Factors that prevent states from going totalitarian:

- small size

- decentralized/local government structure

- limited geopolitical influence

- high level of education of the population

- history/culture of democracy

Large, powerful states with a lesser educated population will inevitably drift towards totalitarianism over time. This implies the use of various means of population control, with total surveillance being first and foremost.

Only in combination, though. There are dozens of "small size" "limited influence" dictatorships, no? Esp in Africa/Latin America?

>>Large, powerful states with a lesser educated population will inevitably drift towards totalitarianism

How about India?

Don't treat states or societies as people, they are not people rather they are made of people. Totalitarianism isn't the outcome of a system it rather the outcome of the people oppress and the cowards who do nothing to stop it.

I'm not sure India is the best example either.

Sure, at the National political level, it's a democracy.

But there are several issue that allow citizens of some lesser democratic states enjoys more freedom in some cases... (it's very un-even though)

Religious rights, women's rights... Or the amount of power that some have at the local level (cast issues, landowners, etc..).

Disproof by counter example: Singapore (the "history/culture of democracy" is arguable I suppose).

Singapore is centralized, has comparatively large population, especially for its size, and no history of democracy. That's where you become halfway there.

They want to ban porn though.

Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany?

Banning porn can be seen as wanting to ban oppression/exploitation. Freedom is not absolute -- because at some point one persons freedom interferes with another persons freedom (AKA your freedom ends where your fist meet my face).

A lot of people will pretend that porn is about freedom, that selling sex is about freedom, that selling drugs is about freedom... And while you can make arguments for all those things, that's not to say that any kind of legislation by definition is "anti-freedom". Legislation can be a means to enforce freedoms too.

> Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany?

Last time I checked (5 minutes ago), we didn't. (german speaking)

The day when even the Spiegel titles

"DER VERRAT – BND und Bundesregierung gegen deutsche Interessen"

(in english: "THE TREASON – BND and federal government vs. German interests")

you really can’t say the country cares about freedom :/

No, no, we just pretend. We are the USAs and the NSAs bitch like all our neighbors.

Oh, the historical irony

Their feeling of guilt about their history is the reason they care about freedom at least a little bit more than others.

Did not Iceland banned pornography?

Certain politicians in Iceland wanted to ban a particular subset of pornography (hardcore, violence, etc). I don't remember hearing that any progress was made on that legislation, but I could just be uninformed on that front.