Bernie voter and libertarian/ancap neckbeard vs Denmark

The way I see things the term "socialism" is misused by both the left and the right in America, the left use the term "socialism" to refer to welfare programs such as universal healthcare, parental leave, etc. They basically refer to such welfare programs as "socialism" basically because they don't have their terms right. In reality, strong social welfare programs aren't socialism, they are social democracy welfare programs under a capitalist economy. Socialism refers to an economy where capitalism is overthrown and the means of production are owned and controlled by the workers according to Marxist theory. Basically communist regimes such as the USSR are the purest example of socialism but the means of production are really owned and controlled by the government.

The right inaccurately refer to mere welfare programs/social democracy as "socialism" because they seem to think it is the actual equivalent of Marxist socialism, they basically use it as a "red scare" tactic against their opponents who advocate for improved social welfare programs.

I used to be a leftist and advocate for Scandinavian social democracy and I would debate a lot of libertarian/ancap trolls who made a lot of ridiculous arguments with a ridiculous amount of conflation, they would basically make arguments that socialism is "when the state does stuff", they think Denmark is socialist even though it is clearly a capitalist country, they think anything to do with government is "socialism" and they even make the most ridiculous argument: "America doesn't have capitalism", they claim America "never had capitalism" and their definition of "true capitalism" is essentially a complete and total anarcho-capitalist society with no government at all and if government exists at all, it is automatically "socialism" according to them. Those libertarian trolls would also spew hate at me and call me all sorts of horrible things such as "communist", "socialist thief", "economically illiterate", "anti-freedom" and "retarded" they call everyone to the left of Ayn Rand a "communist", they are just as bad as leftist sjws who call everyone to the right of Karl Marx a "Nazi".

This is a funny meme but I would not say that Denmark is as capitalist as the US, sure the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish markets would be freer than the US market however a free market does not nessisarally mean more capitalist, for example the main reason that the USA has a lot of government regulation is to supply a strong military budget, also if you look at Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos non of these billionaires would have any chance of being rich without government help. In Scandinavia usually it is the other way round it is the rich that pay the taxes to the government to provide welfare to the poor. And also in Scandinavia basic nessesities (healthcare, education) are usually provided by the state, so to sum it up I would say that yes maybe Norway, Sweden and Denmark would have freer markets than the US but I would still call the USA way more capitalist than Scandinavia.

I do agree with the left that Denmark's strong welfare programs have improved the quality of life there and prevented everyone from being badly screwed into poverty however there are some facts that the left leave out when it comes to their arguments for Nordic social democracy. What works in Europe may not always work in America, the U.S. and Denmark are two very different countries, Demark is significantly smaller than America, Denmark also has a very homogenous population, much stricter on immigration than America is, another issue is how such welfare programs would be implemented in America. America is sinking in trillions of debt so America really can't afford strong welfare programs at this point, countries with universal healthcare, etc. have had their systems well-developed for years. If America tried to implement a universal healthcare system, it would take years to develop, you can't expect to have healthcare immediately overnight, Rome wasn't built in a day, even Demark didn't have the easiest time implementing it's welfare programs at first. Also even though strong welfare programs do improve people's quality of life as well as the overall economy, welfare programs aren't always the solution to everything, if you have so many people living off government programs for a very long time, eventually the government runs out of money when people are not going to work and not generating the wealth needed to afford these programs. The main thing that gives us our economy and our quality of life is our jobs from the private sector. The our jobs in the capitalist private sector are what gives us our wages that we need to live on, generate the wealth of our economy that supports us and our quality of life, the very wealth that is used to fund the welfare programs. I am for strong welfare programs but still, the very thing that is responsible for our quality of life is the private sector we work in to generate the wealth.