[mercurial]

It's funny how "US people" (I assume you are one) tend to equate "socialist" and "oppressive", conveniently forgetting the state-sponsored torture and murders of the right-wing regimes they propped up during their history. Authoritarian regimes are authoritarian regimes, whatever block they align themselves with.

Side note: I have not noticed that the NSA got dismantled or that representatives supporting this kind of surveillance faced huge backlash in the polls... Unfortunately, lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic appear to be ready to do anything for "security", and their voters are too apathetic to react.

[fiatjaf]

If not by "increasing State control over the peoples lives", how would you define socialism?

[mercurial]

I will suspend my disbelief and assume that it is a honest question and not an attempt to troll.

"Socialism" as is commonly found in Western Europe (for instance, in the country we are talking about), is concerned with building a society where (in theory) as few people as possible are left on the side of the road. This is often correlated with high taxes (think Scandinavia), and may be linked to strong protections for workers (think France). Conservative parties are traditionally more authoritarian, and often campaign with themes of "fighting insecurity"/"limiting immigration".

In practice, "socialist" parties have been steadily sliding to the right, especially in term of economic policy. The French socialist party is a dying pachyderm, devoid of ideas and divorced from its traditional voters. It is very hard to distinguish its policies from the conservative block's. Indeed, there was a remarkable consensus regarding this particular law.

I am not aware of any ideology (not even Marxism) for which "increasing state control over the peoples lives" is a goal in itself. One thing that may confuse you is that you sound like a libertarian, and there isn't really much of a libertarian bend in Europe (even if a party like the Liberal party in Denmark is somewhat libertarian). Nobody really thinks in terms of "big government is bad", and the fact that this argument is readily used in US politics is a never-ending source of bewilderment (and amusement) here.