This seems dumb. Not just the clearly scripted video but the apparent shock at what happens when you're a prisoner threatening to commit suicide (by starvation). Of course force-feeding is unpleasant. That's what happens when you're a prisoner and you refuse to eat. Don't want to be force-fed? Then eat. Don't want to be a prisoner? Then don't join groups that are internationally recognized as terrorists. And no, I seriously doubt that the majority of prisoners in Gitmo are innocent.

You can easily provoke people without breaking the law. Happens all the time. It's not illegal to insult someone's mother but that doesn't make it any less stupid. Similarly, it's unwise to be confrontational to someone holding a gun (like a cop). That's common sense. Cops are not robots or omniscient deities. They are humans and have the same failings as everyone else. It's nice to hold them to a higher standard but you can't ignore the reality of what they actually are. Their job is dangerous and most people are inherently antagonistic towards them, due to the fact that they don't like being punished for doing what they want. Even a routine traffic stop can turn deadly. There are plenty of videos online where cops were either injured or killed with little to no warning from the perpetrators. As such, it's unsurprising that they might be overly cautious or mistrustful of abrasive strangers.

Valiantly fighting for your rights is all well and good but is it really worth it if compromise leads to better results? If the guys had shown their IDs, the cops would have likely just gone on their merry way. No arguments, no physical contact, no searches, nothing. A significant amount of time and effort would have been saved by both parties. If the cops had demanded a strip search, that would have been one thing. But they just asked to see some ID, an act which takes less than 10 seconds to perform at no risk to the person doing it. Life is about choice and consequence. You should make choices that have the most ideal consequences. Arguing with cops (or anyone with a gun) will never end well so why bother if it can easily be avoided?

Again, nobody is disputing that the cops were in the wrong here. However, sometimes common sense should prevail. If someone in a position of authority makes a relatively benign request (showing your ID poses no real inconvenience or threat), it makes more sense to simply comply and avoid unnecessary escalation. There are times when you should do things simply because it is reasonable to do so. If you only do things when the law requires it, you must have very awkward interactions with other people.

Truth is, many people are just antagonistic towards cops (or anyone who holds positions of authority) and will take any opportunity to provoke them as long as they think they can get away with it. This is ironic because laws only have meaning because of cops. Without enforcement, laws are just words. To provoke the people who enforce the law while trying to reap the benefits of that law just seems incredibly dumb. It's like insulting the mechanic fixing your car or the cook preparing your food. Sure, you're allowed to do it but why would you?

Overzealous cops, no doubt, but it doesn't help that the potential suspects were being abrasive and confrontational. The whole thing could have been avoided if they had just shown their IDs when asked, even if they weren't legally obligated to do so. Pulling out your ID takes less than 10 seconds and poses no risk. The fact that he was filming the whole thing suggests that this is just more cop baiting, which is about as bad as overzealous cops.

He's correct in arguing that politicians shouldn't be allowed to take donations. We should also abolish the party system, as it makes it far too easy for voters to automatically vote for their respective party's candidate. No donations means smaller campaigns and less awareness from the average joe, but maybe that's a good thing. There would be fewer voters but these voters would be more informed and more passionate about their votes.

There is no such thing as "human rights." Rights, by their very nature, are simply laws and laws are just words. These words only have meaning when people abide by them and there is nothing in nature that requires people to do so. The reality is that you are afforded rights by the government that rules over you. The government holds the position of authority and, as a citizen, you agree to this. If you do not like this, you should refuse government rule. To hate and distrust your ruler while accepting their rule is pointless. Leave the country, become an anarchist, start a revolution... arguing about semantics (i.e. laws) doesn't change the fact that people with power can exert that power in any way they see fit.

Most homeless people are either mentally ill or uneducated and irresponsible. Everybody falls on hard times. The people who plan ahead ultimately prevail. Don't buy stuff you can't afford, make safe investments, don't build debt, don't start a family when you can barely even support yourself... seemingly simple rules yet so many fail to follow them. Society may have laws but it is still very much a jungle where only the fit survive.

Second chances are nice in concept but generally wasted in practice. Most criminals are repeat offenders. Most homeless people would waste any money you give them and inevitably end up back on the streets.

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.

Getting a job in engineering or medicine is probably going to be pretty safe. There are a lot of careers that are still safe. The problem is when you can barely afford to support yourself, then you get married and start a family. Or maybe even skip the marriage part and just have kids anyway because sure, why not? While there are many who have lost their jobs over the past few years, the ones who planned ahead and invested wisely are not living in poverty. The ones living in poverty are the ones who never managed their money well and made irresponsible choices, like having kids.

Spending tax money to improve welfare doesn't fix the root of the problem. It's like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The problem is that most people are irresponsible with their money and live beyond their means, building up debt while wasting what little income they have.

Defending the poor is all well and good but that costs money too. If the poor aren't contributing to the economy, who ends up being penalized here? The inherent problem here is with irresponsible people. People who have children when they don't have enough money to support them. It seems like such a simple consideration yet so few seem to heed it. Don't start a family unless you have a steady and secure job that can support one. Think of the long-term expenses that a family entails, save your money whenever possible and make safe investments. If people did all this, both poverty and crime would decrease significantly.

Also, the pledge of allegiance is ridiculously antiquated. What exactly is it supposed to accomplish? Loyalty to the nation? When kids only regurgitate it as a matter of routine at the start of the school day, it holds no meaning. It's not like religion which is ingrained through constant reinforcement and conditioning both at home and in church.

Again, genocide and religious/political persecution are not comparable to the system I describe. Nobody in my system would be arrested or executed because of their ethnicity, political alignment or religious beliefs. They would only be arrested and executed if they broke rational and fair laws, such as requiring aspiring parents to be healthy, responsible, educated and financially secure.

And yes, there is a huge disparity in crime rates around the world. What is consistent is that areas with the most surveillance and law enforcement (which are generally the more prosperous and advanced areas) have the lowest crime rates. Washington D.C. currently has the highest violent crime and murder rates in the country. There are shootings on a daily basis (despite the stringent gun laws) in the poorer areas of the city. If the police decided to focus their efforts in these areas and lethally enforced a zero tolerance policy, crime would be significantly reduced. However, they don't because politicians don't care about the ghettos and slums. Instead of trying to either improve them or purge them, they simply let them sit and fester as lousy and irresponsible parents continue to breed future criminals.

Cite one contemporary example where what I describe (all of it, not just parts) has been attempted.

There are plenty of examples of unjust and tyrannical brutality. I can't think of any where the brutality was fair, consistent and logical. That's what you don't seem to be grasping here. Genocide or religious/political persecution are not comparable to what I propose.

We live in the safest period of history not because of liberalization or decreasing barbarism but because technology has made it much easier to enforce the law and maintain order. If you try to rob a bank, you'll be caught on camera and the cops will have you surrounded in minutes thanks to silent alarms. If you try to rape someone in the street, bystanders can whip out their phones, capture your face on camera and then call the cops. If you steal a car and try to speed off, you'll never get away from the police cars at every corner and helicopter in the air. Never before has it been so easy to defend yourself, get help or capture proof of a crime. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of crime occurs in poor areas with minimal surveillance and police presence. It was thanks to technology that the two Steubenville rapists were caught and successfully persecuted.

Putting someone in prison isn't harsh enough. There should be a zero tolerance policy with automatic death penalty, which would need to be carried out efficiently. No more prisoners sitting on death row for years. No more ridiculously expensive lethal injections. If someone commits a crime and there's sufficient evidence of their guilt, they are killed quickly (broken neck, slit throat, cattle spike into the head, etc) and cremated. Boom, no more overpopulated prisons and no more wasted taxpayer money on feeding and sheltering criminals who will likely break the law again as soon as they are released.

Enforcing the law is always the trickiest part, since we don't have constant surveillance of every citizen. Therefore, in the absence of surveillance, we have to rely on fear. There's a reason why people don't think twice about speeding, jaywalking or littering. Not only are they very unlikely to get caught, the penalty when they do get caught is negligible. If you gave the death penalty for the above crimes, I guarantee people would think twice before committing them.

As for Norway, they certainly do have a comfortable prison system. If I were to go on a shooting rampage, I would definitely do it in Norway because their prisons don't seem that bad. In fact, their prisons are probably nicer than the living conditions of most criminals. The point of punishment is to deter people from breaking the law in the first place, not make them happier and less likely to do so after the fact.

We already give women (and men) control over their reproductive habits. It's pretty apparent that a large portion of these men and women don't deserve that control, since they reproduce without any thought or consideration to their impact on the rest of society. If everyone were mature and responsible, there would be no such thing as abusive or negligent parents. Parenthood should be a privilege, not a right. As an aside, in 2010 the divorce rate in the U.S. was over 50%. If 50% of married couples aren't even mature or responsible enough to sustain a marriage, how can these people be expected to raise mature and responsible children? Hell, how many of those couples had kids before they divorced? You ask me to have faith in people but the numbers really don't give me any reason to.

As for these young men, I'm guessing they had lousy parents who never taught them to respect other people or the law. That's probably why they raped a girl, peed on her unconscious body and took pictures of it all. If they hadn't been caught, do you really think they would have regretted their actions and turned themselves in? No, they would have just continued life as usual, grown up, had kids and raised them with the same twisted values. It's a vicious cycle that exists because we have no regulation over reproduction. Instead of wasting taxpayer money trying to rehabilitate them (and very likely fail; the vast majority of sexual predators can't break their habits), why not just end the cycle right then and there? Humanity is hardly on the verge on extinction, so getting rid of the trash and cleaning up the gene pool would only help make life better for future generations.

All that said, you're right that issues like poverty, lack of education, etc, are all relevant here. But would those still be issues if everyone were raised to be contributing members of society, as opposed to worthless parasites that exist solely for the sake of existing? There are a finite number of jobs and classrooms out there. There aren't enough to accommodate every living person. That's why we need population control. If you extend yourself beyond your own means by having kids you can't afford to feed or send to school, you're just making the problem worse.

When was torture last sanctioned by the state? The dark ages? Of course violent crime was higher in the dark ages. It was pretty difficult to enforce the law back then due to the lack of cars, satellites, computers, security cameras, guns, etc, not to mention that laws varied greatly depending on which part of the land you lived in and what lords you served under. Does Pinker's book have any contemporary examples that support your position?

In any case, regardless of whether you favor punishment or rehabilitation, the real solution is to address the root of the problem: lousy upbringings. Anyone can have children, no matter how qualified they are. They can have a criminal record, a history of mental illness and be unemploymed and still have as many kids as they want. It's ridiculous and the reason why so many children grow up to be criminals. We need to have strictly enforced regulation of reproduction. Parents should have to go through a thorough testing process and meet certain requirements (like having enough money to actually support a family) before being allowed to have kids. If a woman walks into a hospital with an unlicensed pregnancy, both she and the father should be arrested and executed without trial. Legal births would be recorded in an international database, which employers and government workers would reference during any hiring, licensing or authorization process. Essentially, illegal children would have no chance of ever becoming a part of regular society, forcing them to the outskirts and slums. This would make it easier to focus raids and clear out the most prominent concentrations of criminals.

This may sound dystopian but it's really the only way to fix the root of the problem. You will never be able to make people better if you let them be raised under lousy conditions. Morality is learned, not innate. If we want everyone to follow the same rules, they need to be taught to respect them. If the parents don't, why would the children?