Straight Dope Message Board

[Telemark]

Originally Posted by HurricaneDitka

I think the difference is that when people shoot up cars full of innocent women and children here, they're generally captured & prosecuted / killed.

And they were. https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/ameri...day/index.html 51

[bump]

Originally Posted by Knowed Out

I'm pretty sure the beach resorts, archeological sites, historical areas, museums, festivals, ports, and modern entertainment centers draw more money than "rustic" areas. The entire country doesn't live like the Amish. If a community looks "rustic," it's probably because they're broke, not because they're refusing to advance for the sake of tourism.

Right... if anything, the fact that Mexico is considered a middle-income nation ought to really hammer home two things to an American.

First, how amazingly, dramatically wealthy and rich we are here in the US. We look at Mexico and see a lot of poverty and an inability to provide what we consider basic services (safe water, public safety, etc...), yet that's middle income by world standards.

Second, if Mexico is middle income, it should make us wonder just how bad off lower income countries are. 52

[Urbanredneck]

Mexico does have some good colleges and businesses. I think one frustration that pushes immigration is the lack of opportunity for a young person from a poor background that wants to get a good paying job because there is little social mobility and hard work isnt rewarded. The good jobs mostly go to family members and those with contacts. 53

[bump]

Originally Posted by Urbanredneck

Mexico does have some good colleges and businesses. I think one frustration that pushes immigration is the lack of opportunity for a young person from a poor background that wants to get a good paying job because there is little social mobility and hard work isnt rewarded. The good jobs mostly go to family members and those with contacts.

That's very true. I went to graduate school with a bunch of international students, including several from Mexico and the level of casual corruption in their country's cultures was astounding to me.

I think there's a lot of stuff that we, as Americans or Western Europeans take for granted that aren't the case elsewhere in the world, and having substantially non-corrupt societies is one of them. I remember being stunned when the Mexican and Turkish MBA students in grad school were tickled that in the US, they didn't have to grease anyone's palm to get mundane, routine stuff done, like getting a copy of their transcript, or getting their car inspected. Apparently that's the way it rolls in those countries- you have to hook people up to get hooked up. 54

[jasg]

So, we offer to send troops to Mexico to strike back against the cartels.

Does that mean we will welcome Mexican and German troops to fight our white nationalists since both countries had citizens murdered in El Paso last August? 55

[HurricaneDitka]

Originally Posted by jasg

So, we offer to send troops to Mexico to strike back against the cartels.

Does that mean we will welcome Mexican and German troops to fight our white nationalists since both countries had citizens murdered in El Paso last August?

It's unnecessary. Our military didn't lose a battle to the cartels a few weeks ago. Mexico's did. 56

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Urbanredneck

Mexico does have some good colleges and businesses. I think one frustration that pushes immigration is the lack of opportunity for a young person from a poor background that wants to get a good paying job because there is little social mobility and hard work isnt rewarded. The good jobs mostly go to family members and those with contacts.

Or, if the company is American, to the Americans. 57

[HurricaneDitka]

Originally Posted by Telemark

And they were. https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/ameri...day/index.html

Not so much, it seems:

On Tuesday, Mexican authorities announced the arrest of a suspect in relation to the massacre.

But Wednesday, Durazo said investigators have learned the suspect was not involved.

Source 58

[kanicbird]

We say drug cartel for Mexico, and drug gang in the US. It is still part of the same distribution system. The coast guard and border patrol can only also stop a fraction of what's coming in. By the same reasoning is the US also a failed state? 59

[Telemark]

Originally Posted by HurricaneDitka

Not so much, it seems:

That's unfortunate, but it's still pretty early. 60

[CBEscapee]

Huge quantities of illegal drugs pour into the USA across the border everyday. Something that has been going on for many years. If your law enforcement is so great, why is this allowed to happen? You cannot controll illegal gun sales. With such unlimited resources, what seems to be the problem? 61

[octopus]

Originally Posted by CBEscapee

Huge quantities of illegal drugs pour into the USA across the border everyday. Something that has been going on for many years. If your law enforcement is so great, why is this allowed to happen? You cannot controll illegal gun sales. With such unlimited resources, what seems to be the problem?

Those are good questions. US law enforcement does seem to have several issues with corruption and efficiency. 62

[HurricaneDitka]

Originally Posted by Telemark

That's unfortunate, but it's still pretty early.

Sure. These are probably the highest profile murders in Mexico this year, so these might be the exception that actually get solved. Maybe. Still, most of the tens of thousands of murders in Mexico each year go unsolved. 63

[GIGObuster]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

We say drug cartel for Mexico, and drug gang in the US. It is still part of the same distribution system. The coast guard and border patrol can only also stop a fraction of what's coming in. By the same reasoning is the US also a failed state?

The OPs argument is indeed very incomplete.

Those like the OP insisting that Mexico is a failed state are not taking into account how there is a big middle, one where Mexico is located.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...e_States_Index

Best stable nations:
Switzerland
Norway
Finland

Most fragile ones (or failed as it was the name of the index earlier):
Yemen
Somalia
South Sudan

Mexico does get into the warning area, Brazil is in a worst place BTW.

And thanks in part also with the corrupting nature of the drug war and Trump's corrupted view of corruption, the USA is dropping in the index. Being #12 among the most worsening nations regarding the index. 64

[manson1972]

Originally Posted by CBEscapee

Huge quantities of illegal drugs pour into the USA across the border everyday. Something that has been going on for many years. If your law enforcement is so great, why is this allowed to happen? You cannot controll illegal gun sales. With such unlimited resources, what seems to be the problem?

There is not enough time to stop illegal drugs and illegal gun sales because they are focusing on a substantial threat to the National Security of the United States - young children sneaking across the border. 65

[Telemark]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._homicide_rate

US Virgin Islands - 49.26/100K inhabitants
Mexico - 24.89
Puerto Rico - 18.50
US - 5.30
Canada - 1.80

About 40% of US homicides go unsolved. I can't find the percentage for Mexico, anyone have that? 66

[HurricaneDitka]

Unfortunately, your Wikipedia figures are a couple of years out of date, and those couple of years have not been good ones in Mexico:

WSJ - Mexico’s Murder Rate Hit Record High in 2018

The National Statistics Institute said there were 35,964 murders last year, a 12% increase from 2017. The murder rate rose to 29 per 100,000 inhabitants from 26 the previous year.

BBC - Mexico murder rate rises in first three months of 2019

The report says 8,493 people were murdered from 1 January to 31 March, a 9.6% rise from the same period in 2018.

Reuters - Murders in Mexico surge to record in first half of 2019

Murders in Mexico jumped in the first half of the year to the highest on record, according to official data, underscoring the vast challenges President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador faces in reducing violence in the cartel-ravaged country.

There were 14,603 murders from January to June, versus the 13,985 homicides registered in the first six months of 2018, according to data posted over the weekend on the website of Mexico’s national public security office.

Mexico is on course to surpass the 29,111 murders of last year, an all-time high.

NY Post - Mexico murder rate spirals out of control, hitting 94 killings a day

The news outlet, citing figures from the secretariat of security and citizens protection, noted that June saw the most murders of any month on record, with more than 3,000 people killed.

"hugs, not bullets" appears to be failing.


Also, the WSJ article above contains the answer to your last question:

Since Mexico only solves a fraction of murders, the low likelihood of being caught is a problem that grows worse when the overall number of homicides rises, since authorities’ capacity to solve them stays the same, said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst and former member of Mexico’s intelligence services.

He said only 13% of murders in Mexico end in a suspect coming before a judge, compared with about 66% in the U.S. and 80% in Europe.

67

[HurricaneDitka]

And now, one more can be added to the year's grim total: Daily Mail - Shocking moment Mexican police officer who arrested drug lord El Chapo's son is shot 150 TIMES in brutal broad daylight revenge execution 68

[GIGObuster]

Originally Posted by HurricaneDitka

"hugs, not bullets" appears to be failing.

Actually you are falling for the right wing sources that still supports the failed war against drugs.

It is also an effort to toss the baby with the bathwater, what the President of Mexico and other nations being corrupted by the drug war are concluding is that drugs need to be decriminalized. There is however a good point to be made that the president of Mexico is wrong when there is ALSO an apparent disregard to what the cartels are doing after acts of murder and violence are taking place. However, that is even not the whole history when one sees a lot of the media in the USA ignoring what took place before "hugs not bullets"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-m...-idUSKBN1WX2H5

Point being that "Hugs not bullets" is only one part of one solution, interdiction and arrest of the ones that are not reciprocating is a different part and not the reason for the violence as it is implied here. 69

[CBEscapee]

Originally Posted by HurricaneDitka

And now, one more can be added to the year's grim total: Daily Mail - Shocking moment Mexican police officer who arrested drug lord El Chapo's son is shot 150 TIMES in brutal broad daylight revenge execution

Yes one more death in the war on drugs. But the headline is completely false. He was not involved in the arrest of el Chapito. 70

[HurricaneDitka]

Originally Posted by CBEscapee

Yes one more death in the war on drugs. But the headline is completely false. He was not involved in the arrest of el Chapito.

You may be right, but it's more than just the headline that's wrong then. The article starts out:

The Mexican police officer involved in the arrest of the son of reputed drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman has been assassinated in a parking lot. ...

I have no difficulty believing that the Daily Mail is completely capable of being utterly wrong on that point. 71

[RioRico]

Given its miserable third-world socioeconomic status, is Alabama a failed state? 72

[HurricaneDitka]

Originally Posted by RioRico

Given its miserable third-world socioeconomic status, is Alabama a failed state?

Alabama's per-capita GDP = $37,261

Mexico's per-capita GDP = $8,902

So, Mexico's about four times the failed state that Alabama is, if we're basing the assessment off socioeconomic status. 73