Derb again:

At the Olympics, the Maoists will be dealing with free people from free nations, and there is only so much they can do to control them. It’s not clear they understand this. They’ve been living for decades in a bubble of unchallenged power, and are not very imaginative. The opportunities for embarrassment are endless, and the prospect of it very delicious to anyone who loves liberty. Personally, I hope their stinking Olympics is a huge fiasco, and I see encouraging signs it may be.

I wouldn’t shed a tear if there was never another Olympics. Not that I care that much, one way or the other, because I don’t care about the Olympics, but I think that it demeans the event to hold it in dictatorships. But maybe that’s just me. Maybe we ought to have a democratic Olympics. Any country could send a team, but it would never be hosted in a place like China. Or most countries in the Middle East (not that there’s much prospect for that).