First, thanks for posting over here instead of my computer class. I try to keep my political and social opinions completely out out my computer classes.

I agree that the factors you mention are immediately responsible for at least some of the high incarceration rate, but why do we in America allow those factors to continue? And can the same things explain some of the rest of it? There’s a deeper cause.

I don’t think that Alex Jones can explain it, however. He’s a classic example of the crazy old man screaming, “Conspiracy!” That kind of hysterical thinking has been going on forever and it’s actually really dangerous. (See St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre for an early example of where this kind of hysteria can lead.)

That is not to say that there are not bad people plotting bad things. The relatively hidden agenda of the Bush administration — hiding behind emotionally charged issues like religion but enacting much more real legislation that takes from the poor and gives to the rich — is a great example. But it’s not ’secret’ — it’s just camouflaged. All it takes is a little investigation to figure it out.

I will get behind one thing Alex says, however. There is, indeed, “a war going on for your mind.”

Of all the issues covered I’ve always found the US incarceration rate the most disturbing. When you combine a sub-standard basic educational system, insane drug laws and a commercialized prison system you end up with these incredible numbers.

Now if you give even the slightest credence to Alex Jones at http://www.infowars.com then there may be darker and more sinister reasons for the slow decline of this once great nation.

Anyway, you took a “parse the question and answer it piece by piece” approach that, it seems to me, misses the point.

I selected these statistics because they covered a wide range of our culture and they were indisputable in placing us <i>below</i> our peers. There are lots of others I could also quote such as the way we place wa-a-a-a-y down the list when countries send their students to compete in subjects like math and chemistry; or infant mortality. How many surveys have you read with simply amazing results like your average U.S. citizen STILL can’t find Iraq on a map. (John McCain isn’t the only one who thinks Iraq and Pakistan share a border.)

I could comment on some of your points of view (“the rest of the world might be less tolerant of high health care costs” – Oh Ja! You got that right!) but that would take us off in a bunch of unrelated directions. I’m looking for more of a culture-wide explanation that helps explain why we, as a country, seem to be underperforming in just about everything.

(Here’s a clue. Although we rank down the list in virtually any measure you can name, Americans still think that we’re the priviledged “leader of the free world” somehow. Part of the goal of the blog was to make the point that we have another ‘think’ coming about that.)