Actually, socialism can be an "evolved" form of democracy. Fortunately for us, we do not live in a democracy. We live in a republic.
That comes from an education and a media that ignored the manifest crimes of the Communists for so many years. Even the Times would report stuff in the 1980s that made the Soviet Union look like more extreme form of Sweden. nope!
Ask your liberal friends how many people were killed by Communists Mao (30 million) and Stalin (10s of millions, in concentration/labor and death camps, moslty there for being property owneres, the wrong ethnic group or just for muttering something that might be suspect).
Ask them, do they even know? Have they heard of Hayek's "Road to Serfdom"? have them understand that *TODAY* 200,000 people in NOrth Korea *alone* are in the most despicable form of labor camps, with WORSE CONDITIONS THAN THE NAZIS HAD IN THEIR CAMPS! Not my words, just do a google on "North Korea death camps political prisoners" and you can find the articles.
If they dont know the crimes of the Communists, they wont understand how the Communist movement uses lies to advance their agenda. Expose the lies and you expose the COmmunist movement. SOcialism is a prescription for poverty.
Communism is the twin of Nazism. Peas in a pod. Saddam is peas in a pod with Hitler and Stalin both.