Is Freedom Burning?

vol. 10.12.26

Dear Readers,

I came across two powerful pieces of journalism this week which I want to share with you and comment upon. The first is Rubio’s Rousing Athens Speech by Tyler O’Neil who writes for the Daily Signal. The second is Why France is Burning by Simon Benzaquen at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Both ask the question central to this column—As members of Judeo-Christendom, given the siege by the international Left, ominously now in partnership with militant Islam, is our freedom burning?

Marco Rubio, considered the best speaker in Trump’s cabinet, delivered a speech in Athens with the Acropolis and Parthenon as his backdrop. Assuming the West does not fall in the interim, it will be a speech quoted by future generations. It was an eloquent and dire warning.

The West didn’t lose faith in its own good heritage organically. A powerful network of universities, foundations, activist nonprofits, teachers’ unions, corporate DEI offices, media organizations, and government bureaucracies have championed these corrosive ideas, establishing them as the new bedrock for a competing belief system.

These institutions taught young Westerners that patriotism is suspicious, borders are unjust, Christianity is oppressive, merit is privilege, and national sovereignty is an obstacle to progress.

Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness.

As he spoke, students combined with various mob elements took to the streets in cities across France, piling trash bins and other objects across school entrances, setting piles of garbage on fire in the streets, hiding their faces behind masks and violently clashing with police.

Originally and supposedly, these protests were about long school hours, overheated classrooms, and crumbling buildings. But Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Unbowed, the country’s radical-left party, known by its French initials, LFI, has seized upon the riots as his chance for power.

Simon points out that, in the 2022 French presidential election, Mélenchon narrowly, missed the runoff between the top two contenders. With Emmanuel Macron barred from a third consecutive term, the presidency is in play this coming April. Some polls suggest the race could become a runoff between Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen, leader of the so-called far right.

Mélenchon’s strategy is to foment discontent currently roiling the country. Much like the US, French public debt is nearly 120% of GDP. The French government recently proposed a $61 billion budget reduction in spending while its citizens were rioting for more and better public services. The French parliament is increasingly anxious as the economy becomes unstable.

Just like our own Muslimist radicals running for or are already in the US Congress, Mélenchon accuses French police of repression with a racist undertone. His message is protesters are Muslim, and therefore they are being targeted by the government.

As in the U.S., online influencers amplify the accusation. One activist belongs to RED Jeunes, a radical-left collective that campaigns against Islamophobia. She absurdly links deplorable school conditions to restrictions on Muslim clothing: Why can the state, she argues, ban hijabs in state schools but cannot provide a teacher or a decent classroom?

Such messaging has been spread via other French online activists including Shahin Hazamy, who is a known influence agent for the Iranian regime and was recently convicted of glorifying terrorism.

Simon asks, “Should we be all that surprised, then, that Palestinian flags have appeared at the school protests?” What does Gaza have to do with a shortage of teachers in France? LFI has spent years making hostility to Israel part of its message to young voters. Does that sound familiar? Bringing that cause into the school protests helps fuel the racial dynamics and turn a demand for better classrooms into a much broader confrontation with the French government.

As Rubio, Simon, and O’Neil so eloquently point out, through the efforts of a massive network of universities, foundations, nonprofit activist unions, teachers’ unions, corporate DEI offices, media organizations, and government bureaucracies, we are being propagandized to believe that communism is the solution and Islam is simply another peaceful religion.