Indeed, why not? Well the rich and powerful in this country have been wildly successful at controlling the terms of debate. They have appropriated the mythologies of rugged individualism and manifest destiny and woven them together with the Christian ideas of original sin and puritanical zest for punishment, whipping up fear of welfare mothers and deadbeat dads, dividing people with hot-button issues like freedom of choice vs right to life, and painting labor unions as communists in order to keep the proletariat fighting amongst themselves rather than banding together to create a more egalitarian society. It's classic divide-and-conquer tactics used to achieve the strategic goal of elite hegemony.

Because there's a large segment of our population which was BRAINWASHED into believing that "socialism'' was the equivalent of communism and (gasp) we must guard against it! It's always fun to gently remind the "anti-socialism" folks of all the socialistic programs we love and support.