After spending years living in "socialist" Germany and exploring all over Europe, what is striking is that, even in one of the wealthiest non-U.S. places on Earth, it is all about learning to do without.
Let's examine the facts:
-There is a crushing 20% sales tax on everything. There is also a TV tax, a radio tax, a dog tax, a death tax of up to 50%, and every other kind of tax you could possibly imagine...for a grand total of about 60-65% of your income (unless you have already been brutalized into poverty by this system, in which case you get welfare). "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." --Ronald Reagan
-There is no such thing as Central Air...people just suffer through the heat, and freeze in the Winter with these dinky little radiator-heaters (which is all most people can afford, due to staggering government utility costs).
-Gasoline is usually $7-10 per gallon (about 1.50 Euros per liter), due to the government's insanely aggressive taxes on fuel.
-People usually cannot afford 15 or even 30-year mortgages...they often must get
50-year mortgages to purchase a home (government makes housing astronomically expensive).
-Consumers are 100% disregarded, given total crap for options, and complaints over terrible service are completely ignored.
-It takes six hours to do half a load of laundry (government forces people to use these tiny, 'environmentally-friendly' laundry machines).
-Showers are the size of phone booths, water heaters are often woefully inadequate, and all water services cost an absolute fortune.
-Closets do not exist. The only thing you can do to store and organize your clothing is to purchase a huge, bulky piece of furniture called a "wardrobe" for every bedroom, which leaves you with very little actual living space in the already incredibly tiny homes Europeans must deal with.
-You can't wash your own car in your own driveway. That might hurt the environment, so you must take your vehicle to a government-approved car wash and wildly overpay someone else to do it for you.
-Even the "big," "Americanized" trash bins hold no more than a wastebasket of garbage...for two weeks of waste (no matter how many people live in your home). If the can is overflowing, they will not take your garbage, and every single item is required by law to be organized into separate color-coded recycling bags.
-You cannot even name your own child without government approval. There is literally an agency you must register with upon giving birth that decides whether or not your child's name is acceptable to the government.
-Gun rights do not exist. The only way to get access to any firearms whatsoever is through a jaw-droppingly extreme permit/licensing process that involves taking elaborate tests, paying fees, and proving to the government you have a "legitimate" reason for wanting a gun (hunting, target shooting, etc.). And even if you do manage to jump through all the hoops required to get a gun, you can still only keep it if you regularly verify to the government that you are actively using it for the purpose you listed, or it will be confiscated.
-Hunting and fishing also require an insane process of government-mandated training, tests, fees, licenses, permits and endless other restrictions.
-Having extreme views is illegal. Being a Neo-Nazi is a crime, as is questioning the Holocaust, or anything that could possibly be construed as "hate speech" by the left. Flipping someone off is also a criminal offense.
-It costs thousands of dollars to get a license, own a car, and pay for the more than $1 million of auto insurance you are forced to carry...and there are speed cameras everywhere, and there is no gray area (my boss couldn't even get out of a ticket from when he sped his wife to the hospital to give birth).
-Nearly two-thirds of YouTube’s top 1,000 videos have been banned in Germany due to the fanatical German Journalists’ Union (DJV) absurdly demanding that artists be paid for each and every video that in any way uses any part of their music--even if it is just some random user having part of some random song on in the background of their video.
-Company web sites are usually primitive and have inaccurate / outdated information, while almost no one answers their phone and you are forced to show up repeatedly during (often ridiculously narrow) operating hours to get the simplest product or service. Germans only work 36-39 hours per week, and the French have a 35-hour work week.
It goes on and on, and on.
Democrats, who used to absolutely crucify people for pointing out their socialist ideas and beliefs, now openly defend this disastrous, time-disproven ideology (see deregulation and lower taxes in China in the 1980s, in India in the 1990s, in Ireland in the early 2000s, and the left's class warfare insanity that destroyed the US economy in 2008) as it punishes success, rewards failure, and lures self-reliant individuals into total nanny state dependence through handouts.
Usually, they try to justify it by arguing that Europe has superior, more affordable education and health care (as if freedom were irrelevant and all that mattered was being better-maintained cattle). But when you actually live there, you can't help but notice that there is more to the story...as when you discover that you have to pay a small fortune to get your kids through grade school. Or that you still have to pay through the nose for insurance every month, cover all your own prescription costs, and sit on waiting lists to see a "free" doctor.
