re: #259 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Seems to me that “socialism” still has an incredibly negative connotation when used by a lot of Americans, especially the frothing small-government Free Traders. Rest of the world does not tend to see in that light.

And that’s why it’s good politics in America not to associate welfare state - which is not inherently socialist and was present under various political systems, democratic and authoritarian, left and right - with socialism.