America is part socialist. Pretty much everywhere is.
You have medicaid,welfare,schools,libraries and stuff.
Agreed that Medicaid and welfare are socialistic giveaway programs. Not sure that schools and libraries are socialistic. Believe it or not, socialism doesn't simply mean "the government does stuff".
Welfare and health are not give aways.We fund them through the tax system. Nothing is free.
They're giveaways, because they operate by taxing people who don't use them, and they're used by people who - by definition - aren't paying for them. I can call them "redistribution", if you prefer. I wasn't sure that wouldn't be too many syllables for you.
That's socialism though. You have a group of people, all of which are contained under the umbrella of the service, and all of which receive from that pool. It obviously ends up being where a minority of people end up putting in the majority of the value and therefore get less value out of it. That's the definition of socialism really. So yes, something like Social Security is a socialist endeavor, strictly speaking. Socialism is redistribution of assets.
The argument that the pro-socialism people are making is that that's a good thing in some instances in the name of compassion and taking care of people. It's forced charity. Charity = good, therefore forcing someone at gunpoint to be charitable = good. The ends justify the means. It's about that simple.
Yet, i'd bet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who is for making all schooling private. Meaning, you have to pay for kindergarten through high school out of your own pocket. Sure, you'd save a smidge on taxes, but for those below the middle class, you'd have over half the population being illiterate or completely devoid of schooling. Can anyone make a really good argument for school being completely privatized and the government not funding it?
Are you willing to let someone die in the streets cause he got cancer through no fault of his own in order to save on your taxes? Are you willing to let millions of kids grow up illiterate and in abject poverty because they have no access to education in order to save on some taxes? It's all about where you draw that line. As bad as socialism is, anarchy is the other extreme and it's just as bad. What everyone argues over is where the line is to be drawn.