Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Munich may be the most important address by the second Trump administration so far.

Vance’s critiques of European illiberalism and intolerance were evidently true, and the reaction they elicited was telling and worth remembering as the United States begins its 250th year.

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In the United Kingdom, it is illegal to counsel a mother out of aborting her child. Even praying too close to an abortion clinic is banned.

“In Britain and across Europe,” Vance said, “free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”

In Sweden, after a man was murdered for burning a Quran, a judge convicted one of the victim’s friends, noting that nobody in Sweden has “a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.”

Romania canceled the 2024 presidential election after the “wrong” candidate won, supposedly buoyed by Russian disinformation.

Vance described these unjust and tyrannical acts as “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

On this last note, Vance is guilty of a bit of prevarication — perhaps a noble lie, or a diplomatic stretching of the truth. The values Vance was defending are not, in fact, Europe’s.

The values Vance was leaning on — the love of liberty, freedom of religion and speech, and deep respect for democracy — are American values often echoed by Europe but never held as firmly there as they are here.

Americans must remember that we are uniquely great not merely in our wealth, military, and dynamism but also in our standing alone when it comes to freedom and democracy.

We are far from perfect. Republicans, Democrats, and before them, Whigs and Federalists have grabbed too much power, stepped on the rights of groups and individuals, and tried to curtail democracy. But they have always tried to pretend they were doing something else. In the U.S., even the abusers of power have felt the need to claim the mantle of liberty or democracy.

Every school child knows (or should know) that our founding was a singular moment in human history. It’s easy, though, to assume that the last 249 years have seen a steady spread of our values across much of the globe. Yes, America has been a shining city on a hill, but the other countries of the world at best reflect the light we cast — sometimes more dimly and sometimes more brightly.

During the Cold War, we adopted the term “the free world” to describe Western Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. But we were grading on a curve.

Our allies are more democratic than most regimes in human history, and freer than China, Russia, Iran, or Burma. But the British, the French, and the Germans do not have the freedom of speech or religion as we understand it.

DENYING BIGOT BOB VYLAN A VISA IS APPROPRIATE

We write this today not to brag or pretend the U.S. has no faults. We write this today because we sometimes take for granted our freedoms and democracy, as if this is just the state of modern man. It is not. It is the fruit of great men and a revolution 250 years ago, and then two and a half centuries of vigilant defense of human dignity. It is also the fruit of Providence.

God really did shed his grace, exceptionally, on the United States of America. May we continue to hold it dearly.