Word: authoritarianism
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Still, the subjects of some authoritarian governments would welcome a healthy dose of human-rights diplomacy, however faint. Says Egyptian analyst Tahsin Bashir: "It would be beneficial if Arab rulers realized the U.S. is not going to be an automatic safety net for every corrupt and incompetent regime in the region." Should Washington push too far, on the other hand, it might give militant Islamism, a movement distinctly untested in democratic virtues, entree to power. And a pronounced U.S. tilt back to Israel in the Middle East talks risks sending Syria and the Palestinians packing at a time when...
...such a moment of despair, I came across a rather stimulating article in The New York Times. In its "Campaign 92" pages was a piece bemoaning the lack of caustic political humor in this year's campaign. It seems that the most telling political humor only establishes itself under authoritarian regimes: the weight of government peering over the shoulders of the citizens of communist states drives the etiolated spirit to renewal via satire. Satire's effectiveness is one nurtured in tiny Smoke-filled rooms, where combatants of wit can exchange furtive one-liners knowing that Big Brother has temporarily been...
...capitalist democracies. At worst, they are unlikely to revert to old-fashioned Marxism-Leninism in any form that would threaten a new cold war. But whether the hybrid political economies that do evolve represent a net gain for political and economic freedom or a descent into a kind of authoritarian chaos remains an unsettled question...
Another suspect side of family-values mongering: Why are so many conservatives, champions of individual freedom, so hell-bent on coercing people to march in lockstep? Why does the authoritarian impulse win out over the libertarian...
Steeling itself for further unrest, the government is preparing a new law restricting the right to strike. Similarly, dissent in a flamboyantly free press may be dampened by proposed criminal penalties for libel. "Gonzalez is following in the old regime's authoritarian tradition," charges editor Ramirez, whose paper has aggressively investigated corruption. The government has also taken heat for a new law that allows detention of anyone failing to carry identity papers and permits the search of private homes without warrants in cases of suspected drug dealing...