I do find it a bit amusing given how the recent political debate in the US is going. You would think that countries like the United Kingdom or Canada were just one step removed from Nazi Germany.

The Scandinavian countries in particular (Sweden, Norway esp.) have very comprehensive welfare states but by all accounts they are fantastic places to live.

My wife is a bit of a conservative and I asked her "If you woke up tomorrow a citizen of Great Britain would you really feel like you were in a police state with no freedom?" Of course not.

Now there are costs to a big welfare state. You pay a lot of your income in taxes so your freedom is reduced in that sense. There are big bureaucracies that can slow down job growth. There are regulations on businesses. There is a reason the United States continues to lead the world by many measures.

But I think that the history of the welfare states in western Europe are proof that a democratic but socialist state does not automatically spiral down into a police state or fascism. Democracy and Socialism combined have produced some truly great places to live.

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