Free Europe?

So just how free is Europe? Our allies often chide us for not living up to our ideals, but when it comes down to it, how do they stack up?

According to this article in the Independent, not too well.

Remember the story of the Danish pizzeria owner who protested the Axis of Weasels by refusing to serve Germans and the French? Turns out he has now been charged with discrimination which could cost him up to 5000 kroner.

Is it right for the government to dictate who a private business can and must serve? If a business owner chooses to deny service to a particular person, they are willingly forgoing the income that that person would provide. They choose to suffer the consequences of their actions.

And it’s not as if the owner in question was denying French and German patrons a vital service. He denied them his pizza. He didn’t threaten them with starvation, he just said that he wouldn’t feed them in a place with many food options.

If the Danish government wants to ensure that the French and Germans have access to pizza on this island, then they need to open a state owned pizzeria. They should have no right to step in and tell this man that he must serve people when it goes against his beliefs.

So just how free is Europe?