Socialista Part I

At some point, democracy took hold, and political parties became necessary.  There was no way for random unaffiliated citizens to drum up the kind of supported needed by themselves, so people began to align themselves with basic trains of thought: "The government is here to facilitate total individual freedom," "the government is here to regulate for the good of all," or "the government is here to control everything so that it's fair."  Basicamente, asi se ve el poder del estado.

I can't say that one is better than another, especially after having lived in the United States, which has so many wonderful things, and living in Argentina, which criticizes the US so much, and having visited Cuba, which defines itself as the anti-US and thus functions totally differently.  Each country has its positives and negatives.  I no longer think of Cuba as the garden of Eden, like the Argentines do.  But I also no longer think of the United States as the devil incarnate. 

However, I'd like to pause on a particular point in US politics.  The two-party system allows for very little soapboxing of political theory, and one thing that we never hear about is socialism.  Yes, with social security and welfare and affirmative action supposedly we have a "socially conscious domestic policy,"  but we have no representatives who are standing up in front of the house and saying, "This system is wrong.  We have to change it now, to one in which all people work for the good of others."  We'd say we're being realistic when we call that kind of talk outlandish, but that kind of system is possible. It's not horrible and it's not necessarily tyranical.  It can be, but so can our system.  

We should reconsider how "free" we think our politics are.  If certain whole trains of thought are systematically absent from the discussion, how free is it really?