Europe is not free, and Belgium is leading the way in (proudly) violating its citizens’ civil rights. The travails of our European brethren thereby provide Americans with an instructive lesson on the importance of our First Amendment. Freedom of speech and association are a crux of American society, and we must defend them without exception. As publisher Larry Flynt said in response to the seminal Supreme Court decision Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, “If the First Amendment is intended to protect anything, it’s intended to protect offensive speech. If you’re not going to offend anyone, you don’t need protection.”
Far different standards apply across the Atlantic, where a post-war neoliberal tyranny has embedded itself deep in establishment discourse. The great Flemish patriot and friend of the New York Young Republican Club Dries Van Langenhove was sentenced earlier this week to one year in jail and fined €16,000. His crime? Being a member of a private group chat in which others disseminated “racist” and otherwise “mean” internet memes and the “possession of weapons”—that is, pepper spray.
Free speech and self-defense are clearly not God-given rights in the fake country of Belgium. Van Langenhove’s several co-defendants received eight- to ten-month suspended sentences and €8,000 fines. Another co-defendant was given a conditional discharge with the condition that he submit to a guided tour of the eyesore Kazerne Dossin Holocaust Museum (i.e., submit to state-enforced reeducation).
Belgium is not and never was a real nation, and its “government” will waste no opportunity to punish Flemish patriots like Van Langenhove. Such action underscores this “government’s” lack of character and illegitimacy. The Belgian “Justice” Department wasted millions of taxpayer euros and thousands of man-hours on lawfare against these young men for their private memes. Belgium has a history of manufacturing atrocities and manipulating public sentiment since World War I, and, sadly, Van Langenhove has fallen victim of its latest farce.
“Today I was sentenced to one year of effective prison sentence, 10 months of suspended prison sentence, €16,000 effective fine, €6,000 suspended fine, €10,000 in compensation and 10 years of loss of civil rights, which means I am no longer allowed to participate in politics,” Van Langenhove shared on X. Even the ever-vacillating Elon Musk was stunned by this tyranny, responding to Van Langenhove’s post by querying, “Someone else sent this meme in a group chat and you were given a prison sentence?” “Yes,” Van Langenhove (accurately) replied.
According to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, Vlaams Belang, the major political party to which Van Langenhove’s youth movement, Schild & Vrienden, is most closely aligned, is now the biggest political force in Belgium. European and federal elections are due in June 2024. We know who the winners will be. We know what the people want. Van Langenhove left his seat in Parliament in 2023 to focus on political activism expressly to further these aims, and we encourage him to remain steadfast through this troubling period.
The New York Young Republican Club stands with Dries Van Langenhove and his party colleagues as the rump state occupying their nation unjustly persecutes them. In the meantime, we stand solidly in defense of our First Amendment right to criticize whomever we so choose for whatever reason we so choose. And if anything we say makes someone uncomfortable, we suggest that the aggrieved party man up. “For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and He will give you victory!” (Deuteronomy 20:4)