OPINION:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new visa restriction against foreigners that says if they want to come to the United States, they can’t have a history of censoring and stifling Americans’ speech.
So simple. So effective. So overdue.
“For too long,” Rubio said on X, “Americans have been fined, harassed and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights. Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
If only that policy could be extended to Democrats — then Americans would really be on the way to having their free speech rights restored. Remember how the tyrants in the Democrat Party booted all dissenting viewpoints from social media during the COVID crazy years? They happily called out anyone who dared counter the preferred government view — to anyone who even raised a question about the government’s preferred views — as dangers to society, as dangers to the health of citizens, as complicit in the deaths of citizens who refused to take the shots, to wear the face masks, to hop and skip and jump at any whimsical order then-COVID czar Anthony Fauci felt like issuing.
But that’s perhaps a different State Department order for a different day.
For now, the Chinese Communist Party has been put on notice. So, too, all the other countries of the world with governments that open doors wide to American businesses, only to slap them in the face with communist mandates. These governments’ creed? Obey, or you cannot play.
Vice President J.D. Vance gave the perfect example in February of the way outsiders have attempted to thwart America’s constitutional system and destroy that whole God-given thing the founders gave us — that whole “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights” thing in the Declaration of Independence.
Vance told leaders at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year that the European Union’s Digital Services Act, nicknamed the Digital Surveillance Act, would not as the EU Commission claimed protect web users from “misinformation” and “disinformation” and “hate speech,” but rather give government the tools of censorship. And these tools, Vance warned, would be unfairly wielded to pressure U.S. companies, particularly in the tech industry, to comply or lose business opportunities.
The more economies go global, the more America has to be alert to threats to the constitutional way of life.
Hollywood may not mind adjusting its film content to suit communists’ tastes. But the average American cherishes individual liberties and rights. Most Americans don’t want businesses slowly, subtly and with sly profiteering intent selling out freedoms and God-given rights for the chance to expand markets.
And certainly, Americans don’t want to face arrest and prosecution from overseas governments for the simple “crime” of speaking their minds.
“It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil,” Rubio wrote in a statement posted on the State Department website.
“It is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States,” Rubio wrote.
“We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech,” Rubio wrote.
Yay, Team Trump.
That’s America First in action.
At the same time, it’s important to remember: Rubio, with this visa policy, isn’t giving Americans the freedom of speech. He’s simply respecting what God already has bestowed on each and every individual.
That difference may seem slight.
But it matters greatly when political winds shift, and when political faces change.
In America, it’s always, always, always this: Rights and liberties come from God and government only exists to preserve and protect what is already granted each and every man, woman and child by God. Rubio deserves thanks for protecting — not giving.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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