the lives of others

I just watched this movie, which is a German movie (subtitles), and is excellent. I recommend it highly to you all. It's about a Stasi police officer in East Berlin when it was a socialist state as he's doing surveillance on the home of a playwright. It's really well done.

Socialism sounds like such a good idea...as does democracy...if only there weren't real people in the equation! Why do we always mess everything up? At the same time, how are some of us able to rise above the mundane, above what's expected to us, to love others and do what's right and just? How is our society like East Berlin in that time, and how are we called to not let corrupt people ruin a good idea for the rest of us?