U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem

Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by OliverJones on Friday December 30, 2016 @03:56PM (#13287371)

Hmmm. The Salem episode lasted seven months from the first accusations (March 1692) to the last hangings (September 1692) and the dissolution of the court appointed to try those people (October 1692).

The war on drugs is now about a century old, and going strong.

Hopefully, future people will look on both as some kind of collective self-delusion. But the comparison is otherwise unfair to Cotton Mather, Samuel Sewall, and the rest of those Puritan ghouls responsible for that episode. And I can't believe I'm defending them.

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Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by ClayFerguson on Friday December 30, 2016 @04:33PM (#13287655)

I think where you lack is in the common sense to realize I wasn't comparing magnitudes or duration of the episodes but was merely pointing out how mass-delusions and brainwashing makes people basically irrational.

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