Anonymous wrote:You call these countries "liberal" because they have a strong social safety network and have equal rights etc, but it doesn't mean they are aligned with the Democratic Party/liberal thought of our own country.
And yes it's much easier to have successful schools when everyone is of the same background & speaks same language. The comparisons between Denmark, Finland and the US are never on equal footing.
This is an incorrect characterization of what it is to be a liberal country. At a fundamental level liberal countries believe in the power of the collective while minimizing the role of the individual. The result is a large central government, with a constant deference to the government to solve social problems. In contrast, conservative countries believe in the power/responsibility of the individual over the power/responsbility of the collective. Therefore a limited federal government performing functions only deemed absolutely necessary, such as common defense. To a conservative, a person is first responsible for his/her own life, and looks to the government only for temporary help or in narrowly defined cases such as disability.
With this in mind, you clearly see how some countries in Europe are more liberal than others. France, for example, is considerably more liberal than UK. The individual specific policies such as welfare, paid leave, blasphemy laws, are all due to the fundamental difference in how the two country view the balance between the individual and the collective.