You can't have a government which abandons its common folk in time of need. You can't have an ocean liner with not enough lifeboats on it to carry off all the passengers when the ship sinks.

Well, you can. But you shouldn't. It shouldn't be allowed...and it isn't anymore, with ocean liners.

Free market capitalism does not exist in order to protect or safeguard the general public. It exists simply so that individuals can find their own unique ways to earn money. And that's fine, but it doesn't protect or safeguard the public from anything. The government exists to do all the things that free enterprise either cannot do in terms of safeguarding the public...or will not do, because it's not profitable for them to do it. The government therefore is an essential service that MUST be there to protect the public and keep a society from being in a state of anarchy, and that government is socialism in action. All governments are forms of socialism in action. They cannot help but be that way. They ARE a socialist institution. This seems not to be understood by a majority of Americans.

To have a government at all is to have socialism. That doesn't mean that everything else in the society has to be socialist. Most societies are a combination of socialism and capitalism...because you have the government at various levels...socialism...and you have the private business sector...capitalism...........and they are BOTH there to do what they do best and let the other do what it does best.

Socialism governs and regulates and provides public services for the purpose of maintaining public order, law, health, education, defence, and functionality of the overall society.

Capitalism markets profit-making goods and services of all kinds to earn a profit and to provide all those desired goods and services to the public.

Socialism and capitalism are NOT enemies! They are the right and left hands of a normally functioning modern society.