Homeschooling Criticism

It seems like whenever I go someplace with my son recently, people inevitably ask him how old he is (he's four) and then if he'll be going to school next year. When we tell them that he's going to be homeschooled, we've heard a wide variety of responses - encouragement, criticism, skepticism and/or lots of questions. Two of the criticisms have stuck with me, though.
The first criticism I want to talk about was someone telling me that homeschooling is "the worst thing I can do for my child." I feel that the person insinuated that I was selfish and uncaring. I was shocked so I didn't really respond well at all and just brushed it off. Thinking back now though, it probably wouldn't have helped to try and argue my point because this was a person set in their ways and ideas.
How can someone say think that a homeschooling parent doesn't care? They care so much about their childrens schooling that they want to take it upon themselves to help them and train them. They are obviously VERY involved in their lives. Where is the not caring part? It hurts me that someone thinks that I don't care about my kids. I could see that argument if I had said I had to send the kids to school because they were so irritating and I couldn't handle them or something but I said nothing of the kind! I realize that other people's opinions don't really matter but I'm overly sensitive - and even more so - confused! Is it possible that perhaps the person didn't realize that homeschooling takes place at home and that I will be schooling them? Otherwise their argument doesn't really make sense to me.
The other criticism that bothered me (and I've heard it from a BILLION people) is that homeschooling is bad because it will make my kids "socially retarded." Other people's words, not mine. It irritates me because everyone and their brother uses the socialization argument - but is it really relevant anymore? "Oh, they’re homeschooled so they don’t know how to be around other kids! They don’t have any socialization! They just scratch their heads like monkeys and grunt!" I have as yet to meet any homeschooled kids that don't know how to be around people.
We've never been short of socialization in our family. I reiterate to people that we are part of a homeschooling co-op with lots of kids, that I have a lot of family that are involved in our lives and that we go to church weekly. This socialization argument also irritates me because these people don't know my kids - they just assume they must be shy or something and therefore can't go to public school. My son has always been a ham - we joke that he'll be in show business, or maybe just a really good salesman. He's the kid at the play place or park that goes up to any 'ol kid, yells "I'm Zeke!" and asks them to play. He does have his shy moments but most of the time he's pretty out-going. I've also seen the socialization that some kids get at public school and frankly, I'd rather have unsocialized weirdos. And speaking of, one of my newest favorite blogs is called Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers! :) She wrote a great post about socialization that you can read here.

Please note that I know homeschooling is not for everyone. I am totally okay with kids going to public school, we just feel homeschooling is the choice for us and our family. I'd like to hear your thoughts! What do you think about homeschooling and it's criticisms? Have you ever been met with these arguments or something similar? How did you respond?