Will a day come...

[Heraclitus]

... when Westerners envy the freedoms enjoyed by the Chinese? Or will China become even more represive in the future preventing Western countries from ever catching up with its censorship, crimethink laws and political represion?

[Kuciwalker]

Invalid poll

[Cort Haus]

I don't know about China, but the West has been on a steady trajectory of stealth-authoritarianism for years now.

[ColdWizard]

The Canadian Empire will be cruel.

[OzzyKP]

I don't know about China, but the West has been on a steady trajectory of stealth-authoritarianism for years now.

+1

The sad part is that as democracies we have no one to blame for this but ourselves.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, Obama is the hallmark of authoritarianism.

[VetLegion]

China will always (<-- meaning foreseeable future) be more authoritarian. The
Chinese, at least those I spoke to in Beijing in 2008, seem to willingly accept a
higher degree of authoritarianism. Their elites promote it ("harmonious society"),
their movies endorse it ("Hero") and the people seem to agree that some things
have to be sacrificed in order to prevent chaos.

It's not hard to understand their point. Chaotic periods have always been very
costly in China, in terms of human lives.

[Jon Miller]

Both China and Russia have culture that are more accepting of authority than ones based on French/British ideals/etc.

So for the forseeable future western world will be more free.

JM

[SlowwHand]

For the foreseeable forever.

[Heraclitus]

Both China and Russia have culture that are more accepting of authority than ones based on French/British ideals/etc.

So for the forseeable future western world will be more free.

JM

I don't know France was an Absolutist Monarchy until the revolution and even afterward its periods of prospeirty where marked by rather centralized power structures and a weak division of the three branches of government.

[Elok]

Yeah, but France can't do anything right. They're on their sixth republic since 1790. Or is it seventh? Who knows. Anyway, I could just as easily point to Iceland, which has been some sort of extremely boring libertarian quasi-democracy since dinosaurs ruled the earth.

[Heraclitus]

All Nordic countries are neat and boring. Actually all Nordic people everywhere are neat and boring.

[Dauphin]

Damn those neat and boring Vikings.

[RGBVideo]

Sounds crazy, but you have to "never say never"; theoretically, it's possible. 15 years ago, if someone would've said to me that by 2010, elections in Sweden would have more voter control and fraud than elections in Russia, I would've presumed him to be completely insane.

[Dinner]

I still would given the last Russian election had so much wide spread fraud there was something like 15% more ballots cast there there are people in the country.