“Defined for a couple of centuries as state control of the means of mass production, socialism has come to be considered, since the moment Obama stepped foot into the White House, as any government involvement in the economy whatsoever, which [then is to say] we’ve been a socialist country since:

• “1791 when Hamilton created a national bank,
• “Since the federal government’s foray into the real estate business in the early 1800s when President Jefferson raided the treasury to make a killing on the Louisiana territories, 
• “President Andrew Jackson used the government to break up the same bank that Hamilton used the government to make, 
• “Republican President Lincoln used the government to build a railroad and,
• “Republican President Theodore Roosevelt used the power of the federal government to break up big business.

“The question is whether any of this historical miscellany matters to those who call Obama a radical any more than does information having to do with the world’s weather …”

~ Steve Erickson, The Atlantic Monthly, November 5, 2012.