22 September 2010

Statist Shangri-La Sweden Waves Bye-Bye to Socialism

First Fidel Castro... now this

It's not just hard-core Marxist toilets like Cuba belatedly realizing a bloated state sector does not deliver results now: the voters of Sweden -the European liberal ideal touted by the international left as how Socialism can work- are rejecting the libs that have run their country for the better part of 80 years.  

The Left are surely used to being in charge in Sweden, and thought a world economic crisis might buoy their fortunes after getting curb-chucked last time. However -in the event- the Socialists lost their second election in a row. And it gets worse: their center-right opponents -who just successfully defended spending cuts of the last four years-  will now have to deal with the far-right SD:
The Swedish Social Democrats (Left) polled their worst result this week than at any time since 1914. Perhaps next time they’ll think twice before proposing to reverse some of the educational reforms introduced by their conservative rivals. 

The manifesto pledge by the Social Democrats to make it illegal for commercial companies to set up and operate free schools was symptomatic of the party’s antedeluvian, head-in-the-sand approach to the Europe-wide fiscal crisis. 

The centre-left party that’s dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s, being in power for 65 of the last 78 years, proposed to raise taxes and increase public expenditure on health, education and care for the elderly. This tax-and-spend manifesto didn’t go down well with the Swedish electorate.
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As in Britain, the global financial meltdown of 2008 has not restored the electorate’s faith in the state, as left wing critics of free market capitalism hoped it would. On the contrary, the electorate has endorsed the centre-right’s view that this has made the need for a permanent reduction in public expenditure all the more necessary. Frederik Reinfeldt is the first centre-right Swedish Prime Minister to win re-election in modern times, having promised further tax cuts and a leaner welfare state. 

There is now virtually a Europe-wide consensus that public expenditure needs to be slashed and the size of the state reduced. The latest government to reach this conclusion is Portugal’s which decided on Friday that it could no longer depend on economic growth to trim the deficit and would have to embark on a programme of swingeing cuts.
 Much as in far-too-liberal-for-common-sense Holland, Sweden's 'far-right' Sverigedemokraterna quickly evolved into a viable party through opposition to immigration while also taking a stand against the Left's profligate ways: the party garnered 5.7% of the vote last weekend, gaining seats (20) for the first time ever. 

And the SD will wield power out-of-proportion to that delegation... this new conservative voice in Sweden now holds the balance of power between the center-right and the socialists in a hung parliament...


So why are we -capitalist bastion America-  still one of the last ones screwing around with this  stuff?  It's like a drug counselor being talked into trying heroin by his junkies... getting hooked... then continuing to smack-away while all the former patients -now shooting buddies- either OD or go into rehab...

What an out-there Twighlight Zone episode this presidency is... just a senseless waste of our nation's strength, wealth, and honor.

Moonbattery  The Telegraph (UK)   Wikipedia