Georgia and Press Freedom

Just to follow up on my previous post "Know Your Friends," there was a good article in the New York Times today, News Media Feel Limits to Georgia's Democracy. Although Georgia has the support of both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and has been pictured as the essential "good guy" in region of instability, the lack of a truly free press is, well, troubling to say the least.

John Mill wrote that a free press is essential to a free society. All ideas deserve to be voiced, even if they come from the lunatic fringe. A country lacking freedom of the press, then, is a country lacking real democracy. Maybe we should be less supportive of regimes called "semiauthoritarian" by experts, and more open to the possibility that yes, even our "friends" can do wrong.