Banned Icons

Following up on this post, the EU is now considering banning the Hammer and Sickle.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — A group of conservative European Union lawmakers from eastern Europe called Thursday for a ban on communist symbols, including the red star and the hammer and sickle, to match a proposed EU ban on the Nazi swastika.

The group from Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic said the communist symbols should be included in any ban because of the suffering caused by Soviet-backed regimes in eastern Europe.

"We would like to have an equal treatment of the other evil totalitarian regime of the communist system," said Jozsef Szajer (search), an Hungarian member of the European Parliament.

I said it then, and I'll say it now: censorship and blanket bans are not the way to change society for the better.