Pia,

I think a key issue which no one has mentioned yet, is that basically conservatives (mostly white Americans) do not want to pay for these services because they feel that the services will mostly be abused by the poor (mostly blacks and Mexicans). Personally, I don't want to pay a lot of taxes for the services that you mention because I know it is unlikely that I will use most if any of them, but I am certain that there are many Americans, black, Mexican and white and Asian that will abuse the system. Why should I work to support them?

And this point basically answers your other question. Your system in Finland will not work in America because one group of Americans do not trust another group of Americans. In Finland because of your homogeneous population, you do not have these problems. However, I still think the biggest factor is your country's size. When populations are small it is easier to maintain any kind of system, but add more and more population and the system begins to fall apart. I would predict that eventually as your country begins to grow and attract more immigrants, you will face similar problems. Something to look forward to! :p haha...

Gazpacho: as we used to belong to Russia and even had a civil war in our early days of independence between "whites" (conservatives) and "reds" (guess), won by the whites, the atmosphere has been really anti-communist and nobody has seen our welfare state as in any way "communist": that word still is pretty negative for most Finns. Well, basically, especially old people who fought the wars think "the further we can get from Russia, the better" which has also been a reason for us being more positive towards European integration than the other Nordic countries.

Alando: wow, that sounds so bad to me. Isn't your ethnic diversity one of the things you are proud of and yet there still seems to be such a big division between the etnic groups? Why do you think it would be the Mexicans, blacks an Asians taking advantage of the system: is it because their starting point has been worse or because its a characteristic of the people in these ethnic groups?
Sweden for example already has a big population of immigants and of course it causes some problems but in general, immigrants and especially Sweden-born children of immigrants are pretty well integrated and I believe that this has something to do with them having the same chances for education etc. In both Finland an the other Nordic countries social mobility is very high which means that there is no real tension between "social classes": if they even really exist.

Pia,

Are these Swedish immigrants also white Anglos? Or are they of another race? The problems usually seem to arise when you attempt to integrate people of different racial groups - it just doesn't seem to work in America. Has it worked anywhere else in the world?

Basically, the immigration into America was initially primarily from white Europeans (first the Germans, then the Irish, then the Italians) - sorry if I left anyone out! Haha...I think though when Americans began to see larger immigration from Latinos, especially Mexicans, and people from the Carribean and larger immigration from Asian countries, along with an increase in the black population, then racial tension began to rise. I don't think America is truly a melting pot - it is our slogan, our selling point. But like a bad TV commercial that doesn't deliver what it promises, it is simply that - a slogan.

Don't misunderstand me, I think it would be great if America was truly a melting pot, but you only need to go to a large American city to see how Americans live in different sections of the city based on their color or ethnicity. If America was truly a melting pot, wouldn't these groups live amongst one another, in the same neighborhoods and inter-marry as well. It happens, but it is not common. So, to answer your question finally - it should be our strength, but it is not.

Yes, I mean immigrants of other racial groups.
But why do you think there's a problem? It can't be true that the ethnic groups have different characteristics built into them?

Pia,

Of course different cultural, racial and ethnic groups have different characteristics - both physical and mental. Question for you: have you lived anywhere other than Finland? Or is all of your experience based only on your life in Finland?

Alando,

As much as I admire your attempt to clarify the conservative's view of thing's, and you are far from entirely wrong, I have to clear up some misconceptions.

Pia, I guess Alando is saying that the white majority? of the U.S. feels that the social sevices provided by their taxes will go mainly to minority racial groups because they are the poorest and weakest of our society, obstensively at least. But I don't think it's this kind of envy that causes conservatives to not like a welfare state, it's the effectiveness of providing these services to the minorities that is the issue. Conservatives just don't feel that the government is the most efficient institution for providing for the needs of the weakest of our society.

I read recently that to this date, the government, since our socialist movement arguably initiated by Franklin Roosevelt, has provided 6 trillion dollars in benefits to the poor. That is $6,000,000,000,000 in a country of 250 million people of which no where near 10% are poor. If you just divided the money amongst the poor in equal shares, the poor would be wealthier than the rich. See the problem? Whereas this is just not the case. The poor, even though their basic subsistence is very well taken care of in the U.S., are even more hopeless and growing every day. So obviously, painfully obviously, the plan just isn't working. This is known as dumping sand down a rathole. That is the reason us conservatives don't want to contribute to the welfare state. Well, one of the reasons, and perhaps the main one.

The other reason is political, of course. The conservatives see the growth of poverty in the U.S. to be to the benefit of the "poverty pimps", that is, the liberal's (Democratic party's) advantage. And this is certainly the case. The liberal's have created a dependent class that ensures they will remain in power by literally buying votes. Isn't that what Finland has done? And I don't say this judgementally, only demonstrably. But I believe in Finland case it's probably not a poverty class, but more a middle-class.

Conservatives believe it is good work ethics and individual effort(self-interest) which frees people from economic misery, and this should not be a role of the government. And the reasons for this are many, but they all come back to Capitalism, which keeps us from stagnating, keeps us competitive, raises the bar on our aspirations, provides the best of goods to us...etc.

If you're really interested in the philosophy of American conservatism, and our idea of true freedom, I can recommend you read the very organized writings of Ayn Rand. She spells it out so much better than I can.

P.S. Pia, I don't believe I ever said I thought Finland was communist. That would be a horrible thing to say. However, they are socialists, and to a good conservative like myself, the difference between socialism and doctrinal communism isn't very much. Now from the practiced totalitarianism communism, there is quite a difference.

I've lived half of my life in Sweden, half in Finland, besides that I've only spent a month here and there in other European countries (and Florida ) - I'm moving to Mexico for 6 months after Christmas though. Why? I do however have friends from Latin America, Arab countries, Africa and Asia, both exchange student friends and immigrants living in Sweden or Finland.
I have a hard time agreeing with you if you're saying that racial and ethnic groups are born with certain characteristics: for example most of my Iranian friends that live in Sweden for example are and appear much more Swedish than I am, in all ways except physically.

Thank you for your reply gazpacho: I don't believe anyone is "buying" votes: it's maybe just that after recovering from the wars, no classes had time to form which is causing the wide consensus: you should see our election debates, they're boring as h*** as they all seem to agree This is however not true for Sweden, so I can't really explain it.

Pía, one year ago I read on El Mundo newspaper an education article about PISA report. Finland was on the first position(1/30) and Spain was very, very low (23/30). But what strikes me more was the fact that Spain spent almost the same money per student/ per year as Finland in elementary and secondary studies (Finland spent a little more money but they offer free books and meals).

Last summer a friend of mine told me that Spanish socialist ruined our education in order to get the votes from “illiterate” people!!!

That’s why in Finland the grade of honesty among Finnish is higher than in Spain.
I agree on free education and social security, but I am against the “gratis total” that Spanish governments are trying to establish in our society in order to get votes on polls. If you give things for free to people, they don’t apreciate nor take care them properly as it should be

In some Andalucian towns the unemployement rate is about 30/40 % of the population, there is no room for cars at the streets (!!) but we need inmigration. (!!!???)

I ‘m sure to say that many Spaniards who drives beautiful Audis or BMWs pay less taxes than me but have much more money.

Saludos.

I don't really understand, how did the socialists ruin the education to get votes?

And could you please explain what you said about the unemployment rates in Andalucia, no space for cars, need for immigration and some having more money but paying less taxes, I'm sorry but I didn't understand

Lonoma,

It's refreshing to hear that others around the world are having the same intrepidations as some of us here in the U.S. are having. In the inner cities of the U.S., much more money is spent per student as in less populated "rural" areas, but few can doubt the lesser quality of their education. This is the type of problems that arise when on allows the government to solve social issues.

One might reason that making a government more responsible would be the solution, but I would rather see more privatization in the solution of social problems.

Pia,

I think it rather obvious what Lonoma is stating. The expansion of illiteracy is obviously more advantageous for a certain political party in Spain, and so the impetus to improve education does not exist.

And Lonoma makes it clear that because of lack of employment and the poor condition of roads in Andalucia, the infrastructure is not capable of handling the increase in population that more immigration entails.