That is an extremely flawed reply to my post. Firstly a shift towards the left doesn't nessecarily mean bigger government - legalising abortion and gay marriage is a shift to the left but it doesn't make the government any bigger.

Secondly your first statement is extremely ambigious, what does 'the power to take it away from you' actually mean? If the government gives you universal healthcare the have the ability to take it away? Then we end up in exactly the same position we are now!

Thirdly it doesn't take into account the fact that in almost all Western countries the government is limited in power hugely by the people, if they do 'take it away' then vote against them next time around. The definition of a democracy (or at least my favourite one) is the ability for the people to change government on a whim.

Your second statement is just a baseless assertion and an insult.

Edit: And now you're appealing to fear. Baseless fear at that. Can you post evidence of the speed at which the government is expanding in Obama's term and proof that expansion of the government leads to dictatorships?

Also i never really answered the question.

Looking at it. Obama seems to be the same kind of socialist most other polticians in washington are.

Corporate Socialists. As in... the government should do all in it's power to funnel money to the people to their particular lobbyists and pet companies.

Rath is from New Zealand.

Edit: Also seriously more in the first year than in the past 30 years? You know that certain provisions of the Patriot Act scared me a Hell of a lot more than anything that Obama has proposed. For good reason!

Mmh I don't feel the muslim pressure in Belgium. Probably because we are a very tolerant country.

I also witness that young educated muslim are forgetting old traditions and favour a modern lifestyle. No need to worry too much at the moment..

Sounds like China. Communist, but give ownership of the really lucrative business to a small minority of government-aligned people and take it away violently when they screw up [like the milk contamination thing] or the wrong ethic group gets control [e.g. Uyghurs, Tibetans].

You do realize that there were several attempted versions of acts very similar to the patriot act that were written by Joe Biden over the years, and the patriot act (along with similar acts) were supported by the Democrats ... On top of that, the Fairness Doctrine is a bill that the Democrats have tried to pass in previous years which gives the government the power to control the news you watch, read or hear and it is highly likely that this bill will be revived with the control the Democrats have over the government. I'm not trying to say that the Democrats are bad and the Republican's are good, just trying to reiterate the original point that for everything that is scary about the Republicans you can cite something that is equally scary about the Democrats.

Now, 30 years may be an exageration, but with how many bills and actions that have been taken over the presidency over the past 6 months that have expanded the role of government and/or given it new powers if the pace is continued it won't be much of an exageration.

Consider the Canadian example of a government giving you Universal Health Care ...

In Canada we have universal health care and there is absolutely no way to get healthcare outside of the public system, and it is illegal for doctors to set up clinics to treat patients outside of the public system. Now, the combination of governments (wisely) trying to be fiscally responsible and the growing costs of healthcare access to healthcare gets worse every year; and at the current rate access is deteriorating Canadians will have no access to healthcare in a decade or two. Being in a system where healthcare is expensive is far preferable to being in a healthcare system where there is no access to healthcare ... 

The governments of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was "Limited in power" by the people until charismatic leaders used their political popularity to take those rights away from the people. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were celebrated and loved by their people and idolized by the progressive movement throughout most of the western world until after World War II when it became evident how evil and corrupt these regimes were. Even Hugo Chavez in Venezuela initially needed the support of the people, but because people allowed him to take their rights away from them he now doesn't need their support.

And this is where government shows its corruption.

There is no such thing in the US as a company "to big to fail". The reason: Bankruptcy laws. Without going to much into it, the basic premise of Bankruptcy, is to let government figure out if a company is better off alive then dead, and if so, to bend the rules of capitalism to let them survive.

So, we already have something in place for this (and something that works very well). To make up this thing that government made up ("to big to fail" bullshit), they can now pass laws to grab even more power from the people, and no one cares.

It's government robing the people of their rights, right in front of them. It disgusts me to no end.

Oh yeah... the fairness doctrine.  That one was creepy.  Basically the "Let's destroy political talk radio" bill.

There have always been bubbles and crashes including before the government "interfered with it" the only thing that the so called interference does is soften the blow when the bubble burst.