I find it ironic that most people see europe as more liberal than the USA yet most people I know who move there are staunch conservatives who move there because the policies they care about and the people themselves are overall **less** liberal than the USA.

It seems very few people even realize that by many measures europe is more conservative rather than liberal. A prime example of this would be the taxation scheme which in much of europe has a lower ratio between the poor and the rich classes (closer to flat tax).

#uspol

@freemo Which policies you have in mind? I think that both economic and political policies of Europe are much more liberal than in USA (there are some exceptions and mostly in eastern europe, [hello Poland!]).

Why is taxation scheme example of liberality? I would say its not about how much one taxes rich vs poor, but about how that taxed money is then distributed.

@vnarek
Well its important to understand what liberal and conservative mean. I think they tend to be inaccutate terms since liberal generally is used to refer to neoliberals specifically. In other words liberal is generally used as a synonym for democratic socialism. The primary principles of liberalism and socialism is a large degree of government regulation and oversight as well as using taxation to redistribute wealth from the rich. Conservatism generally has at its central point the opposite, minimal government regulation and intervention and relying on free markets.

Taxation is relevant as the usa has a more progressive tax scheme, that ia, a scheme intending to put a higher tax ratio between poor and rich in an attempt to redistribute wealth.

We find the same pattern in other areas. Europe is generally much more noninterventionist when it comes to foreign affairs, which again is along the lines of small governance associated with the right.

@freemo Wikipedia defines liberal as someone who is for free economy without goverment interventions + individual rights/equality.
From what you said earlier I deduced that you are using liberalism as synonym for social democracy and used your definition in my last answer.

It is not about tax collection, but distribution. Taxes that are collected in europe are distributed via strong welfare systems for health care, education, and social funding. USA does not really have this kind of safety nets.

@vnarek Yes the wikipedia uses the classical definition of liberal. This is not what most people in the USA today mean when they say liberal, they usually mean neo-liberal, which is effectively the opposit of that.

Free economy (free markets) with minimal government intervention would be more in line with modern day conservatisim in america, or classical liberals

They are very confusing terms for that very reason.

The spending is a relevant point, of course, to some degree. Except I wouldnt argue welfare as being the same as redistribution of wealth.. a flat (or flatter) tax system that feeds those who starve isnt really redistributing wealth to any significant degree. That just keeps the poor from starving and does little to nothing to eliminating the rich from the population.

@freemo I would not say that neo-liberalism is oposite of classical liberalism. Could you define what you mean by neo-liberalism for me?

Yeah I wouldn't too, but what kind of redistribution policies does USA have? I would personally prefer much more radical redistribution of wealth, but there is really no push for it in the Czech republic, because there isn't a lot of people on the line of poverty. There were some interesting systems of redistribution tested like UBA in Europe so lets see how that goes. 😄

@vnarek neo-liberalism would be effectively what you see as modern day liberals in most countries but especially the US.

Lets take the definition of liberal you gave (which i described as classically liberal):

* free economy without government intervention

* individual rights as a priority

If we look at most self described liberrals today they embody the opposite of both these qualities where they are central to modern day conservatives (thus the use of the term neo to distinguish them).

For example conservatives tend to be strongly pro-free market, they are against regulations on the free market in many forms, conservatives tend to be against enviromental regulations for example, and minimum wage, and similar examples of the government regulating the flow of money. Meanwhile increasing minimum wage, or forcing companies to hire minorities tend to be strong central points for liberals.

The other point of individual rights also apply. conservatives tend to support individual rights tot he extream for example extream forms of freedom of speech, and even the right to own weaponry, generally opposed by neoliberals to various extends.

@freemo Again I was using neo-liberalism as description of policies from Margaret Thatcher et al. Is this definition still relevant? see Wikipedia.

Okay I'm going to use your definition. So by using your definition of classical liberalism as (free economy without government intervention and individual rights as a priority) I would say that American conservatives do worship free market, but I don't think individual rights are priority for them. Guns are mostly exception and democrats don't want to ban guns completely just make it harder to get. If we look at abortion, banning transgender serving in military, prisons for minor drug offenders those are policies mostly pushed by republicans.

@vnarek There are plenty of liberals who want to ban guns completely. Mostly only want to highly increase regulations, either way it is contrary to individual rights.

Abortion is also a bad example, liberals want to support the individual right and liberty of the mother, and conservatives want to support the individual rights and liberty of the baby. Both are trying to secure individual rights, they only differ on whose rights matter.

When it comes to transgendered I would agree that conservatives have a rose track record on individual rights than the neoliberals do, but tahts the only exception I can think of.

@freemo Banning guns indeed is violation, restrictions are okay If they are reasonable. We restrict car driving by license too.

Even if you define the individual rights of the baby at conception, it is not really relevant. Baby has right to live, but does not have the right to be kept alive on behalf of other human beings. It is the same as a kidney transplant or transfusion. You can't be forced to do that.

What about drug use? I think that is a hard violation of human rights. Even though I've never smoked a pot. 😄

@vnarek we arent talking about what is reasonable or not, thats is a different discussion. We are talking about what group takes personal freedom to a greater extream.

Regardless of how you feel about the law or if it is reasonable or not the fact remains that unreistricted access to guns is more of a personal freedom stance than reducing access to guns.

Again the discussion of abortion follows the same logic. Your argument for why you support abortion is all well and good, but it doesnt really successfully make the case that any one group is more focused on individual rights WRT abortion than the other. It is simply your reasoning for giving the mothers individual rights superior protection over the childs. Thats fine, but doesnt address the underlying issue.

As a side note though, just to address your view on abortion, though irrelevant to the point we are discussing. You can not compare a transplant to abortion in the way you did. In the vast majority of pregnancies the woman engages in sex willingly. So they knowingly put the child in the position that the child is in, unlike a transplant patient. One could argue when you engage in sex you are knowingly risking creating a child that will be biologically dependent on you and thus you have an obligation.

since the mother forced the child into needing them against the childs will by engaging in sex in the first place it would be more akin to causing the injury on someone else. Which normally would send you to jail. However if injured someone and put your own life at risk to save them the court may not send you to jail since you put in an effort to save the person.

Im not arguing for or against abortion, but I am saying that the analogy you gave really doesnt compare to the situation at all.

As to drug use, both liberals and conservatives seem to be mixed on that. Both sides seem to support keeping most drugs illegal and both sides seem to have made concessions to make cannabis legal or closer to legal.