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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Morrigi]

Considering that we have 2 million people in jail and that American prisons have a certain reputation, that could be valid.

Also, there may be a general decrease in crime but there is a definite uptick in mass killings.

[GlyphGryph]

but through societal decay brought on by a number of factors.

Learn ye' some history!
Do recall that in the early 1900s, we had locals setting off bombs that killed dozens if not hundreds of people every couple years. 1915 saw a spate of mass-shootings, set off by Monroe Phillips who killed 7 and wounded 32 more with a shotgun. Before automatic weapons, fire seemed to be the preferred tool, along with a good set of blades - Mass murders were pretty common in the 1800s, and that tended to be how they were done.

What's interesting is that this sort of things, at least the tools used and how many people die, seem to come in waves. Turns out crazy folks desperately want to be 'normal', in large part. But how can they be normal and crazy at the same time? Why, by expressing the crazy the way other crazy people do!

People who get in a situation like this do so because they don't know what else to do. When people go crazy, they tend to go crazy in whatever way they can achieve that seems the most culturally normal.  This is why copycat events are such a big thing - people looking for an outlet to express the crazy get something to hook onto when they see it on the news and hear everyone talking about it, and begin seeing this as the "appropriate" way to deal with the issue. After all, it's what everyone else is doing! This is why places like India have a psychological conditions like "running amok", which doesn't really exist anywhere else - because people draw the "correct" way to express their problems from their surroundings.

If you really want to change this behaviour, what you need is to program some cultural preferred alternatives. Not an easy task though - people fucking LOVE mass murderers. They love watching them, and hearing about them, and talking about them, and there's lots of money to be made making them cultural icons. But this isn't new! It's been that way for a long, long time.

[RedKing]

Also, there may be a general decrease in crime but there is a definite uptick in mass killings.

Not so much.

"Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do a great deal to reduce mass killing. It has been virtually a straight line over time," said Jack Levin, a criminologist from Northeastern University who has extensively studied serial and mass murder."

[GlyphGryph]

My personal theory is that the crime-rate has actually been steady, but all the crime is happening in jails. It's not reported in the same way as extra-penal crime is, so crime looks like it's been going down.

I could be entirely wrong, of course.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong. Crimes in jails don't seem to have ever been less common than they are now, honestly. We've also got better reporting and better tracking even of those than we've had in the past - a lot of violent crimes today wouldn't have been bothered to be recorded at all thirty years ago, like most domestic abuse and prison violence, and yet today's numbers are STILL down. Oddly enough, a large part of the crime drop (but far from all of it) seems to be the expansion of abortion. Overall, we just seem to be living in a far safer, far less violent society, and that's pretty much across the board.

Which makes sense. The only real deterrent to getting killed, historically, has been not having folks wanting to kill you. And most folks kill people when they don't see themselves as having other options, and we generally give people other options nowadays.

This is probably why mass murders haven't really gone down. Normal violent crime, yeah, we're offering a lot of alternatives. But whatever it is that drives mass-murderers, it's a bit beyond your normal, statistically standard violent occurrence.

[Nadaka]

My personal theory is that the crime-rate has actually been steady, but all the crime is happening in jails. It's not reported in the same way as extra-penal crime is, so crime looks like it's been going down.

I could be entirely wrong, of course.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong. Crimes in jails don't seem to have ever been less common than they are now, honestly. We've also got better reporting and better tracking even of those than we've had in the past - a lot of violent crimes today wouldn't have been bothered to be recorded at all thirty years ago, like most domestic abuse and prison violence, and yet today's numbers are STILL down. Oddly enough, a large part of the crime drop (but far from all of it) seems to be the expansion of abortion. Overall, we just seem to be living in a far safer, far less violent society, and that's pretty much across the board.

Which makes sense. The only real deterrent to getting killed, historically, has been not having folks wanting to kill you. And most folks kill people when they don't see themselves as having other options, and we generally give people other options nowadays.

This is probably why mass murders haven't really gone down. Normal violent crime, yeah, we're offering a lot of alternatives. But whatever it is that drives mass-murderers, it's a bit beyond your normal, statistically standard violent occurrence.

We also have a LOT more people in jail now than we used to. The crime rate per capita in prison may remain the same, while also shifting large chunk of crime from the outside into the prison. I don't necessarily subscribe to this theory, but it is at least plausible.

[Scoops Novel]

Who are the "liberator's" creators backers? As a business model, it clearly makes no sense however things go. I'm rather doubtful that if he's done it, it hasn't already been done. He's successfully drawn attention to it, but to what end?

[Nadaka]

Who are the "liberator's" creators backers? As a business model, it clearly makes no sense however things go. I'm rather doubtful that if he's done it, it hasn't already been done. He's successfully drawn attention to it, but to what end?

He is not motivated by profit. He is an anarchist. It is a political statement.

[FearfulJesuit]

Eugh. Possibly the only thing that makes my skin crawl more than plutocracy is populism.

[Scoops Novel]

Who are the "liberator's" creators backers? As a business model, it clearly makes no sense however things go. I'm rather doubtful that if he's done it, it hasn't already been done. He's successfully drawn attention to it, but to what end?

He is not motivated by profit. He is an anarchist. It is a political statement.

Eh. He may have decided to be earmarked for revenge as soon as something goes wrong as a political statement and inevitably decrease the time period of it's utility, sure, but I'm unconfident.

[Owlbread]

I'm sorry for being pass-remarkable, but Novel how do you manage to make such simple subjects so nebulous? I'm getting a headache from trying to read that.

[10ebbor10]

Eugh. Possibly the only thing that makes my skin crawl more than plutocracy is populism.

Populism is the buy your voters kind of politics, right?

[Luke_Prowler]

Populism, as the name might suggest, is the politics of listening to the people. Or so the dictionary/wikipedia is telling me. So I have no idea what the hell that article is talking about, and any attempt to read the whole thing makes me want to bash my head onto the table.

[Dutchling]

In Europe at least, populism means hating Muslims, immigrants, the European Union, and rational thinking.

[bulborbish]

Populism in America usually refers to listening to more rural individuals, or the Heart of America, than urban America. It usually leads to measures that benefit or originate in these types of communities.

QUICKEDIT: The article seems to be referring more to the ideal of direct democracy more than populism. and that the Liberals are idiots which don't listen to people, but whatever.

[scriver]

In Europe at least, populism means hating Muslims, immigrants, the European Union, and rational thinking.

To be more precise, in Europe, populism refers to the kind of politicians that only ever deliver easy-to-hear answers that does not necessarily make sense or be realistic or in line with historical experience. Like for example, the people shouting "REINSTATE DEATH PENALTY AND RAISE PRISON PENALTIES THAT'LL KEEP EVERYBODY FROM DOING CRIME" every time somebody commits a heinous crime, or the guys who go "LOWER ALL THE TAXES! RAISE ALL THE SOCIAL BENEFITS!" at the same time, despite that being impossible.

What the hell is America's obsession with guns, anyway?

Is it ENTIRELY related to the second amendment, or what?

I mean I want a gun, but only for hunting, and bolt-action. M14. I don't feel the need to have fifty bazillion guns strapped to my dick or something...

Sit back and let Cracked explain it all to you.