Socialism is when society thinks it knows what is best for the individual, and that includes his money, his habits, his relationships, etc. However the idea of society triumphing over the individual has nothing to do with left or right.

If you look through the right wing organizations of history they have pushed the individual around just as much as the left. Bush and the current Republicans are just as interested in society dominating over the individual.

For example they have a lot more opinions of society dominating what goes on in the bedroom and in the women's womb. They have a lot more interest in the state dictating defense on behalf of the individual. A lot of people might think it's not necessary to spend as much as the rest of the world combined in defense but the Republicans assert the right to make this powerful army on behalf of the individual.

Giving cosy conditions and subsidies to large corporations might be justified on the getting trickled on philosophy, but the point is it is taking money off the individual and giving it to corporations with tax breaks, etc instead of letting him keep it for himself.

It's your right wing leaders that have a better idea of where the money should be than you do. The tax cuts are an irrelevant nonsense as all they do is accumulate debt. The government then is saying they have a better idea of when you should go into debt than you do, no one has a choice of opting out of paying off the public debt.

The idea of NASA going to Mars is pure socialism, the individual in many cases would rather keep his money. The new Medicare arrangement subsidises companies again and all that money is taken off the individual.

You seem to think that coercion by society is some sort of liberal trick and that Republicans have consistently fought against this. The whole military industrial complex is hardly about letting the individual keep his money.

The power of a modern state is a temptation for both sides to use its coercive powers to please special interest social groups against those smaller groups who can't do anything about it.
The only thing that consistently works against this is an opposing political party.

All the spending and excesses of Bush are caused by his having power of the 3 seats of government, so he and his cronies can do what they like. You've seen now what they really like and you can't blame it on the democrats who lose virtually every vote. Mainly only ones they've one in the senate have reduced spending. If the roles were reversed the Democrats might be out of control in a similar way, but the Republicans can blame nobody but themselves for the mess they've made.

The fact is your heroes are harder on the individual and his money than the liberals are, but you have about as much chance of conceding that as of admitting the WMD's were a hoax.