'The Soviet Union supports democracy by staying out of countries and thus permitting democracy to succeed.
Mr. Lee said that he was nonetheless disappointed that Beijing had resorted to such a blunt declaration on Monday that it would not permit greater democracy here.
The Tutsi, who constitute only 15percentt of the population in both countries but control the governments and the armies, will absolutely not permit genuine democracy because the Hutu, with their 85percentnt majorities, would dominate any free and fair elections.
Under its Basic Law, or mini-constitution, Hong Kong is permitted full democracy as soon as 2008.
If we don't try to provide realistic underpinnings that permit an Iraqi democracy to function in a meaningful way, no government, however constituted, will survive for very long, and we will leave Iraq in a worse mess than before we came.
(In a million parallel universes, the central government will never permit Western-style democracy. Territorial disintegration, political or military, is a matter of national security, the third rail of Chinese anxiety).
"It is inhuman and absurd to think that a modern democracy could permit such a practice," said Alceu Arruda Veiga Filho, the director of Sao Paulo's Institute of Agricultural Economics.
"It has been a stain on our democracy to permit profit-making entities to be handed the responsibility of making determinations of individual liberty," Mauer said.
All this, naturally, democracy permitting.
But while democracy permits critical thought about its benefits and disadvantages, from the outside certain countries apparently see us as kneeling at the feet of a clay idol, unable or unwilling to see the cracks looming overhead.
