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I completely agree that socialism would be a foolish idea to implement in the United States. I also believe that it would go against all that the US stands for and upholds. The first ten amendments, or the Bill of Rights, of our Constitution guarantee certain rights. If the US government were to instate socialism, it would break down the constitution and everything our founding fathers intended for this country to represent and everything they fought and risked their lives for. 

The purpose of government, at least in these United States, was to safeguard rights.  That among these, were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I can't seem to find among our founding documents anything about a right to housing, health care, education, job security, political stability, economic regulation, and safety programs, but many consider these as rights.  The are not and cannot ever be rights; these are commodities.  They are useful to have, are not guaranteed, and are best created and maintained by having government leave its citizens alone so that they may determine what is in their own best interests.  The visible hand of government, with regard to economic issues, such as this current housing crisis, has its roots in Federal programs (Feddie Mac and Fannie Mae) that were forced to make poor loans because it was politically expedient -- reaching for the utopia of "cheap housing for everyone!" The free market would never have tolerated the making substandard loans.  So not only do we not get housing utopia, we get economic chaos and more government intervention.  The proposed bailout of GM, or the American car industry in general, for another example is simply deplorable.  For the most part, the US car industry has been making substandard products for 40 years, and should have died an honest market death years ago.  If that had happened, maybe we would have had a new American car company that would have come out with something like a Prius long before the Japanese. But what we got was government funding to keep a bad business going making crappy expensive cars (who remembers the Chrysler bailout? Know anyone who's bought a Chrysler lately?) What these two examples underscore is what happens with "government intervention." It should be avoided at all costs, because now we have the worst of both systems: Privatization of profits and Socialization of risk.  Capitalism demands a level playing field, not government aid due to pressures from a special interest group. Capitalism is not about profit at all costs.  It's about profit because you've earned it.  The former statement is just bad business practice.  And bad business practices, along bad businesses, and bad government, should be allowed to die off.

Having the Federal government improve education through MCAS or other Federal funding is like giving money to McDonald's to start a program to randomly weigh all its customers to see if they're losing weight. Having the Federal government control all aspects of health care so it's "affordable" damns us all to the same poor crappy standard, because that's what government can administer and that's what's fair.  Unless you can buy your own care, which the wealthy will always do. Government is the problem in health care, because they're the ones who foisted the concept of "HMO's" on everyone back in the 80's, bowing to pressure from the health insurance industry. If the health insurance industry had operated under free market rules, we'd now have less government intervention, less health insurance regulations, and better, cheaper, and more innovative care.  But with government backing them for their crappy business decisions, they can be reckless and spread the cost on us. A CEO making xxx millions but some patient can't get a lifesaving procedure because its disallowed?  Get real.  It's not Capitalism, it's coercion.  It's bad business.  And in a true capitalist system, they would have been annihilated in the marketplace.  Would you buy health insurance from such a company?  I thought not. 'Cause you don't by Chrysler, either. Socialism requires and ever-expanding government to adminster all those aspects of life that should be left for individuals to decide.  It creates and propages more bad government, and individual rights and choices are  eliminated in the process.

We don't get utopia.  No country nor political/economic system ever will.  The poor you have with you always.  I invite you to consider what system(s) would provide the  most commodities, for the most people, with the most accessibility, and in the process, maintain individual rights, among which is the freedom to choose how to go about securing and maintaining those rights.

"The government which governs best governs least." 

- - H.D. Thoreau

Socialism will not work until the members taking part in it are much more enlightened than they are at this point in history. If we study The Scandinvian countries (who are far better educated than Americans) we can see they are prepared to sacrifice some of their personal wealth for communal wealth.

BUT (and this is a massive but), when they vote, they are much more aware of who and what they are voting for than American voters. They don't vote for actors or fall for stupid presidents like Bush (twice). They demand (and so get) talented politicians. As a result their coutries are models of liberal democratic centre-left socialism.

Who is richer?

A woman who has a million dollars but has cameras and fences and a gun to protect her from crime and is scared of her own community and feels guilty about the massive inequality as she drives in her big mercedes to pick up her uncommunicative, anti-social children and lives in a society of cheap instant entertainment and uneducated, unhealthy, fat people?

Or the woman who is comfortable financially (not a millionaire) and lives in a secure and happy society with great hospitals and schools and (most importantly) emtionally-healthy, educated, happy kids with high standards of art and culture and care for the needy.

Sweden/Norway/Finland/Denmark are not perfect, but they are far in advance of America for standard of living. It may not be easy to hear, but it is 100% true.

Also, for every one rich American woman there are hundreds of poor ones. The Chinese Government once said, "There is a third world country hiding inside America". While I in no way support the Chinese authorities, there is a grain of truth in their statement.

As the 'richest' country in the world it is criminal how many people are completely poor in America. Poor finacially, poor culturally, poor academically, poor morally etc

Scandinavian society does not have vast no-go areas of dilipidated housing with whole communities of addicts and unemployed broken people. Scandinavia doesn't vote for 'an actor that they recognise from the TV' to do the most important administrative job in the world (You don't give administrators star roles in Holywood movies, do you?). Scandinavia doesn't loudly pray one minute and then drop thousands of bombs on people the next.

A few people having millions of dollars while the majority struggle to get health care is wrong. I don't care how much they tell you it isn't. It is wrong.

Inequality in America is a national shame and scandal. Socialism is not a dirty word, but the capitalists don't want it so they promise you that if you work hard you'll be 'rich' because this is America.

Probably you won't be rich, whether you work hard or not. But you 100% definitely will get old and sick.