We weren't exactly paragons of virtue in WWII. Women, people of colour, LGBT - if you were any of those, your freedoms were a pale reflection of those enjoyed by the broader society. However, as is now clear, the basic values of human dignity and our shared humanity allowed for processes that made things better for those, and other, communities. We have a way to go yet, but we are making progress.

The issue is not to let perfect become the enemy of better. Just because we fall short of an ideal of freedom does not mean we are therefore not in a free society. Just because our society in the WWII era was not as free as our own, does not mean it wasn't dramatically freer than the alternatives.

Even Churchill's promise to fight until all Europe was free was only half kept, for half of Europe fell behind an iron curtain until nearly fifty years after WWII. It was the right decision not to continue to war to free the other half of Europe. Time and exposure to another way to organize society did the job, without millions more dead or nuclear weapons.

It will be the same with China, with Cuba and even with North Korea. All we have to do is stand fast with our freedoms, and advance them where we can. Time and exposure will do the rest.