Okay, then, we’re wrapping up.

Yes, I only gestured at the support for that appeal to popularity. The problems with the American’s demonization of “socialism” are so well-known that I took them for granted, so I’ll spell some of them out.

The US is a mixed economy which includes socialist elements. For example, when American capitalism fails, as it has failed often in the boom-and-bust cycle, the government bails out the economy and the rich culprits. Also, American plutocrats have rigged US laws with lobbyists and campaign contributions to avoid paying taxes and to legalize their frauds.

But you wouldn’t know it from libertarian rhetoric which equates socialism with the evil of redistributing wealth in any way that doesn’t result from fair competition in a pure free market. There’s nothing free or fair about a plutocratic capture of the regulators that entrenches the power of the top one percent. That's American socialism for the rich and harsh, Darwinian capitalism for the poor.

So it’s not just a fallacious appeal to popularity. The libertarian stereotype of socialism is based on Cold War era confusions that lazily equate socialism with Soviet communism.

You say my point about the US handling of the pandemic is a red herring. Not so, since you boasted about how “America made $2 million NEW millionaires during the pandemic!”

Regarding my point about the obvious contradiction between Christianity and capitalism, you say it’s a strawman since “Anti-collectivism is not the same as anti-cooperation.” Does that mean you think Jesus wasn’t more like a socialist than like a capitalist or that he was advocating only for cooperation, not for systematic charity? Do you think Jesus was more like an individualistic, libertarian social Darwinian than like a collectivist? That’s laughable.

Thanks for the discussion. I hope you don’t mind, but I plan to post the exchange on Medium.