Danni,
I do think sometimes you'd have a better chance of making sense if I farted. Doesn't translate too well over the net, though.
They aren't socialist nations. They are democratic nations with, among many other parties, a socialist party.
Major Socialist policies - Well, given that their economies are all much smaller than ours, I wouldn't say that ANYTHING they do is major, compared to what we do.
Their health care systems don't work, which is why they send their sick rich people to us. Everybody else gets rationed health care...much more tightly rationed than ours. If we did the same, their system would collapse.
Their high school system works better than ours, but there is nothing socialist about it. Certainly, it is much more Draconian than ours, due to limited opportunity. You pass the exams in order to progress. You don't pass, you get dropped and become a neonazi, or a greenie.
They ration their college degrees, which means that they don't have nearly enough spots for their highschool graduates. They solve this problem by sending a lot of their kids to us for a college degree. If we rationed our college like they do, their system would collapse.
We also have a MUCH wider selection of degrees, and turn out much more inventive graduates in a lot of areas they don't even attempt.
So, that education system as a whole doesn't really work, although I wish we'd do something like their high school system.
More liveable cities can not be objectively measured and is quite debateable. They are certainly extremely expensive, compared to ours, particularly if you'd like to own your house.
Finally, we look at the overall health of their societies. They have much higher depression rates than we do and have drastically, critically low birthrates. This does not show a general zest for life. Their tiered class structure is still much more rigid than ours, despite (I'd say because of) their socialist policies designed to level them off.
Finally, they are starting to undo these policies, because the obviously are not working. Ireland is exploding because they essentially eliminated corporate taxes in order to get a huge influx of American businesses, who were being killed by our taxes. This has worked well. France is scrapping many of its socialist policies because they haven't worked.
Let's not forget, the only reason they could even afford to TRY these policies is because we've relieved them of most of the duty of their military spending. If they'd have had to survive through the Cold War alone, none of those policies would have been even considered, because the money would have to go to military. They only exist because of our largesse.
European countries are now faced with the massive ethnic problems we've had forever because the of the Islamic populations they imported after WWII to essentially do the work no one else wanted. They have not integrated these people, who are multiplying like rabbits, and all these societies in Europe are severely threatened by this.
They appear to lack the vitality to respond to this challenge. They certainly lack the birth rates. To that end, they are beginning to re-examine the socialist policies as perhaps being diastrous.
I'm not saying they're all gonna flip. I'm saying that these societies are not being successful, in spite of being republics, because of the malaise created by their socialist policies. Perhaps France, ever the leader over there, will lead them out. Watch for some ugliness with their Islamic underclass as a precursor to a big switchover.
Anyway, if you like them so much, why do you live here?
