No, capitalism is not fundamentally "opposed" to government. Government is in fact required for capitalism to function in any kind of efficient manner. If not for the laws governing ownership, ownership would be reduced to the concept of "what you defend, you own", meaning capitalists would have to employ massive armies to protect "their" property, both from rival capitalists and from the people who live or work there.

Capitalism does not require private ownership, e.g. in state capitalism, the state owns the means of production, but the state is not controlled by the working class as it would in the case of Socialism with state ownership. (The difference between capitalism and socialism, if you did not read up on basic political theory, is where the ownership of the means of production lies, with the few (capitalists, whether private or state) as in the case of capitalism or with the people as in the case of socialism (whether by a worker-controlled state or cooperatively by the workers of the particular establishment, to mention only two models))

Also, don't confuse the capitalist economic system with the ideologies advocating keeping such a system, e.g. Liberalism. Capitalism in itself cannot be "opposed" to something, it is an economic system, not an ideology.

Both Anarchist and Libertarian are very old terms, it is only recently that the term "Libertarian" has been (in the US at least, not so much in the rest of the world with the exception of a few kids spending too much time in online forums abound with conspiracy nuts) associated with what are essentially Anarcho-capitalists.

We have the opposite problem in Sweden, we're saving and the debt is going down, the problem is that the right-wing government doesn't want to spend in bad times, it wants to save in both good and bad times and essentially hoard the money, meaning no major infrastructure investments which could be very useful right now with an unemployment rate of some 8% and a welfare system in shambles...

"BRAINPOWER" would be included in the "labor" category, just as physical labor is. What is with this idea that those of us who work with ideas do not labor? Of course we do, it's just in a different way from those who do physical labor. All forms of labor require some form of mental capacity, some more than others, but the amount of mental capacity required does not make it more or less labor.

The summary is of course adapted for American audiences with different definitions of many political terms than other parts of the world, but I would still like to offer my corrections of the political situation. The "Conservatives" mentioned are not conservatives, they are mostly liberals, ranging from a self-professed "liberal-conservative" party to a liberal party, a "social values" Christian party which is however very liberal in terms of economic politics nowadays, and a "Center party" (the name is a misnomer, the party has veered far to the right since its golden days). Personally I think the closest description of their collective politics is some type of neoliberal. The other "block", consisting of the Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Greens is not so homogeneous in terms of their political stances as the right-wing, the Social Democrats and the Greens are nowadays essentially liberals, not much difference from the government except for a few minor details, and the Left Party is the only socialist party and the only party that actually advocates something to the left of the status quo.

And regarding the actual topic, I'm not at all surprised, there is very little difference between the two "blocks" as a whole (the exception being the Left Party on the left and (in terms of issues related to a single issue) Sweden Democrats on the "populist" right) and people (unfortunately) mostly vote for purely superficial reasons like how they "percieve" a certain politician.

Last time I tried it, there was no hardware acceleration and no access to sensors though. Has that changed?

That would be pretty crazy. Actually I find this persona cult built up around the "founding fathers" in the US quite fascinating, even though these are people who lived in a time that is very different from ours and during very different conditions, some Americans still seem to have this obsession about what this founding father or that other one would have thought about a present-day issue, one they could likely not even comprehend. We have no equivalent in Sweden, I guess the closest to a "founding father" would be Gustaf Wasa who liberated Sweden from the Danish king in the 16th century, but noone in their right mind would, if given the chance, ask him for input on a present-day political issue or obsess about the religion he did or did not practice. Nor would they ask those who wrote any of the revisions of our constitution.

Like I said, in countries *not* inundated in gun violence.. London would be a more apt comparison to Chicago than Oslo though, and they manage without guns in their day-to-day work.

I was mainly suggesting a way around the "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. If cops are not allowed to use guns in their day-to-day activity, the force likely does not attract gun-nuts and the like. 99.99% of the time, there's no need for the police to be carrying guns around. Again, this may not work in countries like the US, but in most of the western world I believe it would.

Very true. The UK and Norway have the right idea, firearms should only be present only when the situation specifically calls for it. In Norway the firearms stay locked in the car and approval from a superior officer for them to be used, this seems like a good approach to me, at least in countries not inundated in gun violence.

That's a weird definition of coasting.. Of course you don't put the clutch in when coasting for a red light, that would entirely defeat the purpose of coasting, this is part of standard drivers education at least here. I don't have a car and don't drive much, but I do know how to coast.

I find your example interesting, if it holds up, Americans are paying almost as much as I am over here in what right-wingers like to call the most taxed country on Earth. I pay an effective income tax of about 21.5%, I'm single (though that does not matter in Swedish tax code), childless PhD student (so I get some student discounts even though I have an income, which is nice ;) ) and earn the equivalent of about $48,000/year. Of course there's also the 30% tax payed by employers (not included in the salary) which go to pension payments, health insurance, parental insurance (for parental leave), etc, but I imagine American employers are paying at least some of that, like health insurance. Do you know the typical amount American employers pay beyond the salary? Including health insurance that is. It would be interesting to see an apples-to-apples comparison, considering how low American taxes are claimed to be.

This. This is why neoliberals propose the abolition of all government *but* the military and police, they know that the capitalist system cannot be upheld without state intervention, it would collapse completely under the weight of each capitalist having to provide protection from not only other capitalists, but also the angry mob of peons outside the gates.

Why are you linking to a US tv station? What possible evidence of anything could that be? Even RCTV which was taken off the public airwaves continue broadcasting their hatred of the government via cable and satellite, something which is very cheap and publicly available in Venezuela.

No, it *should not* be illegal to publish documents in the US, yet there he is. What I'm saying is if the US detains someone under torture-like condition simply for releasing "secret" documents, the people responsible for a TV station which aided a violent coup against the President of the United States, in which the President was physically abducted (which was the case in Venezuela in 2002), would be in deep trouble, no matter how much you believe otherwise.

And we can do one better, all you have to do to file your taxes in many cases is to send an SMS to the tax agency saying you approve the preprinted forms that have been sent to you, including things like loan deductions which have been reported to the tax agency automatically in most cases, that's not to say that the very wealthy don't manage to find loopholes and such anyways, but at least it's simple for most wage earners. (and for what it's worth, my effective income tax rate is 21.5% as a PhD student earning the equivalent of about $48000/year, 25% VAT on most things, 12% on food and such, 6% on books, musems, transit, etc)