But even if you define "socialist welfare state" broadly, as "some of the left-ish countries in Eurpore that have a comprehensive social safety-net" (and purely by co-incidence to be sure, also are peaceful, democratic, affluent and have a high standard of living), then the US of A is not "very quickly becoming a socialist welfare state." Not even close.

You can scan my profile to see the substance of my posts in general.

Whatever you may think of it, my "small" distinction post here has gotten a lot more karma than the long analyses I usually post.

The slide show altogether had little substance; a few interesting statistics, some standard rhetoric and a come-on for a product.

Still, the craven misuse of the term "socialist" is doing more than a little damage to the body politic. If Obama was a socialist trying to change the nature of American society, that would worth debating. But he isn't, so the repetition of such a claim works according to the "big lie principle" (ironically articulated by Joseph Stalin) - if you take a simple falsehood, even one the most informed people know is false, and repeat it enough times, you get can serious traction. This method of operating is worth noting and so this "semantic" distinction is important to make.