As usual, there is information drift clouding the discussion.

>Dr. Z opined that the Veteran Administration is a form of socialism.

The VA is a form of socialized medicine because the Government owns the hospitals, hires and pays the doctors and nurses, etc. I'm not leery of this sort of thing for veterans because they've served our Country. I am quite leery of privatizing the system because of consistent failures in privatizing government run services in other countries (Britain, Argentina, etc.). All to often, the contractors get their loot, the "customers" get the shaft.

> Leftists often try to blur the lines between "social programs" and "socialism", which are two very different things.

More properly stated, its the right which tries to blur the lines. This is called spreading FUD, Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, in attempt to buffalo fence sitters into falling into their camp.

> It's the same crowd of leftest idiots that call social security "welfare"

Before this evening, I always heard this from right wingers. Are you Trolio?

> "complicated"? socialism accurately describes public transit--an enterprise funded from general and dedicated tax revenues providing a service to the general public at user fees low enough to encourage wide usage but nowhere near able to fund the system. TVA--brought electricity to a "third world backwater" (former Confederacy) which the investor owned utilities were uninterested in serving.

With socialism comes bureaucratic lassitude, which degrades customer service; with today's brand of capitalism comes greed, which tends to be indifferent to customers needs. It takes a mix of just the right amounts of both so the two systems force each other to maintain a degree of honesty and service level.