One thing I like is Obama cannot "save" anymore companies. But most of those actions he already did. I also hope they adjust the so called health care to something better. I'm not totally against a little health care but this one is, besides very nonfunctional and bound to be corrupt, even worse as the old euro system. To much is wasted on bureaucracy, and only some companies profit.

so acolyte:
Can I summarize it as
"sooner or later but not yet" option 1?

no more arguments?

"As traditional I am posting my thoughts long after they would do any good."
lol.

"China giving more freedom to its inhabitants doesn't mean it is a democracy or growing towards being one, as there still is only one single party."
Depends on your definition. If you only count systems with free ellections as democraties maybe. But it is the opposite of a regime with limited freedom (like free opinion,free speech) and surely makes autocratic regimes unstable. It made USSR collaps and there are 1000 other examples. China has a lot of tension and the only reason why there are no nationwide revolts threatening the state system yet is because the elite is still prospering. But once the rich guys in the city see economic growth slow down, which is based on cheap labour, those educated people will revolt large scale and the poor man will folow for multiple reasons. They cannot maintain current growth.

"It means it has given up on communism, or at least the strictest forms of communism. But you have to remember there are more types of totalitarian/autocratic regimes than just communism."
In this case, it is exactly the same. They use an ideal as propaganda to keep the population in line. Meanwhile they stay in power trough a strong centralised gov oppressing the people in the name of nazism, fascism, allah, communism, take your pick. There is far little difference in how they are organised. But propaganda/populism is cheeper then brute force and very effective.

"The day it does become a democracy it will most likely stagnate like the Western democracies and Japan, for the reasons i gave in my post."
The day it becomes a democracy it can grow to become rich, more healthy stable nation like ours. Our democracies only "stagnate" because we already are rich. That I do not consider a problem. But you also seem to forget how we progress everyday with new technology and new inovation. Most of all our regimes are fairly stable until a populist autocrat manages to take our precious democracy away.

"you could argue India, being a democracy, still has a huge economic growth, maybe even bigger than China does. However, this economic growth is entirely based on the skills of their cheap work force and has nothing to do with the government at all, as the government in India has close to no influence on the people."
India has the inharitage of the past, like china. Its not easy to climb out of that, but cheap labour compensates, we both agree on that. One advantage india has on china is their stability. It looks very instable because WE KNOW what is going on. Most tensions in china we hear little about, except for maybe tibet, but are much higher, with riots going on every day. Their ethnic, religeous and crime problems make an unstable explosive mix. Also note how democracy has its cost, and it is not always possible for a nation to afford this cost. That is why in middle ages a demoracy would have had less chances on survival if it where even possible to maintain. India is a third world country growing rich fast, but still poor compared to western nations. If they continue their growth their democracy will also become more effective. I don't know if they will survive the race to become like our economies or collaps before the finish. It depends on more then the name of the regime how their future will look like. Their old system of castes is a huge drawback though.

"Stalin is a good example of why autocracies can fail. He probably ruined the Soviet Union so badly that it came to implode in later years. That is true."
Stalin also industrialised the USSR at the speed of light. But what good does that do if you use like almost everything for the army and loose a lot on corruption and bureaucracy?

"But Stalin was corrupted by power and only wanted more power for himself."
This is a human instinct almost everybody has. People craving power will do more effort to get it, so they will more likely be in power. That is why you need a system to control them and force them not only to care for themselves.

"Another example of this is Mao Zedong, who  had almost ruined China with his reign, especially the cultural revolution. When you have a good and stable political party (stable autocracy) you can prevent this from happening."
Are you advocating multiple people in power? Because in an autocracy that only causes intern struggles and fights till someone gets out on top like in china or north korea.

"Also it is not like democracies don't face the same dangers. Hitler was chosen in a democracy."
He was never supported by the majority. He was cunning enough to take power. I never say a democracy has no chances to fall into an autocracy. I have some sollutions to this but if you want to know them I open another thread for it. Even with those sollutions you can never exclude the risk completely.

"Parties want to stay in power and yell out crazy things like "hey lets lower the taxes on everyone, especially the rich, so our government has less of a stable income, but we trust on the trinkle down effect which has never been proven by anyone and is highly doubtable judging by the luxury lifes of the wealthy. Who cares we are in an economic crisis... no one right?".
You are stating the opinion of a faction you dislike. But the truth is, no party lowers taxes to zero or increases them to 100 percent. It decreases and increases slightly over time and yes it has an undeniable effect but in both scenario's one could have a moderately rich economy. If you have an autocracy, zero or 100% taxes are actual possibilities, but you are almost certain a large part of it gets spoiled and your economy suffers a penalty for less freedom that regime would need to survive.

"The worst part is in a democracy where everyone can vote, a large amount of people will vote for this."
It tends to go both ways actually. It changes over time. Both looks like a simple sollution to a complicated problem.

"On democratically elected people turning autocratic: the fact that people would even vote for a person with such a shady background such as Berluzconi or a neo-communist making a lot of promises but delivering none like Chavez shows you one of the failures of democracy."
If he shows one thing, he shows one of the backdraws of a lack of democracy. By controling the media, he decreases the effectiveness of the democratic control system. He shows how easely people convert to authocracy and shows how fragile democracy and its welfare are. That itself doesn't make (his) autocracy a good system.

"The most important reason for why Ireland boomed was becoming part of the EU and receiving massive amounts of aids. Ireland, as having to please it's citizens for governments to remain in power, used it's income in the wrong places (i.e. not in infrastructure, telecommunications and public services, as a  Davy Research (an irish stockbroking, wealth management and financial advisory company) report concluded. Also Ireland suffered from numerous banking scandals, as the Irish government didn't impose strict regulations on the financial sector, as China does."
China needs to control its financial sector, but that also slows their economy down. They have no choice really, but as long as cheep labour makes up for it they can continue.

"I can see how the injection of freedom stimulated their economy, causing a large economic growth. I can also see how their economy is based on cheap labor, and yes the pollution in china is becoming unbearable."
And very costly. In some areas entire generations of future children will never be fit to work because of that. And that is only one example.

"But as the government still has a lot of power they could in fact impose enviromental regulations. This would slow down their economic growth however, that is true."
It would slow it down so much, they cannot do it without huge riots or total collapse.

"However, can you see that the freedom they give has to do with their government becoming less totalitarian?"
Yes. When the gov has less control over the people or companies, they tend to make more proffit. It lowers corruption considirably because they don't have to pass 20 bureaucrats to place a new door. But when the gov loosens their grip over civilians and institutions, and give them more freedom, they cannot oppres their people as effective as they did before. Large cities already become centres of anti-gov sentiment. People are allowed to surf the internet more freely, make agreements with foreign investors, travel more freely inside and outside the country or choose their work. Also they become richer, more educated, and more aware of how their gov oppresses them. There is also more influence of foreign cultures and idees, especially Western cultures. Especially the youth keeps western culture and even values in the highest regard.

To keep the population down they either control and opress them, or keep them happy. If they don't keep the population down, it will start to make decissions for itself.

"not that it is becoming less autocratic (or more democratic)."
Not in the sence of free ellections, but people are allowed a lot more as before and make more decissions for themselves. The same counts for companies and institutions.

"Another cause for the failure of democracy. People get attached to their political party, so that even when their party is not able to adept to the changing political climate they still vote for the party (here in the Netherlands we have an extremely reformed Christian political party, which still gets 2 seats in the parliament). Also the voting for the lesser of two evils is a weakness of a democracy."
it is undeniable a weakness in the control system of a democracy but does not outweigh the good.

Let me also note another argument in favor of a democracy: You see all the bad things because you are informed, however flawed. In an autocracy maybe more goes wrong but you never find out and they say everything is alright.

@chickenwings:
"arguement is also easily debunked by looking at China and the world supremacy it is surely going to obtain in the coming few decades."
China will not survive as an autocracy. They are prospering mainly due to new given freedom. If they take back some of this liberties, the economic growth halts and there will be huge riots. If they don't population will riot as well. Especially in the cities resistance against the regime is growing everyday.

"another arguement for why democracy fails is that in a democracy not one party tends to stay in power for a long time."
That is exactly why it works so well.

"Power switches from party to party, as parties who make laws the people don't like are quickly removed from power."
That control system forces regimes to care about other things as self-intrest and power alone.

"Democracies are also very vulnerable to populists, who can easily get a lot of votes in a short time by just shouting out things many people have problems with but not giving actual arguements or viable/effective solutions, or if they give solutions not telling how they would fund these solutions (examples: Sarah Palin, Geert Wilders, Hitler in the past)."
If you don't have a democracy, you don't even have to be a populist, and you can do exactly the same. Stalin fits that example. But what I don't understand is, why you advocate an autocracy when you dislike populism. A populist is skilled in deceiving the mob, and has more power because of that skill. He can do more things fitting his self interest and get away with it. In an autocracy, you can get away with almost everything so it even worse. Most of the populist tend to loose the election after they came into power unless they manage to decrease the democratic process by eg controlling the media like eg chavez or berlusconi.

"Democratic countries tend to stagnate politically and economicaly"
Western countries economies stagnate because of resource prices, and the fact we can't possibly get any richer compared to eg Chinese population. Ireland is an example like china, it was poor, it boomed, it is rich, economy stagnates. China is still poor compared to its amount of inhabitants.

"being autocratic doesn't necessarily drag down the whole state. just look at china and its economic prosperity . denying the succes of the stable autocratic state of china is just ignorant."
Again, china is full of tension. It will either adept or burst. Their people will get richer, and economy will slow down. Then they either go back to closed system, collaps or change. I cannot understand how you fail to see that it is exactly the injection of freedom, as opposed to the totalitarian regime earlier, caused this economic growth. Their entire economy is based on cheap labor, and the lack of environmental rules. The pollution already makes some places uninhabitable. Its a time bomb.

You also forget how it is a third world nation still, with a weak army and most of population -unofficially 2 billion- poor.

@alpha:
"Western democracy is failing because following special interests and ignoring the voters has no consequence."
That is true but I think it is due to people "sticking" to a certain party. In a 2 party system, some people tend to vote for a party only because they dislike the other.

there will always be climate change. Climate never has been the same. Thats just to easy.

and he had 10 fingers and 2 feet

rofl@nolio:
where is zarf when you need him?

@schniepel:
Hitler never talked about freedom now did he? But yell has got a point. It would only prove him right and create another "hero".

Next tot that, nobody knows if what would have happened wouldn't have been much worse.

lol.