Jonathan Turley writes for The Hill about a significant new action from the U.S. secretary of state.
Winston Churchill once warned that “appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.” When it comes to the crocodile of censorship, history is strewn with defenders who later became digestives. Censorship produces an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech limits, and today’s censorship supporters often become tomorrow’s censored subjects.
This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stopped feeding the crocodile.
On May 28, 2025, Rubio shocked many of our allies by issuing a new visa restriction policy that bars foreign nationals deemed “responsible for censorship of protected expression” in the U.S.
The new policy follows a major address by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich challenging our European allies to end their systematic attacks on free speech. Vance declared, “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.”
At the time, I called the speech “Churchillian” in drawing a bright line for the free world. Rubio’s action is no less impressive and even more impactful.
Europe has faced no consequences for its aggressive efforts at transnational censorship. Indeed, this should not be a fight for the administration alone. Congress should explore reciprocal penalties for foreign governments targeting American companies or citizens for engaging in protected speech. …
… Rubio showed Europe that the U.S. would not simply stand by as European censors determined what Americans could say, read, or watch. As the EU threatens companies like X with billion-dollar fines, it is time for the U.S. to treat this as an attack on our citizens from abroad. …
… It is time to get serious about the European threat to free speech. And Rubio is doing just that — finally imposing real consequences for censorship. We are not going to defeat censors by yelling at them. Speech alone clearly does not impress them.
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Author: Mitch Kokai
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