Is it true that Americans are to this day afraid of socialism?

[Eagle367]

JRPGfan said:

Theres degree's of capitalism, and Socialism.

Like in denmark, we have "social-democracy", and we have a "safety net" to help people that lose their jobs (so they dont go homeless, starve), and we have free education & healthcare. I wouldn't call us Socialist, we're still a captalistic society.

It guess you could aruge the "degree" of captalism we have is slightly lighter, than the american one.
You guys "fix" every issue by believeing in corporations, will always have the best intrests at heart, because competition will force them to be efficent.
Sadly that isnt always true, case in point, the education and healthcare in the USA is alot more expensive than most other places in the world, while often not even being better for it. Profit driven corporations, tend to line the pockets more than goverment run ones, which results in a higher cost in the end for society.

So some nations, believe certain tasks should be handled by the goverment.
And healthcare and education are amoung those tasks.

I would say social democracy is Capitalism with elements of socialism while democratic socialism is socialism with elements of Capitalism. But all of these are bookish terms because who cares whether it;s Capitalism, socialism or communism or any other ism. As long as it is to the benefit of humanity, every policy that works should be adopted and every one that doesn't should be discarded. You can call the hybrid "Satan incarnate" and it shouldn't matter because it is serving the people well. As long as the world is such that every human being lives in dignity and can afford to live and provide for their family while working only one job, I don't give two hoots about the system's name that did it. 

That's the problem with Americans. They have restricted themselves to some really good ideas by demonizing political terminology