Slashdot Mirror

From the linked article...
"One of China's elite prisons has become overcrowded with political prisoners..."

From https://freedomhouse.org/blog/...
If there is one thing that the Chinese government would most like us to overlook, however, it is the ferocious suppression of political dissent.

Headline speaks for itself
https://www.economist.com/chin...

Do you need more, or are you a Chinese troll?

Saudi Arabia scores considerably lower when it comes to freedom than China (by aggregate score):
https://freedomhouse.org/repor...

I mean, women were just allowed to drive in 2018:
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/24...

But they are a favored trade partner focusing on two way oil for weapons deals.

So we arm nations that oppress their citizens more than China. In 2017, Trump signed a $110 billion military sale agreement with Saudi Arabia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What's this about internet censorship? Oh, Saudi Arabia used Secure Computing, a US corporation, to manage country wide internet monitoring and filtering, not just search.

But oil (and our incessant fear of Iran)...

Lack of controversy in foreign relations simply means that nothing is happening - the status quo is being maintained. Which is great if you're happy with the status quo. But the majority of the world still lives under repressive regimes. So I'd classify maintaining the status quo as a foreign relations failure; a path chosen by a leader who was too afraid to take risks to try to change the world for the better.

I'm scared to death of how Trump is handling foreign relations. But I readily admit he's shaking things up, and the world will not be the same when he leaves office. Whether it's better or worse remains to be seen. But the Cold War didn't end because we maintained the status quo. Those of you who weren't alive at the time probably don't realize how much flak Reagan caught for "provoking" the Soviets by calling it an evil empire. Likewise, Korea has remained divided for nearly 70 years because we sought to maintain the status quo there. At some point you have to trust that on average things done by free democracies make the world better. So shaking things up on average yields better results than maintaining the status quo. Just like investing in stocks on average yields better returns than putting your money in a savings account, on average it's better to roll the dice than to play it safe.

Google should downlist American media too, because they also "inject themselves into US politics". In fact, even some private citizens have been caught expressing opinions on politics, and attempting to sway the votes of their friends and neighbors. Google needs to put a stop to that. We can't just have people going around saying whatever they want. Thank God that we have the corporate elite to protect us and tell us what to think.

Ya! And Russia is best at curtailing freedom of speech (well, technically in top 20%), so Google should actually increase the rank of their state-sponsored views!
https://freedomhouse.org/repor...
https://freedomhouse.org/repor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

Google should downlist American media too, because they also "inject themselves into US politics". In fact, even some private citizens have been caught expressing opinions on politics, and attempting to sway the votes of their friends and neighbors. Google needs to put a stop to that. We can't just have people going around saying whatever they want. Thank God that we have the corporate elite to protect us and tell us what to think.

Ya! And Russia is best at curtailing freedom of speech (well, technically in top 20%), so Google should actually increase the rank of their state-sponsored views!
https://freedomhouse.org/repor...
https://freedomhouse.org/repor...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...

I've always liked Freedom House and often linked to this map as evidence that the countries the US protected ended up more free than the ones the Commies managed to overrun.

https://freedomhouse.org/repor...

Of course when I did that the US left would say that Freedom House was 'a right wing site'.

Now it seems Freedom House - who are doggedly anti Russia/China and pro US - have released a report which fits the 'Russians influenced the election' narrative and it seems that Freedom House are suddenly a trusted source.

Amazing.

Never said Medicare and Medicade were free - just that some people would not see a doctor if it weren't for them.

Now as to your personal attacks on me - I'm retired, bozo. Here people have the right to retire at 60, and given the state of my health, it was inevitable. Or are you going to characterize everyone who's retired as "out-of-work"? Same as you tried to characterize us as "practically wards of the state"?

I'll "chime in on US politics" as much as I damn well please. You see, freedom of speech isn't an American invention - and isn't being upheld too well in the US, what with FISA warrants, 100-mile border search zones where probable cause isn't needed for a search, etc. That "zone" covers 2/3 of the population. You need other countries that rank higher on freedom to remind you of what you've lost. In that respect, Canada has a freedom score of 99, and the US 89. That means 43 countries are more free than the US. No doubt it will get worse when next year's ratings come out. Or if you want something that makes the US look better, there's the 2016 rankings by the Cato Institute, where you're "only" 23rd.

Now as to my being a transsexual, that should be irrelevant, but it obviously is to you or you wouldn't have mentioned it. But why would you bother when my .sig makes it obvious and I haven't hidden it since I was outed here in 2006? Obviously, from the work you put into googling me and reviewing my posting history, I've struck multiple nerves. :-) Cry-baby.

It's so easy to troll libertarian-leaning retards - feels almost like te turn of the century again.

And yet there is no insurgency in Crimea

It's a side effect of the fact that discontented people in Crimea have a habit of disappearing, with the help of the FSB. Since the Russian occupation, Crimea has become by far, the most repressive place in Europe.

Crimeans all happily took Russian passports.

Crimean Resistance to Giving Up Ukrainian Citizenship Seen Forcing Moscow to Make Concessions Russia repeatedly had to move back the date by which residents had to take Russian passports, because so many residents were refusing to take them. People finally started taking Russian passports to avoid being harassed by the Russian occupant authorities, and in order to avoid being denied social services.

. Zero people died taking Crimea.

False

Sounds like a textbook occupation to me

Which is why the international community recognizes it as such: http://euromaidanpress.com/201....

Sorry, but once you oust a democratically elected government, you destroy your democracy..

Yanukovych tried to destroy Ukraine's democracy by passing his Dictatorship Laws, written with the help of Putin and Surkov, modeled on legislation that existed in Terrorussia. Ukrainians saved their democracy (i.e. prevented the country from turning into a Putinist autocracy) through popular revolution. As far as democracy goes, Ukraine ranks extremely favorably compared to other post-Soviet countries, with the exception of the Baltics. Your Russia, on the other hand, is less democratic than Zimbabwe or Venezuela.

All they had to do was wait 1 year and settle their issues in a legitimate election.

As usual, you Russians are far too stupid to understand that in that one year, Yanukovych would've dismantled what was left of Ukraine's army, filled Ukraine's security services to the brim with Russian agents, stolen everything that wasn't nailed down, and ensured that he or some proxy would win the next presidential election.

They would've still had Crimea, east Ukraine, and a functioning country

The country still functions, and it is finally in the process of getting rid of the last vestiges of Russian influence, which is why dumb animals such as yourself are throwing such a fit. In spite of the war, GDP grew by 2 percent, compared to the same quarter last year; Russia is still in recession, in spite of its natural resources. The world still recognizes Crimea as Ukrainian, and it will be returned in due time (especially since Russia has obliterated Crimea's tourism-based economy) The only thing that the savage Russians had to do to avoid sanctions, avoid turning their country into an international pariah, and avoid recession, was not attack their neighbors. But that was too much to ask.

Sorry, but once you oust a democratically elected government, you destroy your democracy..

Yanukovych tried to destroy Ukraine's democracy by passing his Dictatorship Laws, written with the help of Putin and Surkov, modeled on legislation that existed in Terrorussia. Ukrainians saved their democracy (i.e. prevented the country from turning into a Putinist autocracy) through popular revolution. As far as democracy goes, Ukraine ranks extremely favorably compared to other post-Soviet countries, with the exception of the Baltics. Your Russia, on the other hand, is less democratic than Zimbabwe or Venezuela.

All they had to do was wait 1 year and settle their issues in a legitimate election.

As usual, you Russians are far too stupid to understand that in that one year, Yanukovych would've dismantled what was left of Ukraine's army, filled Ukraine's security services to the brim with Russian agents, stolen everything that wasn't nailed down, and ensured that he or some proxy would win the next presidential election.

They would've still had Crimea, east Ukraine, and a functioning country

The country still functions, and it is finally in the process of getting rid of the last vestiges of Russian influence, which is why dumb animals such as yourself are throwing such a fit. In spite of the war, GDP grew by 2 percent, compared to the same quarter last year; Russia is still in recession, in spite of its natural resources. The world still recognizes Crimea as Ukrainian, and it will be returned in due time (especially since Russia has obliterated Crimea's tourism-based economy) The only thing that the savage Russians had to do to avoid sanctions, avoid turning their country into an international pariah, and avoid recession, was not attack their neighbors. But that was too much to ask.

Highly rated in terms internet freedom. One of the best ratings in the world. https://freedomhouse.org/repor...

I know Americans can never contemplate the idea that anybody may have freedom who isn't American let alone have MORE freedom

A few places are comparably free, but the vast majority of the world's population, regretfully, continues to live under regimes considerably more oppressive than the US. And I'm not talking just the usual suspects — like China or Russia — generally respectable places like India can be quite intolerant of unpopular opinions and authoritarian in controlling the information networks. It may seem crazy to Americans, but Germans and Brits, for another example, routinely get arrested simply for saying the wrong things on social media — in the US attempts to criminalize "hate speech" are still duly resisted.

Not to mention certain sunny locales, where one's had can be removed for apostasy.

Reducing America's control over the Internet will — inevitably and by definition — increase the share of control by these governments.

We've seen this before — UN's "Human Rights Council" is a good example of it. All of the things about it, that the so called "Liberals", dismiss as "myths", are actually quite true. It will happen to the Internet's governance — inasmuch as it needs any — as well.

Uhm, it is a 'democracy' where eligibility is limited by a religious council, ultimate power is held by a not-popular-elected (not even indirectly) individual with potentially dictatorial authority, suspicion of massive voting fraud exists, where independent polling organisations are closed down to hide this, and where the press is severely limited ("one of the world’s most repressive in 2014" ; Last but 7 in 2015).

Please remember: "Voting not a democracy make."

https://freedomhouse.org/repor...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

etc.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

One that will say it's no where near those other nation states, that harass their citizens.

Okay, sure. The US is nowhere near those other nation states that harass their citizens. It's a matter of degree, and the degree is pretty significant. It's easy to find an interested group and then compare and contrast the complaints against various repressive regimes.

Keep getting your news from Russian media.

And did you hear, rvz.ru/~vladimir/bullshit.html is reporting that Ukraine is now working with ALIENS and THE ILLUMINATI to force Russian mothers in the Donbass to eat their own babies! It's TRUE!

Freedom House on press freedom in Russia. Reporters Without Borders's take.

It's one thing if you're dumb enough to take state propaganda outlets of a country that takes #148th place on the press freedom ranking, where even blogs are forced to register with government censors if they get too many readers and where it's standard practice to hire actors to play parts in the news. But it's even more ridiculous when you do so in regards to an event where said propaganda outlets have put forth literally more than a dozen different, completely contradictory reasons why it's not Russia's fault, including but not limited to "we have proof Ukraine shot it down with a surface-to-air missle", "we have proof Ukraine shot it down with an air-to-air missile", "we have proof that Ukraine gunned it down with a fighter cannon", "we have proof that Ukraine rammed it", "we have proof that Ukraine loaded a plane full of dead bodies, disguised it as a civilian airliner and tricked the rebels into shooting it down", "we have proof that Ukraine deliberately tricked the rebels into shooting down an actual civilian airliner", and my favorite - the original reported in the Russian press, before it became clear that it was a civilian aircraft - "we've confirmed that the heroic rebels of the Donbas just successfully shot down a Ukranian military jet!"

From Freedom House http://www.freedomhouse.org/co..., hardly seems an impartial group and as such its output has been snatched up for US corporate propaganda. One obvious failure of logic is Russia. It is pretty bloody obvious that Putin has to work very hard at being popular with the Russian electorate, as such their democracy must be fairly intact. Perhaps Freedom House measure democracy as to how well the public can be fooled into to believing that a corporate owned government is democratic.

It seems at the moment the real conflict between Russia and the US at the moment, is that Russia is most definitely not corporate controlled and the US which is corporate controlled is aggressively scheming and plotting to turn it into yet another corporate controlled state.

Better than nothing.

There's also http://www.freedomhouse.org/re...

Freedom in the world - 2013
Freedom rating 1-7
Sweden - 1.0, Germany - 1.0, USA - 1.0, Russia - 5.5
Civil liberties 1-7
Sweden - 1, Germany - 1, USA - 1, Russia - 5
Political rights 1-7
Sweden - 1, Germany - 1, USA - 1, Russia - 6

Freedom of the press - 2013
Press freedom score 0-100
Sweden - 10, Germany - 17, USA - 18, Russia - 81 / 100
Legal environment 0-30
Sweden - 2, USA - 3, Germany - 6 , Russia - 25 / 30
Political environment 0-40
Sweden - 4, Germany - 7, USA - 10, Russia - 32 / 40
Economic environment 0-40
Sweden - 4, Germany - 4, USA - 5, Russia - 24 / 40

USD GNI (PPP)
Sweden 53,150
USA 48,620
Germany 44,270
Russia 10,730

Snowden played this excessively smart, and that's the only reason he's sort of free now.

I don't think Snowden is that smart or free. Today he does what the Russian government allows him to do. But consider the Russians have protesters in Moscow, protesters in Kiev, and suicide bombers in their midst. How long will the Russian government tolerate an icon for freedom from surveillance, especially given their history? I believe Snowden is in considerable danger.

Another reference: Sergei Guriev

Also Mikhail Khodorkovsky

As for Snowden, I still think we know 10% or less of the story. There is a lot that does not make sense.

The index does not measure, and has nothing to say, about the main topics at hand - civil liberties and human rights - so it doesn't refute the binary guy's claims even one bit. In fact, it's almost completely unrelated to his claims.

And here is Freedom House's 2013 annual survey of freedom. In it you'll find the United States rated as "Free" (most free of three categories) in freedom status, "1" (most free of seven categories) in political rights, and "1" (most free of seven categories) in civil liberties.

~Loyal

Russia has become a little more free than it was when it was part of the USSR, but not much. http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2012/russia-0 more or less it has presented the facade of a democracy, but is still a one party centrally controlled system.

"For the past 10 years, Ecuador has been trapped in a downward spiral of political conflict and instability that has eroded the rule of law and kept the country perched on the brink of breakdown. At the time of writing, newly elected president Rafael Correa is weathering a political storm caused by his controversial strategy of bending elected and independent government branches, including the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and congress, to his will regarding his plans for a constituent assembly"

http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/countries-crossroads-2007/ecuador

It wasn't founded to support tyranny, but to setup a system for cooperation and world stability. Whether a country was a dictatorship or not was considered "Internal Affairs" and by mutual agreement ignored temporarily to solve the then-bigger issue of regional wars.

Is your criticism really the case anymore? According to Freedom House, in 2007 there were 123 electoral democracies (up from 40 in 1972). According to World Forum on Democracy, electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2 percent of the world's population. That's not including the new democracies from Iraq, the Arab Spring, independence of Kosovo, and South Sudan, etc. That's a huge amount of progress.

lots of nations where no where to be seen.
Spain, Japan, France Sweden, Norway, Finland...
Just take a look at all the white on the map http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/Map.pdf
In other words this is just about useless because how free the internet is in large part comes down to opinion. In some nations "hate speech" is illegal, in some sexually explicit pictures of 16 year olds is perfectly legal. Which limitation or lack of them makes that nation more or less free?
It is pretty easy to say that Cuba, Iran, and North Korea's internet are not "free" as in speech while the US, Canada, and Germany are "free" as in speech. But even then you will have people disagreeing with that. And trying to rank how free the free ones are or how repressive the repressive ones are is just an wasted exercise as is this whole study and Slashdot story.
 

By the way I'm really glad that Slashdot is sticking it to the man. In the report Iran is actually the champion on freedom censorship not Bahrain (lower score, higher freedom). If you can't beat them, confuse them.

Source

Freedomhouse, the creators of this imaginary list are a propaganda front for the US Gov. As with most propaganda, their "list" is completely bogus - to any impartial observer there is just no way the US could make it to third place of world stage based on the facts.. However propaganda is not effective unless you get everyone repeating it without thinking - which raises the question - how is this organization they gaming the slashdot story posting system ?? Are we to have this propaganda tripe plastered across the headlines every other week?

From above link:

Freedom House
-1301 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 6; Washington D.C. 20036 Tel. (202) 296 5101 Fax: (202) 293 2840
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=2
From: “By Way of Deception, We Shall do War” | by Deanna Spingola | September 16, 2010
* http://www.spingola.com/By_Way_of_Deception.html

Communist apologist Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, George Field, Dorothy Thompson, Herbert Bayard Swope, and prominent journalists, academics, trade unionists, theologians, and public officials founded Freedom House, a CFR front, in October 1941. FDR encouraged the group’s covert propaganda activities as he hoped it would persuade U.S. citizens to accept entry into World War II. Freedom House was also instrumental in facilitating and supporting post-war policies like the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the UN.

In 1982, President Reagan created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in order to acceptably manage CIA activities. Freedom House, the group created in 1941, became a part of this network. NED helped to finance Freedom House. Paul Wolfowitz, in the early 1980s, along with his neoconservative allies, collaborated with numerous Trotskyites. With the hidden funding and under the cover of conservative think tanks, the U.S. government can influence the public and conceal its interventions in foreign politics.

Recall that Freedom House was organized in 1941 to promote World War II. They are still propagandizing. William Howard Taft IV (S&B, PNAC[69]) is its current chairman. It is an international non-governmental organization that endorses a one-world government and opposes all nationalist governments. It has offices in offices in Algeria, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. Taft supports the Law of the Sea which places all of the oceans under the jurisdiction of the UN. Since 1941, the group has developed ties to the CIA, the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Institute of Peace and other institutions and government agencies. Freedom House, a propaganda vehicle, is also a front group for the CFR, the British counterpart of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 2005 Freedom House was receiving U.S. government funds “for clandestine activities inside Iran.” The organization receives about 66% of its budget from the U.S. government. [70] See the list of their board members here. Other financing comes from the Scaife Family Foundation which finances many groups and individuals, especially those associated with the CFR, including, Newt Gingrich’s (CFR) GOPAC, the Federalist Society, the Media Research Center and Joseph Farah’s World Net Daily – all of which selectively dispense “conservative views.” The National Endowment for Democracy, a proponent for one world governance also finances Freedom House, &c. [71]

And here is the report itself.

You mean Iran? Did you even read TFA?

And not even a link to the original report? It's really not hard to find.

There is sill not enough for the given map to not seem misleading or show the holes.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/Map.pdf
Only Asia has been widely represented.

Because it's an article in an Australian magazine. But it'd be nice if the editors would link to the original source (pdf) instead.

By the way, there is no 83rd place. Only 37 countries are ranked. I haven't read enough of the report to know why.

Did you mean to link to this (as opposed to a 404)?

I would hesitate to say that anyone was first, let alone fourth.

Israel trails Kuwait (ranked 60th), Lebanon (ranked 61st) and UAE (ranked 86th) in its region.

Wait, no it doesn't. Israel is ranked 71st, Kuwait 115th, Lebanon 118, and the UAE 153. Guinea-Bissau is at 107 and Qatar at 143. Israel, while rated only "Partly free", is still by far the freest in its region (24 points above Kuwait) according to your own source.

If we look at the 2010 tables, Israel has moved back into the "Free" category.
2010 middle east charts

The obvious cultural, economic and political differences between Brazil and what is known today as described by the term "the West" (Western Europe, North America, Israel, Australia and New Zealand) are clear. Corruption is endemic, the justice system incapable, crime rates sky high, racial discrimination heavy, wealth distribution skewed.

(etc etc)

We could argue all night about what Brazil and/or "The West" is what is not.
It's funny, though, that you seem to understand that "The West" means the so-called developed countries. Yet you put Israel as part of that same group, what is laughable.

C'mon, your even using information provided by the Freedom House which, basically, is a U.S. propaganda tool.
There are many, many reasons to bash Brazil... But if you do that, please, at least try doing your homework correctly.

I hate to break it to you but there is no such agreement.

The exact scope of the Western world is somewhat subjective in nature, depending on whether cultural, economic, spiritual or political criteria are employed.

From a cultural point of view Brazil could very well belong to the West, however that is not what is being challenged here [in my opinion].

The obvious cultural, economic and political differences between Brazil and what is known today as described by the term "the West" (Western Europe, North America, Israel, Australia and New Zealand) are clear. Corruption is endemic, the justice system incapable, crime rates sky high, racial discrimination heavy, wealth distribution skewed.

It would perhaps be more pertinent to discuss this in light of Brazil's present and future economic situation.

As of today Brazil is not a developed country according to the IMF, OECD or the UN.

It is perhaps most clear when considering the unequal nature of Brazilian society and Brazil's ranking according to the Human Development index. Brazil is ranked far below the average OECD country (Figure #1).

I think the report speaks for itself: "By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita."

Writing a story denouncing a politician can get you a lawsuit.

More likely, it will get you a lawsuit for libel.

Brazilian law is very repressive. It's ranked as "Partly Free" by the Freedom House on its Map of Press Freedom.

Unfortunately, public awareness for this kind of issue is very low.

Agreed. Free speech is not really in danger in switzerland:

Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index 2009

Freedom house

I'm sure you can find more evidence if you care enough.

Whether a human right has been dented with the minaret law is (potentially) still to be determined by some court. But I think it would sure be a tough case for the court. Determining whether towers in certain shapes can't be prohibited by a democratic and fair election isn't easy by itself, I bet. Add to that that these towers are not necessary, but only somewhat (modern-)symbolic for a certain religion...

For a more reputable ranking, see http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2009

Freedom house is one of the main sources for such statistics in political science research.

The guy doesn't even define what he means by "freer"! Since it's not well-defined, let's look at various freedoms (restricted to Anglophonic countries):

Freedom of the Press
1. NZ
2. Jamaica
3. Ireland, USA (tie)
5. Bahamas, Barbados, Canada, Marshall Islands (tie)

Economic Freedoms
1. Australia
2. Ireland
3. NZ
4. USA
5. Canada

There are other freedoms to look at, but I don't need to look at more. Ireland, US, NZ, and Canada seem to be the best under those two criteria (and granted those criteria are more like metacriteria themselves).

Concerning libel laws, this is untrue: although British libel laws are extreme, generally speaking libel is a far more serious legal threat in the US than in most of the EU. These laws should be tuned down everywhere; they prevent criticism by those unwilling or unable to afford costly legal battles.

Particularly in the US the danger to free speech is high due to libel since court cases are more risky in the US than elsewhere, and secondly due to general public intolerance of criticism of the US - witness the reaction of passersby to the protesters calling for the release of the incriminating Abu Ghraib: people felt the need to proclaim their patriotism, rather than to defend the very essence of free speech: transparency with regards to abuses of power.

American society pays free speech lip service - no more (which is bad), but also no less (and simply awareness of the virtues of transparency is worth a lot).

So, while I don't believe it's necessary to transfer DNS control to an international body, you're kidding yourself if you believe the US is doing a fine job, and in particular kidding yourself if you believe that freedom of the speech is particularly high in the US: it's not.

It's not really Western either. The richest countries in Asia - Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are democracies and likely to stay that way. Places like Malaysia and the Philipines are more likely to end up democracies than anything else. Actually most of Asia, apart from China and its neighbours are counted as free or partly free according to Freedom House

http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw09/MOF09_AsiaPacific.pdf

Obama's solution to eliminate nuclear weapons: Curtail or eliminate defenses against nuclear weapons,

Really? "He said the United States will maintain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear capability to deter adversaries and reassure its allies. He also indicated that the United States would "go forward" with a controversial missile defense system planned for the Czech Republic and Poland." [1]

End result of Obama's plan: Defenseless US

Nuclear weapons' primary function is striking against civilian targets - no military target is large enough to warrant such massive destruction [citation needed]. If North Korea were to attack NATO using nuclear weapons, I postulate that the NATO member nations would care more about that North Korean civilian population than the North Korean government does [2]. Rather, your first goal would be to eliminate their launch capability, for which conventional weapons are sufficient. [citation needed]

Well I'd be careful about calling Iran's government democratically elected. There's no question they had an election, but that doesn't mean the people were free to choose their government. Many a dictatorship has been known to hold phony elections for political reasons. Freedom House rates Iran as being not free and a 6 of 7 (7 being the worst) in political and civil liberties. In particular what happens is the Council of Guardians (who are not elected and are appointed by the Supreme Leader) disqualifies candidates, and in the latest election disqualified reformist candidates. Also, the president isn't the head of Iran's government, the Supreme Leader is, and he's not elected by the people, he's elected by the Assembly of Experts. That body IS elected, but only from government approved candidates.

Just because a country goes thorough motions of elections, doesn't mean that the people are actually free to choose their government. Often, it is just for show.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&c ountry=7196&year=2007