It’s strange, in a way almost ceremonial, when a state chooses to reveal what it has become.

All I did was speak freely. And in response, the French government stepped forward — calmly, politely, bureaucratically, to correct me. That alone tells you where we are.

Think about that. A continent with a shrinking industrial base now claims the right to police the global public square, to dictate not only what Europeans may say, but what the world may say on platforms it does not own, in jurisdictions it does not govern, under laws no citizen ever voted for.

This is not regulation. This is extra-territorial censorship disguised as simple consumer protection.

And France, the country of Voltaire, Hugo, Zola; the country that once staged revolutions merely to remind kings who ruled whom, now deploys bureaucrats to inspect online metaphors like customs officers inspecting luggage for contraband.

That is the tragedy. Not merely the censorship, but the collapse of a national soul.

De Gaulle once said that France could ...

VENEZUELA CHARGES WASHINGTON WITH 'THEFT, PIRACY'
...After Seizure Of Oil Tanker.
-The US had imposed sanctions on the vessel under claims it was involved in the Iranian oil trade.
-Venezuela has accused the US government of “blatant theft” and “piracy,” following Washington’s seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker off the Latin American country’s coast on 10 December.
SEE: Venezuela Charges Washington With ‘Theft, Piracy’ - PopularResistance.Org