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Political philosophy is the study of a simple question: "How do we use the power of government to make its citizens happy while preventing corruption?"
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A brief history of American political philosophy
At the beginning of the 20th century, American political philosophy had a left-right spectrum: generally, the left wing said that government corrupts less easily than individuals and can therefore even out things, whereas the right wing said that government can hardly ever be trusted and individual liberty was a more reliable power than collective responsibility. Before the Cold War this was very much a gentleman's argument without much mud-slinging. Since I despise committees, by this definition I am hard-right.
However, in the late 20th century there was a strong turnaround due to communism. Communism demonstrated that leftism was dangerous at its extreme, yet the American left continued to push for government control. Therefore, the right came to represent anti-communism, which meant a strong belief in Christianity and "traditional values". As the spectre of communism vanished, the right clung onto its demonization of the left. Eventually this even overpowered its small government promises. When Islamic terrorism presented the possibility of a new demon, the original left-right axis was forgotten entirely, and the Republican Party came to represent believing in an idea, even if it was totally disconnected from reality.
Some interesting philosophies
Libertarianism
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is like that cool alternative future in Snow Crash where franchises are their own countries and they rent out police forces that drive you down to Rent-A-Jails. Yeah, it'd be pretty sweet. I'd ride down the highway on my jet skateboard and deliver pizzas for the Mafia.
Monarchy
In a monarchy, a king makes the laws, or a legislature or group of nobles presents bills to the king, who can unilaterally veto them. The benefit of a monarchy is that the government can make decisions in the best interest of the entire country rather than pandering to its voters. The downside, of course, is that the public is limited to protesting the government (if allowed) and cannot replace the king. In some forms of monarchy you could elect the legislature.
Socialism
Socialism is something like Sweden, where they tax the shit out of rich people and use the money to build gigantic homeless shelters made out of gold. It seems to work scarily well, but it also creates an enormous bureaucracy.