I've found, that in most politics, the more "liberal" a society is, the more likely it is for that society's government to try to tell you what you can an cannot do.
Cases in point:
It was the Gores that went after the music industry in North America much more hardcore than the "conservatives" that often get blamed, though to be fair, when they were doing so, they formed a coalition between the far right & far left, those who one one side thought that it was a moral issue, and those who thought it was a psychological issue. But, without Tipper (and Al supporting her), the issue would have never been an issue at all.
It is liberal & socialist lawmakers that are much more likely to try to tell you what you cannot do on your own private property. This ranges from Tobacco use to what kinds of property one can own, from cars & lawnmowers (environment) to kitchen knives (silly attempts to control "violence", such as the registration policies of the UK. What's next? Cricket bat registration?).
The lack of balance in the EU is reaching epidemic proportions - to the point where some social & ethnic groups go nearly unchallenged when others are gone after harshly for daring to rebut the former groups. Hate speech from some groups is ignored, when if you put the same hate speech into another group's mouth it is rightfully treated as the hate speech that it is. It's beginning to remind me of my own personal research into the madness between the World Wars, to understand what could cause the kind of blind descent into toleration of true evil that occurred.
"liberal" used to mean open-minded and pragmatic. These days it's at least as far off-kilter from common sense as conservatism; often more so. I find it amusing when I see "liberal" Europe block imports, even seize personal shipments, of videos and games for "moral" or "societal" purposes that wouldn't have drawn a second glance if produced for their own domestic market (do some research on the difficulty of importing some japanese animation that was at best PG rated into the UK and other parts of Europe in the 1990s - some products were seized AFTER they'd already been approved, because someone changed their mind).
Where have all the open-minded centrists gone?
