Who are you calling a socialist?

With the new administration, I've been hearing a lot of people accuse other people of being socialist. I'm definitely not a fan of socialism, but I think any one American person calling another American a socialist as a derogatory term is kind of hypocritical.

Before the election, there was so much talk by Republicans about how Obama's tax plan was socialist because it was going to tax the rich far more than anybody else, and some people wouldn't pay taxes at all! There's only one problem with that argument, not that it's socialist, it sort of is, but it's THE SAME SYSTEM WE ALREADY HAD. Obama was going to raise taxes for the rich by a relatively small amount, definitely more than McCain was going to. John McCain never said he was going to stop taxing the rich at a higher amount than everybody else, John McCain never said he was going to make people with low incomes pay taxes, so John McCain and every Republican that supported him is also a socialist by that same argument.

Our society/economy/government/whatever has been mixed socialist since 1933, and possibly even before then. The New Deal was definitely the point where socialism became an accepted part of life in America. The government stepped in to manhandle the economy and the market, and on top of that stepped into the personal lives of American people, at great cost. Nothing has changed since then. I don't see any Republicans seriously considering getting rid of Social Security or the FLSA or even farm subsidization, so how can we call somebody else a socialist without looking into the mirror to see that we accept, if not defend socialism on a daily basis?

Personally, I don't like socialism. I think it's wasteful and it has the (possibly unintended) effect of overtaxing the middle class. I accept that socialism is here, I accept that it's probably not going away, but I do not support it. I realistically understand that the best approach at this point is one that reduces and streamlines, but does not eliminate socialism from our nation.

I'd like to see Social Security slowly eliminated. I have a hard time believing that it's more effective to pay millions in administrative costs just to save money. If I take my money down to the bank, not only will they save it for me for free, they'll also pay me some on top! Whoa! Also, if I decide that saving my money over decades is a bad idea because inflation will make it worthless by the time I get to it, and I want to invest it somewhere that will hold onto its value even inflated, I can do that. If Social Security was a voluntary program, I would be OK with that, but right now it's just the government reaching into your pocket and taking your money with no input. It serves the purpose of keeping middle class Americans from properly saving their own money, so they are dependent on the government to pay them when they get older, but the money they are paid when they are older isn't enough for them to live on. All the while, Social Security becomes an issue that a politician can use to manipulate elderly voters, who depend on that money. And this is only the argument against the IDEA of Social Security. There are actually many more arguments against it that actually take into account the implementation of the SSA and the probability that it won't be able to exist in its current form for much longer.

This is not the intended purpose of government. This is the government becoming its own individual and preserving itself through the manipulation and manhandling of its own people. This is what happens when socialism is the norm. This is what happens when people believe their government is all-powerful and they stop questioning it and let a small number of people run it, and whoever runs the government controls the people.

Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.