What is your political affiliation?

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you live in a far more just and equitable society, than i do. your "third" way is what american lefties can only dream about.

I have always found interesting the notion of "democratic socialism", it is almost as if socialism on its own is inherently undemocratic.



I understand that in 2005 a liberal coalition defetead the social-democrats, in Europe liberal is almost a translation of libertarian.

From what I have heard of them they are more libertarian (individual liberty, responsible government and free markets) that Obama, in fact the social-democrats were defeated because of this, they lost the support of the middle class who were tired of excesive taxes.



Im glad of that.



With all due respect, using the state to take by force the resources of some people to give it to another people isnt taking care of anybody.



Maybe the fact that the US has a population 40 times bigger than Sweeden could explain that.



Again, I fail to see how giving half your paychek to the government can be consider "free".



I was under the impression that the average middle class familiy wage in America was 30% higher than in scandinavian countries.



Good for you, but are you really sure its not because of your government libertarian politics? After all you have been under their policies for 6 years now.



Here is another, go Ron paul

Some of the things you´re takin up is a question of moralistic values, which is impossible to discuss though persons with different idea of moral usually can´t force the other one to change his personal statement.

But there is some facts you´re taking up, that can be interesting to develop.

For example the statement that an average american midelclass family should have a 30% highet midel wage than its scandinavian counterpart:

Thats a statement which deserves two answers:

For the first: It´s possible that this is a truth with modification, though the american family has to pay a lot of things fromtheir own pocket, which should be payd by the government if it had been in scandinavia. If that should be true, it would mean that the real wage should be quiet the same, but I don´t know, I just say that its possible.

The second answer to your statement, which is much more important is that you´re talkin about the middle class family but I talked about the fact that the lowest wages in Sweden is far higher than in US. Even someone who works as a cleaner or at Mc Donalds can afford a real apartment (not a trailer), healthy food and so on, whitout having one or two extra works by the side of the ordinary one.

When you're talking about our "libertarian" government and our strong economy, your talking about a situation which can´t be compared with the one in america at all.

For the first: even the conservtive government who runs sweden nowadays is a big friend of free education, free helath care and workers rights to form unions. Not as much as the social democrat was, but they are still storngly defending this parts of the swedish model, so theyre much closer to Obama, than to the republicans.

The thing that they did when they came to power was that they cutted the taxes for people who were working and finced it with some cuts in the compensation levels for unemployed and sick people. Not everyone in the working middle class was glad about that, though we have a quite different mentality here in Scandinavia, saying that we all have a responsibility, taking care of each other, not only if we´re related, friends or family, but other people liked that reform.
Even though, the difference between this compensation levels in Sweden vs USA is probably bigger than even Obama ever could dream of, and our conservative/libertarian government thinks its fair enough. They are satisfied with what they have done now and they don´t want any american-type society, they either so they are much closer (maybe even a bit to the left of-) Obama, then they are to the republicans, in fact.

Now, when we´re talking about the swedish economy, its true that we have a very good finance minister, called Anders Borg, who has done an outstanding work with our state finances, but even before, when the social democrats were running the country, we had a very strong economy and good finances.

The reason why I pointed democratic socialism was a knowledge that socialism is very controversial in america, though Its not in Europe. At an European forum I should just have wroted the word socialism.

This is a common misunderstanding, outside Sweden. But the social-democrats didn´t lose their power because of the taxes, but the unemployment and the conservatives/"libertarians" have changed their politics a lot in the last years (becoming more similar to the social-democrats), that was also a big reason for why they came to power.



The Swedish conservatives/"libertarians", called Moderata Samlingspartiet (commonly called "Moderaterna") was once a party which had its profile in cutting taxes and working for a system more like the american (but even though in a moderate, more left-winged form, than the "original" over there).

They had some votes from people who didn´t like the high taxes, but most of the swedes (even the middle class) enjoyed the system and voted for the socialdemocrats in almost every election.

What happened in the election at 2006 was that we had a relativel high unemployment (about 6-7%, if I´m right), which wasn´t solved by the socialdemocrats. At this monent Moderaterna changed there politics quite radical, from being a traditional enconomically right-wing party to run a politic more likely to the socialdemocrats, with exception from one thing: they said that they could cut the unemployment by cutting the taxes for working people and financing it with cutted compensation levels for ill or unemplyed people.

Though people were dissapointed with the socialdemocrats failure to cut the unemployment they voted for moderaterna, meaning that their ideas were worth a try, though moderaterna did´nt want a far different society any longer, so it had nothing to do with the tax levels, rather the unemployment.

The thing is that it didn´t work and because of that there were a lot of protests against the reforms, which know had a support mostly from moderaternas old core voters (about 20% of the population).

The thing that saved Moderaterna in the election 2010 wasn´t themselves, it was a huge serie of misstakes made by Socialdemokraterna after they have lost the election.

For the first: Göran Persson (the former socialistic prime minister) resigned after the election (in sweden we hav a system were you vote for partys, rather than person and the leader of the party which will lead the government is also the one who will be prime minisete).
When Socialdemokraterna were to vote for a new leader, they were die hard supporter of a principle saying that their next leader should be a woman, whoever it might be. The problem was that the only one they could find, who also wanted to lead the party was a lady called Mona Sahlin, with a very low confidence among people, mostly known for her incompetence, economical cheating and a lot of talk but no action.
Anyway, the stupid idiots choosed her for leader, and the cosequences was that


a: She couldnt unite her party for any specific political program at all until a very long time.

b: She wanted a coalition with the Green Party, but that also forced her to cooperate with the former communist party of Sweden against her will (nowadays a socialdemocratic party with about 6% of the votes in an average election, politically more to the left than Socialdemokraterna, but still not communists). That made her look like a weak leader and sunk her confidence even more.

c: She couldnt unite her own coalition for a political program until just before the election, there were a lot of intern arguing.

d: All this mess made Socialdemokraterna desperat, they choosed opinions from day to day, in a lot of questions, in a desperate effort of hunting voters, but that just cutted the confidence of socialdemokraterna even more and the lost the election.

Right now Socialdemokraterna is a party in crisis, and not only the majority of the Swedish people, but even me myself are glad that Moderaterna are the ones who runs the country right at the monent.

But as I told you, moderaterna doesn´t want to change the swedish model anymore, theyre quiet satisfied with what they already have done and their politics is much closer to Obama, than to the republicans. And someday, when Socialdemokraterna has solved its problems, it´s not impossible, that they will rule again.

-I hope this have helped you to understand swedish politics a bit better.

No party but most of my views are liberal. I think I could run for president as a Green Party member.

if you run it up the flagpole, i'd salute it.

I'm a libertarian that leans towards the right. I'm not in favour of big government socially or fiscally.