Common Values

**Franconicus** · 01-30-2006, 13:06

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent trip to Washington has a lot of people talking about "common values" among conservatives. But a US conservative is a different species from a European conservative."
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...395120,00.html

What C:V: do the US and Europe share?
Do we see the change of relationships. From allied nations tied together by C.V. to independantly acting national states?

**Fragony** · 01-30-2006, 13:58

Common value would be more responsibility for the people instead of an all controlling godzilla of a government. Keep taxes low, government interference to a minimum. Difference is the hammering on religion I guess.

**Franconicus** · 01-31-2006, 08:55

Originally Posted by Fragony

Common value would be more responsibility for the people instead of an all controlling godzilla of a government. Keep taxes low, government interference to a minimum. Difference is the hammering on religion I guess.

Well, not really! For Germany - as well as for other Western European countries - minimum government is not a common value. People expect from the government:
- protection against crime
- good infrastructure (roads, schools ...)
- social security (health care, pensions ...)
- social balance
Of cause everybody wants to pay less taxes, but only very few, esp. the rich ones, do really want to have minimum interferrence.
The social net is very important especially in Germany. It is a common value, a civilizing achievement of the post war age which is an important part of the German identity. So some parties want to keep it, others want to reform it, but no one wants to abolish it.
With the tasks of government like written above we could also have a socialist government or even fascism. Fortunatelly there are more basic values:
- democracy
- human rights
- refusal of war as a political mean (each kind of war with the exception of self defense)
- free market

**Sjakihata** · 01-31-2006, 14:43

The most common value is money

**Vladimir** · 01-31-2006, 19:24

Originally Posted by Franconicus

Well, not really! For Germany - as well as for other Western European countries - minimum government is not a common value. People expect from the government:
- protection against crime
- good infrastructure (roads, schools ...)

I suspect the above are part of "minimum" government for both countries.

**A.Saturnus** · 01-31-2006, 21:43

Originally Posted by Fragony

Common value would be more responsibility for the people instead of an all controlling godzilla of a government. Keep taxes low, government interference to a minimum. Difference is the hammering on religion I guess.

Not really. German conservatives only occationally mention such things as "small government".

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 02-02-2006, 04:13

Any German politicos who regularly mention (or do more than mention) small government?

**Franconicus** · 02-02-2006, 07:43

That is right; it shows that small government is just a notion, not a value.

**Watchman** · 02-02-2006, 11:05

AFAIK European conservatives on the average aren't "state-hostile" the way American ones are. In most places that tends to be left to the economic liberals, who usually have a different party.

Having more than two practically relevant parties is useful that way. Not everyone has a system that allows them, of course - just look at the Brits.

Far as I know by Euro standards American "conservatives" are weird - they combine a reactionary social agenda with fiscal hyper-liberalism and a palpable hatred of centralized adminstration.

**Fragony** · 02-02-2006, 14:35

Originally Posted by A.Saturnus

Not really. German conservatives only occationally mention such things as "small government".

I said less government interference, there is a difference. Haven't heard the term 'smaller government' here either, only from our very own Mozart Geert Wilders