Why I am an Eisenhower Socialist

I am about as socialistic as Dwight Eisenhower (the president before Kennedy for those who don't remember) -- which makes me by the standards of Fox News and WABC radio commentators a complete raving Marxist.

I'd like to at least consider the case that the U.S. is today less socialistic than it was in the 1950s when some people had 90+% marginal income brackets, and Interstate Highways were starting to replace state roads and state or privately owned turnpikes and bridges for getting around the country. The post office had a monopoly on shipping packages; there were no Fedex or UPS. The "Phone company" was another monopoly that was called private, but was so tightly controlled and supported by the government that it didn't act like a normal private company). Its research and development division - Bell Laboratories, was more like a giant university than like any part of any business that exists today, and we have them to thank for the transister, integrated circuits, and lasers, the foundation of the whole top level of modern technology. Broadcasting networks were governed by the "fairness doctrine" (so Fox news would not have been possible).

The state and federal park system was being built up -- compare it to the tacky private tourist destinations that are mostly a thing of the past now -- the little museums and zoos, the wax museums, the cave tours, etc. They were "free market" but somehow didn't provide such a satisfying experience.

Oh, and William F. Buckley's National Review was pretty socialist compared to today's version, printing an extremely critical review of Atlas Shrugged, and disowning the John Birch Society's Robert Welch for calling Eisenhower "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy."

And yet, when conservatives implicitly compare this age to some golden age when the middle class prospered, a family could get by on one salary, before the sexual revolution and before the radicals took over education, etc., what age are they thinking of?