[coldtea]

>I guess I'm probably in a great position to argue for or against prisons as a means of protecting the population from criminals, since I'm not from the US, which you seem to assume.

Well, let's not necessarily assume you're "in a great position". But, yeah, you sure are in a much greater position to argue about that, than someone from a country that enforcings this "means of protection" but still has horrific crime stats...

>Hey, maybe cancer causes cigarettes instead of the other way around, you never really know.

I wouldn't exactly call "culture" a single-direction causual factor like cigarette smoking.

But what do I know, perhaps a strawman can be correct once in a while!