Ah, football. Or, as we Americans like to say: Ah, soccer. The sport which always seems to bring together those in need of a political hug. Back in the men's World Cup, the U.S. played Iran. Oh, the kvetching. Oh, the political implications.

Oh, the game. We lost, 2-1.

And now, the women's World Cup offers a similar match.

Introducing, in the red corner, China! Home of human rights violations, prison sweatshops and no freedom.

In the blue corner, the United States! Home of capital punishment, prison sweatshops and lots of freedom.

Before this column gets all silly, I will admit one thing: People in China are not free to say anything bad about the government, unless they have an official "get out of jail free" card. Freedom of speech as we know it does not exist in China. That sucks. Of course, freedom of speech as we know it doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. But that's another column.

Let's get to some of the other criticisms. In particular, I'd like to focus on that prison labor thing. American companies bitch and moan about Chinese toys and clothes and stuff being made by people in prison. Slave labor, some call it. That's bad, they say.

I agree. Prison labor is appalling. I don't even like the idea of the folks stamping license plates. But there's a lot more than that going on. Over here, airlines and telemarketing companies are using prisoners by the scads. Paying the folks fifty cents, maybe a dollar an hour. There is a difference: The prisoners do have a choice. They can clean toilets or they can make airline reservations.

Big choice.

We use prisoners as slave labor (or the reasonable equivalent) just as much as the Chinese. The weird thing is, Americans seem to care more about Chinese prisoners (who they consider "political" prisoners) than good old Americans rotting away in jail. If an American is in the pokey, then he or she must be a bad person. If a Chinese person is behind bars, that person must be a victim of a corrupt regime.

Now, I'm not gonna defend the Chinese government. That would be like Madeleine Albright walking up to Bill Clinton and saying "Thanks for being such a mensch." But the fact remains that a lot of the people in Chinese prisons have done bad things. They've killed people. Committed bikejackings (I'm not kidding about that, either). Stuff that would get you put away over here, too.

Yeah, there are a few thousand folks who toil because they have committed "counterrevolutionary acts". Psuedo-Communist doublespeak is a stand-up routine all its own. Hey, I'm sorry those people are suffering. I am. But me, personally, I'm more concerned about the Americans who are behind bars on drug raps, our version of political crimes. Apart from some nasty dealer types, who generally got their time on some kind of violent crime conviction, the folks sitting in jail for possession are not dangers to society. They may be junkies and somewhat useless individuals (though they're probably not), but they don't need to be behind bars. We don't need to eternally clog up the court system with folks who were holding a couple rocks of crack.

As for being the only industrialized nation with the death penalty and without universal health care, well, I think those facts speak for themselves. We are not the egalitarian society that we could be. And if you insist on defending the death penalty, take a look at what's happening to the Illinois death row. Prisoner after prisoner going free. We're not talking commuted sentences or "technical" reversals. We're talking innocent people put on death row. A lot of them. This is a scandal of immense proportions. I'm astonished any governor has the stomach to sign a death warrant these days.

Yes, we may be the most free nation on earth, or close to it, but we could do better. We certainly could do more as a society. Hell, we could learn a thing or two from the Chinese. Really. Look what happened to Detroit after it took a few lessons from the Japanese. Asian cultures are rich, varied and full of as much wisdom as ours. You just have to look for it.

In any case, all the windbags and pompous fucks who rail against the Chinese for being such nasty bastards just aren't paying attention. Sure, life in China is not as free as it should be. Agreed. And we should do everything we can to convince the aging Beijing regime to loosen up. But we also might look inward, at our own sordid mess, before we start excoriating the latest demon.

And come on. Other than the dragons at New Year, the Chinese aren't fire-breathing demons. They're people, just like us. And I mean that.

Let the game begin.

Jon Worley is a person of vaguely European descent who lives in the former Carolina colony of the British empire.