I think what's particularly telling is that the photos attached to Matt Zoller Seitz’s piece are references to: Batman, still current but a character that is 70-some years old; two references to A Clockwork Orange, a film that came out 40 years ago; and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, almost 40 years old. If anything this suggests the staying power of pop-cultural references. I wouldn't disagree that some things are lost over the years but there's a lot of stuff that may not be topical but still connects.

The United States also evolved over a long period of time. It wasn't terra nullius and all of a sudden there was a war and then there was a country. The modern incarnation of every country on that list, except for Canada and Russia came into being through civil war and or revolution. That's a fact. Obviously there was a country there before but those conflicts but they changed those places as much or more than the American revolution.

Canada came into being at a table, yes, but they wouldn't have made the decisions the made, when they made them without the violence of 1837 and Canada would be a very different place without Riel.

Yes, I do know that nation states are new, that's kind of the point, almost every nation state came into being through violence.

Japan had the same name prior to WWII but the country was changed more than, say, the US by their revolution.

I probably should just give this up and recognize that you can't outsmart crazy.

Wow, that's quite possibly the most ignorant thing I've ever read. Those countries didn't start with a revolution? Actually most of them did, at least their modern incarnations, just as much as the United States.

France, Mexico and Russia all had revolutions - Mexico and France had more than one. China, Britain and Russia had civil wars. Britain also has a long history of war between England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

The modern nation of Japan was created by World War II.

Canada may not have been created by a revolution but the rebellions of 1837 along with the Riel rebellions had a huge effect of Canada's development as a nation.

American history is no more violent than that of most nations.

How anyone can be so ignorant of the most basic historical facts is stunning.

Any food that's grown within 100 miles of the Toronto-Hamilton-Mississauga agglomeration has got to be pretty toxic regardless of what the farmers do.

alfanerd do you understand the meaning of the word "traitor"? For one to commit treason against a nation, one must be a subject of that nation, Assange is Australian, not American.

The problem is when you lock someone up you prevent them from victimizing the public for the term of their sentence, so in that sense longer sentences could reduce crime in the short term by preventing specific individuals from committing crimes for that period of time.

But it also turns people into hardened criminals.

Sure, lots of young men commit crimes, but then they grow up, get jobs, start families and drink less. If those young men grow up in prison, they're not coming out to jobs and families they're coming out to a life of serious violent crime. So what may have been a first and last youthful brush with the law is now the beginning of a life of crime.

Longer sentences and higher incarceration rates also reduce the social stigma surrounding imprisonment, one of the main deterrents. Let's be honest here, if you're committing a crime you're not going to be thinking about the length of the possible sentence. I mean seriously, do even the best informed Canadians know the mandatory minimums or average sentences for any crimes except maybe murder? That's not what's going to give a criminal pause, you know what might though, the reaction of his family and friends, the knowledge that when you get out life is going to be a lot harder. But if you have more people in prison, the more likely it is that the average person will know someone in prison and you begin to create a culture where going to prison becomes, at least in some places, acceptable and then crime become an acceptable carrier choice - increasing crime rates.

It's not a zero sum game and there are a lot more than just two factors here.

But let's be honest about this, increasing incarceration rates has nothing to do with reducing crime rates and everything to do with punishment.