Except that the Nazi's were a byproduct of the "Third Position" movement.

That was against both Capitalism and Socialism and believed in a third way different from "both evils."

So yeah... it was politcal beliefs.

The 2 companies are Government Sponsored Enterprises.  Yes they were privately owned but chartered by the government which held some sway in policy and direction in exchange for their government backed security making their securities seem more valuable.

They were not completely free market.

In America, we have many, many social programs so we aren't afraid of serives for the benefit of the people overall.  What we don't want is the government interfering with the market because it causes bubbles and crashes (like we just had).  We also prefer that the free market handle as many of the services as possible because it tends to provide better service for cheaper than what the government can do.

We all want the same thing, we simply differ on who should provide it and through what means.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, the idea of Conservatism vs. Liberalism says a lot about how far left our "left-wing" politicians in the US are. The opposite of "conservative" is not liberal - it's "progressive".

Really what i find interesting is that Europeon governments are actually going more right wing lately.

According to the political compass at least Barak Obama is more leftwing then any UK party outside of the Green party.

The progressive vs Liberal thing in the US is more about how the dialog changed because of political beliefs.

Obama is liberal by UK standards (still not liberal compared to many continental countries it must be said) but the republican party is just so scarily right.

I don't know of many Western countries with a political divide quite as wide as America.

What is so scary about the Republican party that could not be balanced out by an equally scary position by the Democrat party?

Well I'm sure the evangelical right do see the Democrats positions as largely scary - things like pro-choice and gay rights probably do scare them - however of course to me (a moderate liberal, at least in my country) the Democrats aren't scary at all, more like moderates.

Scarily right-wing however is in comparison to the governments of the majority of Western countries, there aren't that many major political parties in the Western world that are as right wing as the Republican party.

If you give the government the power to give you something you also give the government the power to take it away from you ...

If the explosive growth of the role of the government in your life doesn't scare you then you're a fool.

Happy, what do you base that statement on?

Edit: I mean the "if/then" fool then. The second sentence.

The role of the US government in people's lives is growing at a pace where the government will (potentially) grow more in the first year of Obama's first term than it has over the past 30 years ... Very few countries have expanded the role of the government at this pace, and I can't think of any which didn't devolve into dictatorships.