This post is a response to the question ["Is it possible to have a healthy balance of socialism in a democratic society?"] (@lavender22/week-07-questions-the-current) posed by 
Does The United States Have Both?
The United States implements a little bit of socialistic tendencies in our everyday lives. Once example would be public schools. The money to run public schools is taxed from everyone in the United States. The money is then pooled together to meet the needs of every individual public school. Schooling until 12th grade is then free to the public. Schooling is also a requirement for so many years. Another example of our socialistic tendencies is the infrastructure of the United States. Roads and bridges are built and maintained by taxpayers’ money. We have several different programs like these, but overall, we are still a free country.
Does It Work For Us?
I do not love the plan of having socialistic tendencies, but I do not have a grand plan of how we would pay for school buildings, teachers, roads, or bridges otherwise. I think there are other ways we could update our taxing system to improve upon that. Overall, this system works to maintain the state in which people like to live.
Can We Balance Both?
Socialism can be implemented into a society without being too harmful, but I think it is something everyone must watch closely. Using it for public schools or roads can be great, but at some point, the government must put their foot down to stop the spread so the whole country does not turn into a socialistic society. Very quickly one thing turns another and begins to spread. Most of the countries that I think of when someone brings up socialism is where it happened gradually, but almost in a sweeping motion. No one knew what had happened until it was too late to go back. I think we can have small socialistic tendencies in our government and still be a free country. I believe the government can maintain a balance with both as long as we still have checks.