These anti-bullying campaigns are always so worthless. No bully is going to suddenly stop bullying just because they are told not to do so. Crass as this may sound, school shootings are probably the most effective deterrent to bullying, though only if the bullies can establish a correlation between the two and believe that a shooting could actually occur at their school. Bullies only do what they do if they think they can get away with it, much like criminals. Fear of reprisal makes them think twice.

They also considered ducking and covering and building bomb shelters in one's backyard an adequate deterrent to atomic fallout before the advent of not believing everything you hear and see on television or what you're told in school.

Not too much has changed...

Brilliant!

You know in reality this would be a decent deterrent. Or just encourage people to commit more crime, I'm now sure which now...

Seems to me a good rape deterrent would be tentacles that slither out from the legbands or waistband when someone attempts to remove the garment in an improper fashion. It would definitely scare the bejeezus out of most people and on the upside I'm sure such an innovation would be a popular selling point in Japan for all the wrong reasons.

In fairness, I don't think there is any way to protect against that type of attack. These are an effective deterrent, but I don't think the manufacturer is claiming they will protect you from every scenario.

Pretty much you'd imagine, but what strikes me is what should strike that truck's tires after the 1 or 2 warnings-Pop-up tire-poppers about render-dead-stopped distance from the tunnel's next repair shut-down.
Pop the sleepy trucker's go-circles (or hoist his shit up hydraulically w/piton) before the rainy, non-deterrent.
The rain-stop sign only works if he hits his brakes, right?

Laws must be reactionary, because you should not be punished for harms that you haven't yet committed.
'Imagined future harms' are a poor reason to take action against anyone.
Fundamentally, you're not in charge of other people's imagination. That's their business, not yours.

Inevitability is not an issue, incidents are inevitable for all drivers, without exception, so long as they keep driving.
Any non-zero probability will have an incident, given enough time.

Every driver is unique, and it is not deterministic that "driver A + 3 beers" is worse than "driver B".
It's not deterministic that driver B has a lower probability of incident.

These guys were good enough to get a license, and are legally 'suitable' to drive.
They are above the "absolute bar" determining 'ok' or 'not ok' to drive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeIJ0kQtLyg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I-OqmQc5hI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiRDv4nxe64
(Seriously, watch them end to end... it's amazing.)

Imagine the drivers that you know. Do you think a few beers will get them even close to as bad as the people in the links? Because it's enough to get them a DUI. Hence the irrationality of just saying "drink = unsuitable to drive".

There are lots things that impact your cognitive function.
too tired
too excited
too bored
too entertained
too preoccupied with memories
too preoccupied with anticipation
etc, etc, etc...
A driver at 90% attention due to these reasons is considered ok, but a driver at 95% attention [for whatever reason] ... that just happened to drink alcohol ... is a criminal. Again, irrationality.

The fact that you're operating in a diminished state /specifically/ due to alcohol is not meaningful.
How much you are diminished [regardless of why] is what matters - but that isn't even in the drinking and driving public discussion.
Heck, some people aren't even prepared when at 100% attention and 100% sober (like the folks in the links).

I generally dislike how unprepared drivers are.
Just being able to drive around a few blocks, parallel park, and answer a few questions from a booklet you just read 5 minutes prior, is crap criteria.
IMO, it shouldn't even be criteria until much later.
IMO, people should be able to proficiently autocross in the wet before they are even given a chance to begin learning the road rules.

IMO, people consider driving a necessity (which it is if you want a normal life), and they throw driving into the same bucket as walking.
Something they need to do every day, it's mundane, nothing special, nothing worth concerning yourself about.
If they have an "accident" (the term accident should really be "operator error" 99% of the time), they even get offended if you say that they screwed up.
Like as if it's just an "Oh well, shit happens" sort of thing, and blaming them for what they did is profane.

At the same time, there's a religion of "drinking and driving hate" that has mushroomed into something not far from crazies frothing at the mouth.
"He drank... and drove! Burn him! Burn him!" ...
Imagine being the person that was arrested, watching people talk to you like you're the antichrist himself ... and you never even hurt anyone. Discussing amongst themselves 'what they need to do to you'.

Punishing only harm has two benefits :
A) It focuses on real victims.
B) It only involves people who were demonstrably not suitable drivers (the harm is the demonstration) - without any emotional bias for the reason behind the unsuitability.

Using the law for deterrence is possibly even illegal in itself (If I had my way, it would be seen as so).
There is supposed to be "no cruel and unusual punishment".
If you ask "what makes is it cruel/unusual?" - the answer will be that it causes excessive suffering.
Deterrence consists of punishing people in excess (making examples), in the hopes that it scares 3rd parties.
So then the idea is that the suffering should be in proportion to the crime.
Making examples, is by definition, punishing in excess of what is deserved.
DUI laws are by design an exercise in exactly this.

-scheherazade

@Kofi. It's pretty hard not to horrifically oversimplify Pakistan in only a few paragrahs. Pakistan only enjoys the third government branch of power thanks to very heavy American pressure. The ISI and military have dominated Pakistan's prior history, this years elections mark the first and only time in Pakistan's history that a civilian government there managed to serve it's full term and pass power on to another civilian government. Past governments like Bhuttos were dismissed by the military, and then saw Bhutto executed. Pakistan's road democracy is hardly secure yet either since for all the gains, Bhutto's daughter was assassinated before finishing her bid to run the exiting civilian government.

Kashmir is just the bone of contention between India and Pakistan. Within Pakistani politics the discussion is all about Balochistan and FATA. The internal divisions over those two regions was and still is being manipulated to maximum effect by Pakistan's enemies. Particularly, in FATA you have Saudi dollars building Madrassah's were Pakistan's government either won't or can't do anything about education for the tribal people. So on one hand it's giving a lifeline to a poverty stricken people, and on the other that life line is tied to a brick being thrown into the deep end of jihadist teachings and training. And when I say Saudi charities, I don't mean to suggest it's government backed. It is by all accounts privately donated monies by private Saudi citizens, the ones that give out candy to kids when parade worthy things happen.

"Plus, I can name many muslim nations that did not have spontaneous celebrations. Afghanistan for one"
You've got to be kidding on this, right?
I'd ask you maybe look at my point and counter more closely though. I was speaking to the comment that Al Qaida was wanting for supporters and didn't have peoples support prior to 9/11. I did not declare that all muslim nations were dominated by celebrations, I in fact stated that very few failed to officially condemn the attacks. I just asked how many did not see spontaneous celebrations, and yes even America saw spontaneous celebrations by the likes of Westboro nutters. My point was not paint entire muslim nations as celebrating, but that there existed elements virtually everywhere celebrating. Would you disagree on that, or is that essentially correct. As I see it, that is a clear refutation of the idea that groups like Al Qaida were starved for support prior to 9/11.

"The third point you seem to provide your own refutation. Drones etc do indeed fuel Al Queda."

Maybe read my statement more closely again. My position is that while on one hand Drones help recruitment, and on the other they hurt not only recruitment and retention, but larger scale operational planning as well. Drones have done more than drive some angry youth to join the fight against America. They have also killed a great many of the Taliban's top leadership. More importantly, they have driven a near permanent wedge between the Taliban and Pakistan's military which is a value that is hard to underestimate. IMHO the 100% sole reason for the Afghan war was to either drive that wedge between Pakistan's military and extremists, or failing that to provide a location for waging a ground war with Pakistan. I also believe there was heavy calculations that the Afghan war would prove sufficient threat and deterrent that Pakistan's leadership would make the "right" choice.

I think it's important to make a distinction here. I almost feel like talking about "Al Qaida" as the problem is Bush(jr.) league type stuff. The bigger picture is jihadist terrorism, and who cares what label it wears. The reality after 9/11 was that jihadists terrorists in the form of the Taliban, Al Qaida and many other groups had a strong foothold inside of Pakistan. They were close friends and allies with the highest ranking officials within Pakistan. After the 9/11 attacks were committed, it was decided that a line needed to be drawn between the two and it was no longer acceptable to just let Pakistan hold these jihadist terrorist groups as friends and allies. After all, how emboldened would they be if they got to launch such an attack while still maintaining their alliance with Pakistan's ISI and military. Suddenly Pakistan's military has a pseudo mercenary/spec op force that is capable of organizing attacks on mainland America large enough to kill thousands in one round. The implications of that were deemed bad and in no uncertain terms the decision was made to put an end to it.

...And Bush 'sold' it to his demographic by giving a cowboy speech declaring your either with us or against us. I'm confident though that in the most bizarre of ways, that speech was carefully phrased diplomacy giving Pakistan a flashing red message without the public embarrassment of actually naming them in the process.(or Bush stumbled onto something in blind ignorance too, I'd flip a coin on it).

Your patronizing attitude denotes you lack of understanding of the very basic concept of justice, and the need for justice. Judicial punishment may not eradicate crime, but it exists to act, either, as a deterrent, or the vengeance of society. Either way, the sentence must be seen as punishment. If is not - which is increasingly the case - then why have laws at all? I suggest you spend more of your time thinking of the innocent victims of crime, rather than the welfare, comfort, and rehabilitation of those who perpetrate it. I'm done.

Down vote: The author of this book (which I shall never read a word of) let loose from the go with a string of insipid statements and loaded language-The prison system, as well as ANY so-called "deterrent" to crime offered by the penal, law enforcement, and judicial systems of the United States is broken, in that it has become a beast that only works to line pockets of assholes, foment race hatred, and insure that eventually, EVERY CITIZEN will become a criminal as free will and natural law becomes some illusory fantasy.

The death penalty WOULD function to reduce crime, if the people running the system were not themselves, the most egregious of criminals.

Can't repair the prison industrial complex, it should be scrapped in favor of (insert sane alternative here).

Slavery is not gone in America folks.....The hydra has many heads.

I love how gun control proponents love to point to Australia as "proof" that gun control works. Hey, here's some proof that it doesn't work! Washington D.C. has some of the strictest gun control in the country. It also has the highest violent crime and murder rates in the country and guns are involved in the majority of those crimes.

Some fun facts:
1) Criminals don't care about gun laws and already obtain guns illegally.
2) Guns are a very effective deterrent against criminals (hence the reason why mass shootings almost always occur in the places where people are least likely to carry guns).
3) Banning guns won't make them disappear, just as banning alcohol didn't make it disappear and banning drugs hasn't made them disappear either.

As for murder sprees (which comprise a tiny portion of overall violent crime and murder), less access to guns wouldn't make them disappear. If someone really wants to kill a bunch of people, they'll figure out a way. The Seattle bombings are proof of that.

I love how such a narrow clip provokes such wide-ranging discussion here on the Sift. I think the clip itself raises two central questions:
1) Is Islam - in this point in history - more dangerous a religious ideology than the others, and
2) Is such a question/comparison even relevant? Or perhaps "promotes Islamic hatred" as the douchebag facing Maher seems to think?

To 1), I've argued above that yes, it is. as for 2), raised mostly by the commenters here, I would have to say "no, but" to both. Religious (and non-religious) ideologies should be strongly and non-violently denounced whenever/wherever they do harm. In the US, for example, Christianity does way more harm (to women's/gay's/atheist's rights, to education, etc.) than Islam does, but neither excuses/diminishes the evil done by the other. The "but" would be for when people get accused of discrimination and "islamophobia" when calling out the evils of Islam.
The necessity of the second "but" is illustrated by @shinyblurry's comment: there is always the danger of right-wing and/or Christian fundamentalists taking criticism of Islam to be a defense/validation of their own strain of wrong/dangerous BS and/or racisms (to be fair, sb only exhibits the former). This is inevitable, and should not stop people from criticising/denouncing unethical ideologies, nor should it prompt amalgamation of "criticising Islam" with "hating the for'ners/ragheads/Muslims".

Beyond the subject of the video itself, the correlation between poor socio-politico-economico-etc. status and the adherence to extremes, a point well-made by @Babymech, @Yogi and others is an important factor in the higher numbers of "Islamist evil" worldwide, one that I am well aware of. There is no better way of turning whole populations to fundamentalist extremes (or at least worse ones than they had before; let's not fall into the "noble savage" fallacy) than by meddling with their politics and then bombing the hell out of them. The danger is to go to the extreme of excluding the very nature of those fundamentals from the picture, which is just as simplistic and false as is blaming them exclusively.

Moreover, I always shudder at the left-wing strain of argumentation which puts ALL the blame on the Western invaders, (edit: 19-20th c.) colonisation and co. This view relies heavily on the "noble savage" form of racism, which assumes that only "White people/Westerners/Judeo-Christians" can wreak political/social havoc in the lands of those poor, innocent "Brown people/Muslims" (those two often being conflated). Having lived in Africa for 5 years I have a knee-jerk reaction to this kind of self-centered guilt-tripping, which deprives the "Brown/Black people" of one aspect of human nature: the ability to be evil, to fuck themselves up without any help from the "West". They can, and they do.

This tangent may seem irrelevant here, but the reason I bring it up is because that it is this sentiment that is behind much of this "Islamophobe" name-calling in the US and Europe, and behind the difficulty many "Westerners" have in bare-facedly criticising Islam, when they often have no such difficulty with their "home"-religion, Christianity.

@aaronfr raises the problem of how to go about denouncing an unethical set of beliefs, and gives several good examples of how not to (it is noteworthy that the only example of violent action is one taken by other religious people; I have yet to hear of atheists using anything other than words and pictures to make their point). Hitchens’ endorsement of the Iraq war lowered my esteem for him greatly (somewhat saved by the fact that his stance on this was of no influence to anyone, contrary to his huge effort against the evils of religion), but it is noteworthy that he and Harris are the most criticised (and the least influential) when they hold such positions.
On the side of the religious, however, it is often the crazy fundies who are the loudest and, in certain areas (with the aid of socio-etc factors of course) the most influential. And they have, especially in the Quran and the life of M., a reliable and divine source of hate/violence-mongering.

As you say, peace and prosperity are some of the best deterrents to religious extremism and unethical behaviour (but not solely; cf: the US, Saudi Arabia and co.) This does not render unnecessary denouncing the unethical nature of Islam, Christianity, etc. As noted above, the negative effects of religion are still felt in relatively peaceful and prosperous nations today (in France, for example, homophobes of Christian, Muslim and possibly Jewish faiths are causing a significant rise in homophobic violence ever since the gay-marriage hearings).

So long as the distinction between "Islam(/religious ideology)" and "Muslim(/person)" remains clear, we should be free to criticise and denounce the former to our hearts content. (Note how "Islamophobia" shits all over that distinction; one of the many reasons that term should never be uttered unironically).

_{My apologies for the dissertation-length comment}

@alcom

I hear you shinyblurry, but I feel that your argument meanders back to the original appeal to authority that most believers resort to when justifying their positions. I also find that the related video links provided by TheGenk provide a valid refutation of the idea that God is The One who put values of good and evil inside each of us.

There is always an appeal to authority, either to God or to men. There are either objective moral values which are imposed by God, or morality is relative and determined by men. If morality is relative then there is no good or evil, and what is considered good today may be evil tomorrow. If it isn't absolutely wrong to murder indiscriminately, for instance, then if enough people agreed that it was right, it would be. Yet, this does not cohere with reality because we all know that murdering indiscriminately is absolutely wrong. The true test of a worldview is its coherence to reality and atheism is incoherent with our experience, whereas Christian theism describes it perfectly.

If you feel the videos provide a valid refutation, could you articulate the argument that they are using so we can discuss them here?

In my mind, Zacharias' incoherence with the atheist's ability to love and live morally is influenced by his own understanding of the source of moral truth. Because he defines the origin of pure love as Jesus' sacrifice on behalf of mankind, it is unfathomable to him that love could be found as a result of human survival/selection based of traits of cooperation, peace and mutual benefits of our social structure. His logic is therefore coloured and his mind is closed to certain ideas and possibilities.

The idea of agape love is a Christian idea, and agape love is unconditional love. You do not get agape love out of natural selection because it is sacrificial and sacrificing your well being or your life has a very negative impact on your chance to survive and pass on your genes. However, Christ provided the perfect example of agape love by sacrificing His life not only for His friends and family, but for people who hate and despise Him. In the natural sense, since Jesus failed to pass on His genes His traits should be selected out of the gene pool. Christ demonstrated a higher love that transcends the worldly idea of love. Often when the world speaks of love, it is speaking of eros love, which is love based on physical attraction, or philial love, which is brotherly love. The world knows very little of agape love outside of Christ. Christ taught agape love as the universal duty of men towards God:

Luke 6:27 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
Luke 6:28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Luke 6:29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
Luke 6:30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
Luke 6:31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
Luke 6:32 "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
Luke 6:33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
Luke 6:34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Luke 6:36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Indeed, moral foundations can and must change with the times. As our understanding of empathy, personal freedoms and the greater good of mankind develops with our societal and cultural evolution, so too must our standards of morality. This is most evident when concepts such as slavery and revenge (an eye for an eye) are seen as commonplace and acceptable throughout old scripture where modern society has evolved a greater understanding of the need for equality and basic human rights and policing and corrections as a measure of deterrence and rehabilitation for those individuals that stray from the path of greatest utility.

This is why slavery is no more, why racism is in decline and why eventually gay rights and green thought will be universal and our struggle to stifle the rights of gays and exploit the planet's resources to the point of our own self-extinction simply will be seen by future historians as sheer ignorance. Leviticus still pops up when people try to brand gays as deviant, even though most it is itself incoherent by today's standards. Remember that "defecating within the camp was unacceptable lest God step in it while walking in the evening." Well, today we just call that sewage management.

Some people, like Richard Dawkins, see infanticide as being the greatest utility. Some believe that to save the planet around 70 percent of the population must be exterminated. Green thought is to value the health of the planet above individual lives; to basically say that human lives are expendable to preserve the collective. This is why abortion is not questionable to many who hold these ideals; because human life isn't that valuable to them. I see many who have green thoughts contrast human beings to cattle or cockroaches. Utility is an insufficient moral standard because it is in the eye of the beholder.

In regards to the Levitical laws, those were given to the Jews and not the world, and for that time and place. God made a covenant with the Jewish people which they agreed to follow. The covenant God made with the world through Christ is different than the Mosaic law, and it makes those older laws irrelevant. If you would like to understand why God would give laws regarding slavery, or homosexuality, I can elucidate further.

In regards to your paraphrasing of Deuteronomy 23:13-14, this is really a classic example of how the scripture can be made to look like it is saying one thing, when it is actually saying something completely different. Did you read this scripture? It does not say that:

Deuteronomy 23:13 And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.

Deuteronomy 23:14 Because the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Gods home on Earth was in the tabernacle, and because God dwelled with His people, He exorted them to keep the camp holy out of reverence for Him.

The rules that God gave for cleanliness were 2500 years ahead of their time:

"In the Bible greater stress was placed upon prevention of disease than was given to the treatment of bodily ailments, and in this no race of people, before or since, has left us such a wealth of LAWS RELATIVE TO HYGIENE AND SANITATION as the Hebrews. These important laws, coming down through the ages, are still used to a marked degree in every country in the world sufficiently enlightened to observe them. One has but to read the book of Leviticus carefully and thoughtfully to conclude that the admonitions of Moses contained therein are, in fact, the groundwork of most of today's sanitary laws. As one closes the book, he must, regardless of his spiritual leanings, feel that the wisdom therein expressed regarding the rules to protect health are superior to any which then existed in the world and that to this day they have been little improved upon" (Magic, Myth and Medicine, Atkinson, p. 20). Dr. D. T. Atkinson

What's interesting about that is that Moses was trained in the knowledge of the Egyptians, the most advanced civilization in the world at that time. Yet you will not find even a shred of it in the bible. Their understanding of medicine at that time led to them doing things like rubbing feces into wounds; ie, it was completely primitive in comparison to the commands that God gave to Moses about cleanliness. Moses didn't know about germs but God did.

Paedophilia will never emerge as acceptable because it violates our basic understanding of human rights and the acceptable age of sexual consent. I know this is a common warning about the "slippery slope of a Godless definition of morality," but it's really a red herring. Do you honestly think society would someday deem that it carries a benefit to society? I just can't see it happening.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_Ancient_Greece

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Turns out anal rape is an effective deterrant. Soon penalties will be given a scale:

10 MPh over = light salad tossing
20 MPh over = broom handle (sans splinters)
30 MPh over = Spoon treatment

Etc etc