[Rick Lee]

I've met plenty of people in China who are absolutely supportive of their government and I can't remember the last person I met in the U.S. who was at all supportive of ours. You ought to talk to a Mainland Chinese person about the almost regular fist fights that break out in the Taiwanese parliament and then tell them democracy is better.

Our system may seem fine for us, though I doubt many folks from other "free" countries agree, since so many foreginers claim to love Americans but to hate our government's policies. Why don't we get the blame for that? If N. Korea had free and fair elections tomorrow, Kim Jong Il would still get 100% of the vote and not because there's no opposition there, but because the people are so brainwashed. Even after the Berlin Wall fell, the "reformed" communist party did very well in elections in that part of the country. They changed their name from SED to PDS, but were mostly the same folks with many of the same policies. I think it' fine that we promote democracy abroad, as it's rare for democracies to fight wars with each other. But to claim it's the natural will of all people is a bit of a stretch. We can't even get 50% of eligible voters to vote here.