We're Number 1!!!!!!!!

Three Charts to Break Your Heart from Reason Magazine  ======================== Yes folks, we did it. We stayed number one. Russia is pushing us hard for world domination, but we managed to stay ahead and keep our number one ranking.

Sorry, Russia isn't on that chart.  Only the pikers like the Mexicans and the Turks who run country club prisons.   And everyone knows that Sweden is just run by the crime lords.  No, you'll find our slim lead over Russia on this next chart.  As you can see, we've got to be throwing more of our citizens into prison every day just to keep our vital lead in the prison race over Russia.

Of course, we don't do this just for fun, right?  We do this because we have to do it. We have to protect ourselves from dangerous criminals.  Only by locking away those who would rape and murder and steal can we all be safe.  Obviously, all these police we've hired and the arrests we've made and the courts we've packed with former prosecutors as judges and all the prison's we've built have made a big impact on crime, right?

The bump in the crime wave in the early 90's was largely demographics, and the decrease since probably has to do with more of the population becoming aging baby-boomers.  Anyways, one can easily see that we used to have basically the same crime rates in 1974 with only about 1/10th as many of our citizens in prison.

But hey, we've got to do it. We've got to keep locking up our citizens because if we don't the Russians and maybe even the Rwandans might catch us and no longer will be able to point our foam fingers proudly in the air and scream that we're number one!

Unless you're a fan of freedom.  If you think America stands for freedom, these charts say we're dead last.