Echoes in Eternity

From the title, you would think I must be talking about China or North Korea. Unfortunately, I am not. Just today, the European Union enacted new rules regarding racism and "hate crimes."

In a declaration, EU justice and interior ministers said the rules would aim to make a crime "incitement to hatred and violence and publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivializing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes."
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The proposal calls on EU nations to punish those who publicly incite violence or hatred based on a person or group's race, color, religion, descent or ethnic origin.

On the face, it sounds decent enough. I mean, who is in favor of those who deny the Holocaust or incite violence against other people? Almost everyone would agree that such people are scum. However, this is in fact a very dangerous law. Today it criminalizes those who deny genocides, tomorrow it could easily criminalize those who stand up to radical Islam (or any other vile ideology) and call its supporters "evil." This is just another rule in a long line of ones which have put a chilling effect on free speech in Europe. It would seem that sticks and stones are fine in Europe, but words are beyond the pale. Yet somehow, I seriously doubt that the imams currently recruiting terrorists all over Europe and INCITING VIOLENCE will face any charges under these new laws.