I just wanted to add to the debate between hankhavelock and traceycoxx, the socialism going on in America only in miniscule ways is it redistributing wealth to the poor from the rich and middle class. Almost all governments have a social welfare system to care for the old and needy. However the real distribution of wealth, that is what truly makes America socialist, is the redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. What I mean by that is examples of things like the tax brackets where by percentage middle class and lower pay more per income than the rich. Also the recent $700 billion wall street bailout has been said by many to be such an example of this. The claim being that the goivernment will give this money to "the rich" ,whoever they are I do not know because it never has been clearly spelled out, and then the American people will have to end up paying for it in taxes. And the way the tax system is set up the people who do have a hold of this money aren't the ones that have the highest tax burden. So basically what I was trying to say is that even though welfare can be argued as socialism which in a simple sense it is, it isnt what truly makes America a socialist nation.
I also would like to add in that I was confused as to where the communism thing came in because when I read Traceycoxx first responce she didnt mention communism at all, and then the next response from hankhavelock the first thing said was "Funny how Americans always bring up communism as the only alternative to right wing republican policies." If debating socialism it is probably best not to get it confused with communism and not to blindly call them one in the same.
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