Uhm. "Socialism" and "social liberalism" are two different ideologies. The only party in Sweden that still realy bothers about socialism is V. Of course, Sweden have a major problem that the majority of the Swedes aren't aware of what socialism is and wants. Many confuse socialism with community, equality, justice and welfare.
I am well aware of the distinction. KD is not social liberal either. Their ideal society contains housewives and lack abortions and gays. Their practical short-term goal is more moderate but that is because they are working from a status quo that is very far from their ideal.
On moderates I was commenting on the party, not the voters. KD is the most value conservative party out there, but all I said was that they aren't as extreme as conservationists are around Europe, and one of their core ideologies are social liberalism.
Well I think you have to take into account where parties want to take society as well as the status quo they are starting from. KD does have some thing in common with social liberals in that they want a particular kind of nanny state, but this does not make them social liberals.
True about the labor regulation, but what to do with the economy is still the leading question that differentiates the M and SD as parties, they aren't that different when it comes to social or moral questions. The moral right-wing party only consists of KD and SD where KD is more moderate than SD.
SD is a borderline reactionary vulgo-conservative outlier.
M is probably the least ideological party (S comes in a close second) today, as they want to be electable. There are still considerable ideological differences. Take the following questions:
Should the state own companies?
Should the school voucher system include privately owned schools?
Is it acceptable to privatise healthcare?
How much pressure should we put on unemployed to get off the dole?
How easy should it be fore the state to block private businesses?
And you get very clear differences between the left and the right today, with the greens as a wildcard hanging in between... That there mostly is a permissive consensus on social issues doesnt change that. Besides that there is a difference even on social issues. When it comes to the old homophobe Åke Green (charged with hate speech against homosexuals) this can be summed up as:
Left: His speech is hateful and he should be punished
Right: His speech is hateful and stupid but we shouldnt punish speech.
KD: He is right
At any rate I think you are mistaken to assume that the US right is a homogenous Limbaughish block. I think moderate republicans like Rithrandil (hawk on defense, strong advocate of secular schools and a fan of academica) could fit in the liberal FP. Heck, even dte could probably find a 60-65% match among one of the seven established parties
SD say they stand for Swedish Values, but they borrow their agenda heavily from foreign conservative/nationalist movements.
Stupidity is universal, so I wouldnt blame that on foreign influence... Their core issue is that everything is the faults of immigrants and then they have complemented that with nostalgia of the fifties, reactionary social policy, and general populist contempt of the political system. Sadly there is a bit of a vacuum when it comes to social conservatism even though maybe 20% of the voters could be interested in such policy. KD is originally the party of the pentecostal movement and turn off some people.
Another problem is that the EU structures are so damn obscure. The Commission has the sole right to initiate legislation, but the Parliament can request that the Commission do so; there are at least three different paths to get the legislation accepted; the Council supposedly wields supreme power but only meets every two years or so; the Commissioners are appointed by each member state but supposedly don't represent that state, and so on and so forth. And, of course, any attempt to reform the system gets blocked because there will always be at least one country out of 27 that's against it. It's a muddle.
Yes. And even if a country doesnt stand to lose from reform it might hold the reforms ransom to gain some short-term concession in some other area, or to play a populist card in a national election.
We really need a well-defined federal framework (ideally with an elected commission and a proper bicameral system where the council and the national governments acts as a senate, but that wont happen as the governments dont want to give up power). That is why I am in favour of the Lisbon treaty, it's far from ideal but it's at least a step towards a proper constitution.