That's more an effect of poor economic times than any political change. Whenever times are bad the blame goes all around. There truly existed poor people in the `1930's, today there's just an underclass (supported by benefits) and a working-class (that gets by better than other working classes), both of which have a multitude of luxuries which keep them content. There have been predictions of a socialist revolution in the U.S since Marx (who said the U.S would be the first socialist country.) He said this because he observed the strong labor movements in the U.S (which didn't exist in other countries because they hadn't industrialized enough.) That was one hundred and fifty years ago. The only difference is that instead of a moderately capitalist society the U.S is now a corporatist one, where government helps corporations and corporations help government, all at the expense of the free market and real capitalism.

Yeah this. If you want to get angry about inequality and corruption you have to blame the right people. Blaming the rich for being rich or companies for trying to make money does nothing.

The US is very far from a free market in things like patent laws, agricultural subsidies, telecom monopolies, and a public-private mess in healthcare, higher education and military contracting.

Those question are leading and very black/white, I would cherish a middle ground option, so many multi-faceted issues and such few maneuvering possibilities.
One has to account for relativism as well, for instance; I come from Norway, which has a very moderate right-wing that is a lot more leftist than most of Europe and mostly a central movement, if anything. And the central parties and leftists have moved further to the right due to economic development and a high employment rate.
Despite this, here in Sweden, Norway is considered extremely right-wing in both opinion and policy, they even consider the socialist leftist party to be too conservative for their tastes and they see the right-wing as fascists and nazi's.

The truth lies somewhere in between directions; Norway has a hybrid economy and a few hybrid solutions but has a welfare system that is considerably farther to the left than the Swedish one, for instance, we also have a much smaller private sector in healthcare and education in Norway. So, they see us as extremely right-wing while they live in a society which fronts a more leftist opinion but is largely based upon a more right-wing structure, that is my observation anyhow.

With international differences, local opinion, poltitical and religious (and to some extent; moral) relativism, this "compass" is entirely useless.

PS: For the record; I'm more or less in the center, neither the left nor right wing have a viable, long-term social and economic model to base policies on and both encourage absolutism and oppression in some form.

Which is about the exact opposite of your home country.  Lets not even begin with the Roma stuff, even though the EU is supposed to allow free movement of peoples.

Also, that you see nothing wrong with sexism and targeting religions for opression more or less makes my point for me.

Concept of womanhood.  Christ. 

A lot of Frances social polcies are essentially ultra right wing republicans wet dreams.

Oh yeah, reminds me of another funny right vs left wing thing.

Despite there being far more opposition to abortion in the US.  It's a lot easier to get an abortion... and for a longer period of time then most of Europe.

@StrawmanSlayer

Communists, known for eliminating all independent enterprise, are known for getting in bed with private business? You're delusional, how could any sane human being believe this nonsense?

Yeah, Mao, Stalin, Castro and the rest all just bowed down to the organizations that they systematically destroyed. You're not worth responding to anymore.

From your dialogue, it seems as if he is equating corporatism and communism because they're both collectivist ideologies. It is quite possible that Obama was a communist at one point, but pragmatically decided otherwise. 

"Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "communism" and "fascism." As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, "the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of un-freedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany." 

No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom. " - FA Hayek

Oh, and for those who care.

USA

and that's more or less what i expected.

I'm very anti-authortarinism, though realize you need to have some respect for the system and not be some immature manchild who pretends to live without the system when they wouldn't live a monthw ithout it.  

Additionally, while I'm primarily free market minded and think regulations should be as minimal as possible, it gets countered by care for the poor/specific clear regulations against certain things.

I'm so close to the centre it's not even funny.

I am very interested in how you perceive the sexism and the Roma "issues". But then again, I bet you don't have many clear arguments, if we are talking of state policies France is pretty much the opposite of conservatist.

@sc94597

Let's not forget that Authoritarian Communism is merely one branch of Communism (a highly conservative one at that). I don't see many similarities between Nazi Germany and the Spanish Revolutionaries in Andalusia, Catalonia and Zaragoza. Nor do I see the similarities between the Fascists and those who lived in the Makhnovia or Kibbutz regions. Sadly the conservative "Communists" of the Soviet Union have come to represent the entire Communist political spectrum.

That being said, there are still many differences between Fascism and Stalinism that make Hayek's analysis somewhat flawed. In Nazi Germany I would have been killed for my Mi'kmaq blood (as little as their is) if they didn't kill me for smoking pot first. Conversely, racism was strictly forbidden in the USSR as was anti-Semitism. Personally, I think Hayak was a hack for likening an entire ideology to another based upon their recruiting strategies. Ultra-nationalism and militarism are central to Fascism while the former is absent in Communism and the latter is absent in all but Stalinism and Maoism. Finally, Fascism employs a mixed-economy and private institutions that are typically absent in Communist societies. Italian style Fascism in particular flirted with Catholicism, the Monarchy and a free market, all of which were disposed of in the USSR.

I will admit that both ideologies are somewhat broad amalgamations of vastly different ideas and that we can make many valid comparisons between certain aspects of the two. The same can be said about Capitalism and Fascism or between any other two systems for that matter.