The regime s true ambition is to invent an alternative to Western democracy an enlightened despotism under the tutelage of a meritocratic Communist Party.

Russia, after a brief attempt at democracy under Boris Yeltsin, has reverted to a form of unenlightened despotism under Vladimir Putin.

The philosophers who were the intellectual fathers of the 1789 revolution longed not for democracy, but for enlightened despotism, which is what many French still look for when they elect a president.

The Despotic Temptation

But what really matters is legitimacy and informed public opinion.

This kind of enlightened stimulus runs into strong prejudices.

But what do one billion people living in utter poverty (300 million on less than one dollar a day) and deprived of any rights think of this enlightened despotism? No one knows, because they cannot express their wishes.

No, totalitarianism comes wrapped in cuteness these days.

But growing authoritarianism also hit business.

Government is free to become more autocratic.

This explains why French governments of both right and left tend to support despotism in countries where it seems natural.

An enlightened autocrat can be just as protective of minority rights as a solidly democratic government.

The West, after all, never put irresistible pressure on any Arab regime to undertake reforms, and deserted its autocratic clients in Tunisia and Egypt only when they failed to nip the revolutionary bud. The lesson is that the West will coexist with tyranny, provided that it is swiftly and efficiently repressive.

This is a time of union of everybody who believes in the regeneration of the social body, having the Spirit of the Human Being as its principle.

War, it seems, is hiding a return to autocracy.

Enlightened public debate must be a dispute about policies contained by a community of values.

The gains of enlightened discourse are too precious to be turned into negotiable values.

This is the beginning of a new authoritarianism.

True, Argentina endured fifty years of military dictatorships and weak civil governments.

That choice boils down to an unbearable cynicism or a totalitarian utopia.

The Syrian blogging movement had started as a secular liberal outcry in the face of political totalitarianism.

At the same time, he sidelined moderate, mainstream political leaders while claiming that he stood for enlightened moderation.

In the interest of enlightened discourse, the limits of free speech should be drawn as widely as possible.

The proposal deals with informed consensus building about how human and natural resource poverty affects human and land vulnerability.

Sensing the power that tyranny craves, There in that hour, she made us her slaves.

The first one, which is potential, given Sarkozy s domineering personality is to have Sarkozy as president.

It wasn t long ago that Turkey appeared to be a bright beacon of democracy and moderation in a region accustomed to autocracy and radicalism. Now it looks more like a country heading towards authoritarianism at home and embracing adventurism abroad.

But the new populism is not yet undemocratic, or even anti democratic.

Personal authoritarianism rarely survives its founder.

This is the context in which we may see the invasion of Islamic taboos into the enlightened, mostly non Islamic world.

Or is it crap? Is it autocratic, controlling, restrictive and untrusting and unfulfilling?

Indeed, it is when democracies abandon their ethics and fail to resist the authoritarian temptation that they become weaker.

Now it looks more like a country heading towards authoritarianism at home and embracing adventurism abroad.

Many prominent Russians favored the Pinochet model of authoritarian politics and liberal economics.

And, since he has systematically weakened Iran s political institutions so that the Islamic Republic itself has come to be identified with his person, his absence will create a vacuum. His strength today foreshadows greater uncertainty in Iran s future.

It wasn t long ago that Turkey appeared to be a bright beacon of democracy and moderation in a region accustomed to autocracy and radicalism.

In evicting that regime, we believed that this form of absolutism was ended.

This poster appears on many blogs. It says Majid Tavakoli is brave in the fight against despotism.

The transition from autocracy to democracy in the Middle East is likely to be bumpy and unstable, at best.

Moreover, in Africa post authoritarian rulers are not necessarily respectful of human rights and decent governance.

Toleration and respect for people who have their own beliefs are right and perhaps necessary to preserve an enlightened world. But there is the other side to consider.

Of course, elections that lead to illiberal outcomes, and even to despotism, are not a new phenomenon.

The communist Knight, the new caballero de la triste figura, a kind of enlightened idiot, blinded by his loyalty to the unreal and by his harsh political correctness, considers Lenin a new Moses.

Global income redistribution by the rich countries should be viewed as a matter not of charity, but of enlightened self interest.

The Bolsheviks inherited the autocracy of the Czars Putin rediscovered the old monarchical principle of anointing his successor, bypassing democratic competition for the presidency.