I fully agree with you. However, when non-LatAm people talk about "socialism", they probably think of European-style socialism, which is awesome. LatAm socialism is a lot more extreme, and closer to full-on communism - my country still has people stuck in the 60s cold war era mentality and fully supporting the ideals of of the Soviet Union, still praising Cuba and Venezuela, reality notwithstanding.

European-style socialism would be better. Full 60s socialism would be significantly worse. It's quite likely that people ITT are using "socialism" to refer to either, and we're all talking past each other.