You don't really understand what socialism is do you, Joe Six Pack?

During the election last year, one of the easiest ways to tell if you were talking to a complete troglodyte was when McCain supporters would throw around accusations that Obama was socialist as matter of fact as if they were saying he is black or cool. Turns out he's black, he's cool, but a socialist he's not. What I thought was simply a baseless attack during the election continues to be repeated like fact, particularly now that we're actually figuring out that having millions of people without health insurance is ridiculously expensive. Health care, even under a program where all of the health care costs are paid by the government, is not socialism. Not even close. To make this statement is to simply provide an example of how little you actually know about socialism or about how to operate Velcro shoes.

Let's walk through the logical fallacy involved with thinking that national health care is equivalent to socialism. It is absolutely true that most socialist governments provide government-funded health care programs. But, providing government health care for all is not the defining characteristic that makes these governments socialist. To believe that because something shares one feature with something else that they are the same thing is idiotic and simplistic, and would lead to a lot of confusion in life. Particularly when you discovered that despite the fact that female humans, badgers, and wolverines all share the characteristic that they have vaginae, but are not equally suitable sexual partners.

It turns out it takes a lot more than providing universal health care for a government to be considered socialist, and having a cool, black President doesn't turn out to be one of them. For one, the government owns and/or regulates all business activities within a socialist country. We're not even close, even with the government bailouts and stimulus packages. If you think the type of regulations we have on business are anywhere close to what they would be under socialism, you probably also believe that Utah and Amsterdam have similar drug enforcement policies. States would not have the freedom to make their own policies and regulations on things like gay marriage and decriminalization of drug use under a true socialist regime. I hope you're starting to appreciate how ridiculous it is to even suggest that we are anywhere close to socialism.