The Founding Fathers were pretty smart when they inserted the word "more" into the phrase, "in order to form a more perfect union," in the Constitution. They were recognizing that humans are fundamentally flawed, and that the best they could hope for was to keep improving the forms of government they devised.

The problem with a state-run operation like China's is that the State derives its authority from the assertion that it is inherently perfect, and therefore knows best. Hence, we see the Chinese doing things at the Olympics like substituting a girl with perfect teeth to lip-sync for the real performer, who will now grow up imagining herself to be forever unacceptable to society.

Gymnastics, apparently, favors the really young. So, what does the State do when there's a mandatory minimum age of 16 for contestants? They doctor their papers. This perfection thing is serious business. I was watching the poor Chinese girl who snagged only a bronze in the All-Around behind two Americans. You could read the shame all over her face, a shame that will be handed down in her family for generations. It's a good thing the Chinese won gold in the team competition, or they'd all be herding yaks in Gobi Desert Re-education Camp #14 by now.