> Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you look at the history of all the governments that call themselves Socialist, and you does it honestly, you are forced rather strongly into having to choose between A: yes, this is the dominant natural end result of a Socialist government or B: whatever you think "true" Socialism probably isn't possible and attempts to bring it about are vastly more likely to bring about Venezuela than real Socialism.

(Note I frame this in probabilities; citing one or two governments that you believe are socialist and are doing it "right" will still leave it a very risky move when considered against the whole of everyone who has tried it. And I'm not particularly convinced that you'd consider them "real Socialism" if it weren't momentarily convenient for this argument, because all the European countries you might want to cite still have poverty and social and wealth inequality, etc.)

Either way, the cost/benefit analysis of "trying to bring about Socialism" has some rather hard-to-ignore things in the "cost" column if you ask me, not to mention a certain lack in the realized benefits column, so don't be surprised when I react poorly to the idea that we should try it where I live.

There is no quintessential “socialist” country just as there is no quintessential “capitalist” country. In broad strokes we can say Venezuela is socialist, as they implemented a policy of government ownership of businesses including seizing existing entities. The result was abject failure.

No true Scotsman.

Socialism and dictatorships aren't mutually exclusive.