Not by nescessity. Those who start bombing busy train stations and shopping centers, to demand elections should be incarcerated, yes. But not those who simply want something to happen and are vocal about it.

Luxembourg is a good example of a country which isn't a democracy; it's a monarchy and the monarch (a Duke) can do anything he pleases, though he apparently doesn't throw "dissidents" in jail.

The problem with democracy is that only those things get done which the people want to get done, not that which needs to be done, because those in power will want to be elected again.

The problem is that most countries which say they are "communist" are actually "totalirist". China and North Korea are both examples of that. If China was a real communist country, things would be quite different.

What is needed for a government is a representive democratic socialist communist meritocracy.

This basically means that you get to elect somebody (representive democracy) from your field of expertease (meritocracy) to represent you. It also means that the state is to make sure you are able to collect wealth (socialism) and wants to make sure everybody gets an equal share of wealth (communism")

What needs to happen is quite a bit and most people will not like that which needs to happen. Here's the list:

Forbid people to own cars (unless they have a valid reason to have one... no, getting to the office isn't one); make massive investments in public transit.

Advantages of this: retain massive amounts of resources, but lots of people will become very unhappy. This also reduces the need for infrastructure and makes the public transit sector very happy. A gigantic reduction in smogg will also be achieved.
Disadvantage: lots of unhappy people, better regulation of public transit needed, more investments in public transit needed.

1.5 child per family (China does this) and put a harsh penalty on violating this rule. This makes sure the population of a country reduces.

Advantage: reduction in population.
Disadvantage: you'll need to be harsh to succeed with this, people won't like it and you'll need to inform your people about birth control.

Reduce waste production

Your industries won't like that, but they will comply if prodded with enough incentives to stay. This isn't really a disadvantage, as it creates a whole new industry.

Get rid of all products which aren't really needed.

The crap people have collected around them is amazing at times, all these resources... wasted. Industry and population won't like this... They won't like this at all.

Nelie Kroes is pretty annoyed with them. They got a very, very big fine for misbehaving and tried to get away, using all kinds of tactics, from paying. Now they are trying to apply corruption, to the same person which fought long and hard to give them that fine? I wonder how long it'll take Microsoft to figure out that she's not very charmed by their behavior.

Here's for hoping that "favor open" turns into "require open". It would be consistent with her earlier behavior; making the right choice even when all kinds of pressure are applied to her.

She's the right person in the right place, lets just hope Microsoft applies enough pressure that she gets really pissed.

If a vendor wishes to provide a computer hardware product, full specifications and programming manuals should be made available. The documentation should be extensive enough so a driver can be programmed which uses said hardware completely.

The product may only be sold if all documentation is available.

This would make sure other operating systems, besides the popular ones, can get driver support for all hardware available. That should level the playing field a bit.

While China only does this economically, the United States goes a lot further then that. Country refuses to give the U.S. oil? Simple solution: bomb the crap out of it and replace its government (Iraq, Afghanistan (oil pipeline)). Or how about staging a revolution? (Iran, Venezuela) Installing a dictator is viable option too... most recentl attempts being Venezuela and Bolivia.

Oh, wait... but since it's the U.S.A. (no, not the United States of Argentina) it's alright to do that, because the U.S.A. is a *cough* democracy *cough*.

Also, how about U.S.A. police brutality? Or how about the largest prison population in the world (again, the U.S.A.)? How about signing the rights of the child treaty? How about the death penalty (government sanctioned murder)? How about Guantanamo bay?

ok, pick up a dictionary and look up communism and socialism. I think you'll notice that those are two qiute different ideas.

In the case of China you're not dealing with a communist nor socialist country, you're dealing with a totalitarian country; quite a difference.

The error most people make is that they believe that totalitarianism is the same as communism, which it is not. However, countries trying to implement those ideas to the absolute however have all fallen to the trap of totalitarianism, which is a shame.

It is disturbing to see persons who seem quite intelligent otherwise make the simple, but dumb, mistake of switching those three ideas.

China needs censorship, because if they don't they're going to be in a civil war in 10 years. The government isn't open to new ideas and internet is just the means to spread those. New ideas (including philosophical, social and political) makes your country grow. Oppression just makes it shrink. China is growing now, but there comes a points they need to accept that the people can have ideas how things can be done differently. When critical mass is reached for ideas the government doesn't want, you can get three things: 1) the country becomes more oppressive, and is unable to develop further (for an example see North Korea); 2) civil war (Congo); 3) the government bends to the will of the people and things change (this is the part which comes sooner or later and is best for the cuuntry) (Russia). Economy is fueled by ideas at the core, restrict the flow of ideas and your restrict your economy.

The juggernaut starts moving. A Juggernaut which isn't that easy to corrupt and can actually do something about this weird treaty. Lets just hope they will stop this, otherwise things might just start looking very, very ugly in the future. After this, things like civil disobedience and open revolt become a very real option.