patrick was the son of a wealthy family in what is now Britain in the declining years of the Roman Empire.  Irish raiders captured Patrick and sold him into slavery in the Emerald Isle.  Working alone as a shepherd, isolated and afraid, Patrick turned to Christ for solace and strength.

After escaping captivity, God called him back to Ireland, not as a slave, but to deliver Ireland from its spiritual bondage.  After his ordination, Patrick returned and preached the Gospel to the pagan Irish, sparking a major religious revival among the people there.  Ultimately, Ireland became second perhaps only to France in its dedication to the Catholic Church, and unlike its Gallic co-religionists, maintained that devotion well into the twentieth century.

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Walkin’

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Yesterday morning, longtime Nebraska Energy Observer contributor Audre Myers shared a charming post, “Walking …“—a reflection of the late 1960s and Woodstock.  Regular commenter Scoop posted an achingly nostalgic response that sums up the significance of Woodstock to that cohort of early Boomers—it was the last incandescent burst of rock ‘n’ roll’s triumph before petering out in the 1970s (which, I would argue, is when hard rock got good).

The tug of nostalgia is a strong one.  I’m only thirty-five, and I already feel it from time to time.  Indeed, I’ve always been a sucker for nostalgia, which a psychologist might argue is one of the reasons I studied history.  Perhaps.  I also just enjoy learning trivia.

Regardless, Audre’s post caught my attention because I have been contemplating the literal, physical act of walking lately (although I often take metaphorical strolls down memory lane, too).  I’ve put on a bit of weight in The Age of The Virus, so I’ve taken up walking as a way to complement a regimen of calorie counting (which is more of a loose, back-of-the-envelope calorie guesstimate each day).

I’m trying to get in around two miles of focused walking a day, mostly around Lamar.  Although work commitments don’t always make that possible, I do find that simply going about my work results in around two miles of walking in aggregate.  I’m curious to see what my step totals will be once the school year resumes, and I’m dashing about between classes, pacing the rows of students, and striding across the boards as I teach.

I’m not a runner, by any means.  My older brother loves to run, and has the physique to show for it.  More power to him, but I know myself well enough to know it’s not something I want to do.  Runners swear oaths to running’s efficacy and delights, but gasping for breath in 100-degree weather with maximum humidity doesn’t appeal to me.  Walking at a brisk clip in that weather, though, is at least bearable—once I’ve embraced the stickiness and the sweat, I can go for a couple of miles easily, and sometimes three or four.

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The Spectator Turns 10,000

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The British libertarian magazine The Spectator reached its 10,000th issue.  It is the only magazine ever to reach this milestone.  It began life as a newspaper in July 1828, becoming a magazine “more than 100 years” later, although it was apparently always a weekly.

Throughout its history, The Spectator took radical positions for the times.  They supported the expansion of the franchise in Britain in 1832, and supported the Union in the American Civil War at a time when many Britons were concerned about the impact of cotton shortages on the British textile industry than they were about slavery (correctly or not, The Spectator cast the American Civil War in moral terms).

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Independence Day

The Portly Politico5 Comments

The day has finally come—after three-and-a-half years, Great Britain is finally leaving the European Union.  The British people are regaining their sovereignty and will begin their way back to enjoying their traditional English liberties.

The European Union is an overweaning, elitist, supranational tyranny.  It is a progressive dream, which is why the Leftists are melting down over Brexit, and attempted to thwart it for so many years.  Progressives today—just like progressives in the early twentieth century—are gaga for technocratic rule and elitist dominance.

It’s not about “democracy”; if it was, they would have accepted the outcome of the 2016 referendum.  Democracy only matters to progressives when it advances their ends.  That’s why progressives hold elections and referendums—repeatedly, if necessary—until they get the outcomes they want—and then the matter is settled forever.  If that doesn’t work, courts or the bureaucracy will effectively veto the voters’ “incorrect” choices.

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