Re: You want to know the ugly truth?

(See 10 Leading Causes of Injury Death by Age Group for details.)

Did anyone tell you that the USA also has relatively low deaths by disease? In all developed countries either homicide or suicide are prominent causes of death among all age groups; but that's because in developed countries you don't die of dysentery, tuberculosis, cholera, malaria or bubonic plague. The proper statistic to use is the overall rate of murder (comparable by country); and the overall rate of violent crime (comparable by country, roughly [not entirely, because here some things that might be legal in one place but illegal in another could come up]).

In the 2000s it dropped by world region--the US was still topped only by North and South Africa, Central America and South America. But of all the Western countries, we dominate in murder rates by far.

And yet not in violent crime overall, where the USA is not too different from Europe (except Scandinavia - but then Scandinavians suicide so much that it compensates in the young age ranges where Americans are more vulnerable to homicide). What does that mean? That violence escalates to deadly level more often, not that overall violence is higher.

Is it really okay with you that we're only marginally better than regions overrun by drug cartels, gang violence and tribal warfare?

Hardly so. The USA has a much lower overall violent crime rate than anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa and probably anywhere in Central and South America bar Chile.

(Of course, it could help a little if the USA stopped supplying weapons to the cartels in the name of Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Not even Israel gets such a sweet deal on American weapons as the drug cartels. And it is not a metaphor - not even Israel gets it, forget about Taiwan...)

But if I wanted to be more obnoxious, I would point out that the uber patriarchal cultures of the Middle East and the Indosphere have murder and violent crime rates closer to Europe than to the USA, even less Latin America.

Freedom is a good thing, I get it. But it isn't always the best solution to problems. What about a balanced approach?

Well, I do believe broadly in Niven's equation.

F*S = k

You made your choice. Fair enough.