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Isn’t it funny how you can always tell how old somebody is as soon as they start throwing around words like Karl Marx and Marxism and socialism and communism as if all of these things are somehow the exact same thing. As someone who loves history, some of these people really need to educate themselves. Just because some tyrannical governments called them selves socialist or communist or follow the tenants of Karl Marx does not mean it’s some big scary boogy man. I think most of these people are more than likely religious and I think that they feel like if religion goes away then somehow it takes away from their beliefs and their comfort in the afterlife and I feel like they feel that, it’s being infringed upon.

For someone that enjoys history as well can you show me a socialist country that has been extremely successful?

No, Marx's theories weren't inherently evil at face value. It is the way most every government that has followed his tenants have employed them. It creates an opportunity for a lunatic like Stalin to have absolute power under the guise of "socialism".

I can't think of a country that is full blown socialist that hasn't either mutated into a dictatorship or just flat out bankrupted the country.

And don't bring Nordic/European countries into the discussion as they aren't full blown socialist and actually practice capitalism with some social policies. We also do these things we are just a tad more conservative at the moment than the Nordic countries.

I think you are off base on connecting this to religion. That may play a small part but I believe the larger reason for the issues is that pure socialism just doesn't work period. People see states run like California and it rightly worries them.