Back in my day, we could use the power of the media to shape The Narrative™.
Now, unfortunately, people can say what they want, and we have to stop that.
That's a paraphrase of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's message to science students yesterday, and it perfectly encapsulates the views held by the failing elite that is quickly losing its grip on public opinion.
He even points to the rise of the AfD as an example in the parade of horribles that inevitably flows from elites losing control over The Narrative™.
I did Nazi that coming https://t.co/Q6y7slyGWu
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 16, 2026
BREAKING NEWS: Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to massively restrict social media and says: "Don't anyone come to me with free speech!" We must "still be able to protect citizens from false information."
Against men like Merz, we have the fundamental right to freedom of expression as a right of defense. His view of the citizens is dangerous and borders on a case of suspicion hostile to the constitution.
It's always been the case that the ruling elite has sought control over what gets spoken, read, or even whispered behind closed doors. Power can always be exercised through brute force, but the surer and more durable form of power is convincing people to consent to be governed.
Legal protections for freedom of speech and thought are relatively rare and quite fragile, especially when people are convinced that wrongthink is a danger that must be crushed. That's why COVID tyranny was so easy to enforce: the citizenry was enlisted as speech monitors along with the state enforcers, and the entire means of cultural production was aligned in pushing a unified message and crushing dissent.
The current AI panic is in the same category — an attempt to revive the good old days of 2020 onwards and a censorship regime that never went away in Europe completely.
Merz went on his anti-free-speech rant at an event with science students. He was asked about a bill that would ban online anonymity, but chose to address the question of free speech more broadly. This is from a Google translation of the Welt article:
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has once again spoken out in favor of a mandatory real-name requirement on the internet. During a meeting with winners of the national competition Jugend forscht (Youth Research) in Berlin, he reaffirmed his position.
"Please, nobody come to me with 'free speech,'" Merz said, according to report details. "This has nothing to do with free speech anymore." He added that such a view is, at best, a "libertarian understanding of politics" stemming from parts of the United States, which he personally does not share.
Merz emphasized that a liberal society must be able to protect its citizens—including protection "against false information, personal disparagement, and discrimination."
Question on Whistleblowers and Investigative Journalism Left Unanswered
The discussion was triggered by a question from a competition participant. The student wanted to know how a mandatory real-name policy could be reconciled with the protection of confidential sources and investigative journalism.
Merz did not directly address this objection. Instead, he warned of an increasing brutalization of debasement and public debate culture online. Anonymous hate campaigns and bot-generated content make it increasingly difficult to establish accountability and prosecute legal violations.
The Chancellor drew a comparison to traditional media, noting that legal action can be taken against newspapers that publish false claims. This accountability, he argued, has contributed to a certain level of "hygiene" in public debate. On the internet, however, users can post under pseudonyms or fake names.
Whenever a German politician speaks of hygiene, run the other direction and get your military prepared to respond. Nothing good can come from it.
Merz specifically pointed to the rise of the AfD and their electoral success as proof of the problem. Except the rise of the AfD is not due to some mysterious hypnotic force unleashed by horrible speech, but rather from the disastrous results of policies pursued by the German political elite. Countries across Europe are paying a steep price for Angele Merkel's open-border policies and ridiculous Green Energy mandates.
If the policies worked, Merz wouldn't be facing these problems.
If crushing dissent is your last resort and recreating the Stasi is your solution, you are the bad guy.
In some ways, the Piddington migrant crisis shows both sides of this dilemma: the residents of Piddington elected liberals to represent them on a "We Welcome Refugees" platform. They bought into The Narrative™ that being open and kind creates utopia.
Now they are facing reality and voting to symbolically leave the U.K.
Reality trumps the Narrative™ when you are forced to face it, and no amount of gaslighting will work forever.
Merz's argument, though, is that the solution is to hide reality as much as possible, and from the elite's perspective, it works much longer than you would expect.
Forty years in East Germany. That's how long the combination of guns, spying, and narrative control was able to keep a country in thrall. The EU elite are hoping they can beat that record, and do it without using too many guns, too.
I'm pretty sure that won't work for as long as they expect, but then again, they expect to use technology to control the flow of information to a greater extent. Information "hygiene," they call it.
Do some ugly things stem from free speech? Of course they do. Human beings do ugly things, and under any political or economic system. That is a constant.
What isn't a constant is who gets to decide what is a good thing, and how much autonomy and human dignity is allowed to exist. Without freedom, there is no dignity.
We wouldn't celebrate Mother Teresa for her works alone — you could enslave somebody to do the exact things she did unwillingly, and they would not be a Saint, but an oppressed person. It was her willing choice to serve her fellow man that made her an example to us all.
For all the talk about the dangers of AI, it's interesting to note that the ideal citizen, from the elite's point of view, is an automaton who robotically repeats whatever they are told and willingly stays in their place doing their assigned tasks without question.
Look at this:
— Kevin - WE THE PEOPLE🦁 (@bambkb) September 8, 2022
“It’s time to start shaming them”
“Frankly we know that we can’t trust the unvaccinated”
“Fuck them and fuck their freedom”
“Screw your freedom, your a SCHMUK for not wearing a mask”
No thank you, I rather stay unvaccinated, fuck you very much. #vaccine pic.twitter.com/mKmh5hEtVT
That is the vision the elite are promoting under the guise of safety and "hygiene."
No thank you.
Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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