Government has purpose, to ensure the rights and liberties of the individual. Government is a source of "evil" I guess. It always pushes to expand its power, all government does this.
No politicians do that, and especially when there is no accountability or transparency. Politicians allow a slacking of oversight, transparency and accountability for personal, political or "friends" reasons, and that ultimately hurts the average Joe. Look at the whole credit crunch.
Here again, you are wrong on so many levels. The government does not own the production apparatus or the land. That is one of the main cornerstones of socialism.
Does France, like every other country in Europe (minus the UK kinda) have a safety net for its citizens? Yes, but that is only part of socialism, not the whole thing.. in fact it is a small part. We have in fact a very liberal (in the true sense of the word) conservative free market system. Are there restrictions on what companies can do, ranging from employees to safety to environment and so on? You bet, that is the role of government to force industry to play fair. Is some of it over the top? You bet, but hardly everything. I think it is fair that a woman cant be fired because she gets pregnant. I think it is fair that a person cant be fired because he is a red head, or black, or Jewish. I also think it is a good idea to have rules and regulation on medicine, health care, safety and other things, because no way industry would implement it themselves.. after industry had to be forced to not using children in coal mines....
UK has cameras everywhere
Yes they have. But it is the conservative movement that mostly says.. if you are not doing anything wrong then you should not fear them.. Have the Brits gone overboard.. you bet if you ask me. But the UK aint Europe, and the UK is a special case when it comes to its transparency and accountability in political life.. not to mention political life as a whole. But saying that, it is still far healthier than many countries, since there are 3 major parties, and a ton of local parties that get elected (plus the wacko candidates).
most of Europe have disarmed the people, etc
They were never armed in the first place, so kinda hard to disarm the people.
Small government is fine and serves a purpose, large government is "evil" of sorts and works against the people. As government grows, liberty decreases; this is necessarily true. You want to list off of your government loving BS. Pretending your government ain't corrupt and that it's open to you. It's open to you so long as you don't break one of its rules (like working overtime).
First off I aint pretending that my government aint corrupt, I am saying that is harder to be corrupt in most European governments due to transparency laws and checks and balances. Does it happen? You bet it does, and people get booted out of politics and thrown in jail for it. I happen to live in one area of Europe that has been plagued by massive corruption and due to lack of transparency and nepotism it was left to continue for over a decade, fueled by greed and stupidity.. I mean the local council bought a freaking Rolls for the all powerful mayor. Only when the local power man (the Mayor) died, did the house of cards fall apart, and now the "rich town" of Europe Marbella is in deep debt and most of the former town council is facing heavy jail time. So corruption does happen, especially in Southern Europe.
As for your growing government. It is a stupid argument because what is a "big government". Number of employees per capita? Is it the amount of money spent by the government? Is it number of laws and regulations? what is "big government"? I could easily claim that the US government is huge because you have so many in the military.
Your politicians are just as crooked as ours. They're all from the same place for the most part, the rich upper class.
You sure about that. Lets see.. Tony Blair. Born in Scotland, to a father who the illegitimate son of 2 actors, and who was adopted by a shipyard worker. His mother was the daughter of a butcher.. OHHH the upper class.
Gordon Brown. Father a priest, mother the daughter of a timber merchant.. getting closer to the rich upper class I see.
Zapatero of Spain.. Father was a lawyer.. guess that can be called upper class in Spain during Franco.. Grandfather a republican solider shot by Franco.... and then maybe not so upper.
Angela Merkel ... father a priest too.
Sarkozy..... BINGO, a real aristocrat!.. only problem is that it was in Hungry before they fled to France and before Sarkozy was born. Father was a doctor I think..
Seriously, I can not see any major politician in Europe coming from the "upper rich class" .. do they exist? Sure, but hardly the norm that is for sure.
Even the Danish PMs for many years, came from middle to lower class backgrounds.. so much for the "upper rich" class.
All government if left unchecked will be corrupt, all government if left unchecked will grow in power and scope till it has usurped all it can. Fundamental behavior and evolution of government. Government works best when it is inefficient. When there are plenty of checks and balances in there (which will, of course, slow the process down) to prevent one branch from gaining dominance. Restrictions are for the government, not the People.
Yes government left unchecked will be corrupt.. look at the Bush administration. That is why we have checks and balances in Europe, but most importantly, a level of accountability and transparency that the US at the moment lacks.
The restrictions you talk about are for the government, so they dont abuse their power.. hence the checks and balances, accountability and transparency are very important, but the role of government is also to protect the people from abuse by industry (aka the upper rich class) and to make sure that society as a whole is safe, secure and prospering.
