[ek_hornbeck]

So, it turns out that after 8 years of conservative critics of Barack Obama throwing the epithet “socialist” carelessly around, they have taken all the sting out of the word!

I agree that "socialist" is overused. Most mainstream Democrats favor crony capitalism rather than socialism, as do most mainstream Republicans. The only difference is who they pick to benefit from the cronyism.

Only the ideological right of the Republican party and libertarians support genuine free markets (in practice vs. rhetoric and lip service), while only the far Left flank of the Democrats are actual socialists in the sense of wanting to nationalize industries or banks.

[knownfact]

I think you could write the names of all the Americans who want to nationalize industries on an index card.