If the US ruled the world

[Indy]

I wonder if the U.S. ruled the world if we would bring up the world incarceration rate to match ours, which is the highest in the world.

[Sazari]

I wonder if the U.S ruled the world (random wikipedia fact about the US I don't like) would be applied to the rest of the world?

[Professor]

[Indy]

That's pretty weak--we punish people? Most countries do.

We punish people, yet something like this is a once-in-a-generation tragedy in Norway and we have at least one of these a year.

We punish people, all right--for everything. How many in the prison system are there for non-violent offenses again? We have a higher incarceration rate than China yet we're the "free" country.

Oh wait: did I say we punish people? I forgot: unless they rip off the U.S. taxpayer for trillions while destroying the economy while enriching themselves. Then we don't punish anybody.

[spacemonkey]

Alot of our prison population is over draconian drug laws.

[spacemonkey]

America can't even manage its own affairs, let alone the worlds.

[The Prophet]

[uebermann]

[Thundertaker]

As a permanent thing, no. But in a temporary sense, maybe. It would teach lesser civilisations responsible government and the reigns of power could be released slowly, as happened with the British Empire up until after WWII when we basically fled the f**k out of Africa before their democratic institutions had time to mature, resulting in the almost universal omnishambles that now exists in former colonies in that part of the world.
Other, older former colonies, who had several decades of experience democratically-elected local governments and British political culture generally faired much better after we left...

[eynon81]