Forty years ago, during the final decade of the Cold War, nobody had any illusions about America being perfect. Without wallowing in the topic, we all knew our nation had ongoing social and economic problems, and that our history was filled with examples of oppression. But for most Americans, understanding the grim reality of life for people living in the Soviet Union provided clarity. It was understood that no country is perfect, and compared to the USSR, living in America was paradise.

The argument that America, by a wide margin, is the lesser of two evils, does not get the traction today that it got during the Cold War. But there is no justification for its diminished relevance. Despite alarming new challenges to the rights and freedoms of American citizens, the gap between America and its contemporary rivals, Russia and China, is as wide as it's ever been. And in the case of China, the magnitude of the threat they now pose to American global leadership is far more than anything the USSR could have once posed.

These considerations give rise to a pair of sobering questions: First, is China an expansionist nation, committed to growing powerful enough to dominate the world and impose its vision of human rights onto all of humanity? Second, before we level well deserved criticisms on American foreign and domestic policies, shouldn't we compare these policies to those practiced by the Chinese government? Forty years ago, those questions mattered. Today, we need to revisit these questions.