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I agree with your sentiment. Still, there's a difference between a nanny state and a brutally repressive government. I oppose the nanny state, and I fully recognize that statism may lead, step by step, to full-fledged repression. It's also true that the left-wing democracies of the world give succor to actual horrors in other places, like Iraq and Cuba.

But there's been no Tiananmen Square massacre in Canada. Canada is much freer, politically, than China; there's no comparison. One could argue, I suppose, that Canada is headed in the wrong direction, while China is headed in the right direction from an abysmal low (since things have improved since the so-called Cultural Revolution) -- but China has a long way to go before it meets even minimal standards of human rights, and it's not clear that it's even really on a path in that direction.

I think that China is a new experiment whereby the communist ruling authorities are trying to establish a state with a limited amount of economic freedom, but without the polital, religious and ideological freedom that we in the US see as primary.

My fear is that they will succeed, not fail.

For one, it's easier to pacify the populace with a bit of economic freedom and no political freedom than to acqknowledge both the former and the latter.