Like minded??? Are you serious? Do you have clue on the differences between the various policies and systems and everything in the European countries????
I meant the agreement to operate under a single currency. Obviously there are a lot of differences between the various countries like there are a lot of ideological differences between Texas and California.
There is this old joke here amongst the German political left:
"A German socialist wants basic housing and healthcare for everyone, A French socialist wants oysters, champagne and caviar for everyone."
The conservatives in the UK legalised gay marrige, The conservatives in Germany are pro union, The conservatives in Poland are sometimes openly antisemetic, The conservatives in Spain sometimes deny climate change.
There is hardly ever such a thing as "like minded thinking" amongst ideologies let alone countries here.
Yes, and conservatives in America want smaller central government, more autonomous state governments, and so on. If the US central government vanished the US wouldn't devolve into an anarchy like Somalia that has no real government at any level, it would be more like Europe before the EU.
Back to my promise of explaining the the conservative viewpoint in the US. Consider the old psychological diagram of an individual's "locus of control" with internal and external areas that the individual controls. Think of the external controls being further arranged in concentric circles around the individual. With each successive circle outside the individual their control of that circle is less. So, say, family is the first external circle, followed by local government, then city government, then county, then state then federal and finally the world. The number of people with a say in the decision in a given circle grows with each successive circle so your actual say in any decision is therefor significantly less with each successive circle. So in family a democratic vote would be among a few people, a local community control board would be a few dozen, city a few thousand and so on up to the federal level where you are only one of millions making the decision.
Likewise, with the growing number of people involved at each level, the solutions become increasingly less tailored to the individual's need. The Federal government knows less about your individual need than the state which is less than the city and so on. Moreover they CARE less than each nearer circle.
A conservative believes the direct control that each circle should have over the individual should be inversely relational to your ability to influence it in return. This is why we support welfare and safety nets at the state level more than at the federal level, for instance, and charity over state welfare. Each successively smaller circle is better suited to meeting the needs of the individual because they understand them better.
What we conservatives in America object to is the growing power of the Federal Government over the individual. The individual has almost no direct influence over the Federal government, leaving them all but helpless when the Federal Government is not serving their needs, or acting counter too them. We don't see this callousness on the part of the federal government as evil, necessarily but simply as the byproduct of a system that can't possibly meet the need of the individual and therefor substitutes the individual for some imaginary average or a person. So we object to Federal welfare to individuals and businesses because the Federal Government is the least equipped to make those decisions for the individual.
Balancing that we conservatives accept that there are some controls over the individual that are not as individualistic in a civilized society. We don't accept that the choice to let your annoying neighbor live should be left in your hands. :lol: These universally applicable rules for a civil society are enforced by the central government because in that rare case uniformity is preferable to leaving it to the individual to choose there is no average in those cases. This exception would be what we consider to be "natural rights" (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness). We accept that these natural laws should be enforced by a central government because the GOAL of such enforcement is uniformity.
Anyway, I hope that is fairly clear. It's the central justification for small government that is supported by most American conservatives. They may not explain it the same way I do though.