# What the fuck is wrong with Mexico? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 18, 2010, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615 "2010-12-18T08:49:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/101 "2010-12-19T17:01:12Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > Cite, please? > > It’s true, according to figures I’ve seen that violent crimes are down somewhat although with the current economic downturn I suspect we’ll see them rise again once the figures are in. I have seen nothing to indicate that overall drug use has diminished. I remain unconvinced that there is much corellation between drug use and violence in this country anyway. > SS Not just down “somewhat”, but down massively. Los Angeles has the lowest crime rates since the 1950s! > [@LouisB](#): > > _Mein Kampf_ is an actual book whose author has been verified. Chick Tracts fall into the same category. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are forgeries and have been proven to be so many times over. Which one of the three doesn’t belong in this group? And what is your point in throwing these titles out here? > > When did drug use in the US decline? I missed that announcement but I’m always ready to learn. From _The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2006_, “Drug Use: America’s High School Seniors 1980-2004”: Marijuana/hashish- 1980: 60.3% 2004: 45.7% Inhalants-1980:17.3% 2004: 11.4% Amyl & butyl nitrates-1980: 11.1% 2004: 1.3% Hallucinogens-1980:15.6% 2004: 9.9% Cocaine-1980:15.7% 2004:8.1% Amphetamines-1980:26.4% 2004: 15.0% ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/102 "2010-12-19T17:13:13Z")
Not enough jail cells, problem one with the\*\* Ex-Tank \*\*Program. If we put all of the unemployed to work building more jail cells, we might catch up in three-four years. Maybe. Infrastructure wise, not a great investment. Problemo numero two-o: you are accepting the single most destructive drug in our society, alcohol. Either do it, or don’t do it. If you want to institute some form of chemical Calvinism, where messing with your brain is sinful and illegal, doesn’t make much sense to prosecute the relatively harmless while drunks wrap their cars around trees. By the thousands. However, to end on a bright note, about the War of Drugs. Marijuana overdose admissions to emergency rooms are way, way down. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/103 "2010-12-19T18:31:51Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Okay I’m sure you believe that, so I’m not calling you a liar, however that is some god damn ignorant bullshit. > The American reaction to 9/11 showed me what **cowards we really are** as a nation. > > And you know what, if I thought my family was under a very real threat, particularly rape and dismemberment, I\*\* probably would be a lot more complacent \*\*… … > Quite frankly it takes quite a lot of gall to wag your finger at impoverished people just trying not to be gunned down from American funded bullets. …and that is EXACTLY why they will pick on people like you, and on the Mexicans. (Sorry about the finger wagging, but the truth hurts) ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/104 "2010-12-19T18:39:04Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > …and that is EXACTLY why they will pick on people like you, and on the Mexicans. > > (Sorry about the finger wagging, but the truth hurts) They won’t pick on you. They’ll kill you. Probably in front of your family after they have done unimaginable things to all. You can have the arsenal of your choice and they will laugh at you. They attack heavily armed police and soldiers. Do you really think your boundless courage will keep them at bay? ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/105 "2010-12-19T18:42:00Z")
Originally Posted by Susanann YOu dont understand Americans. We don’t cower, and we do have a monopoly on backing-up our courage. > [@Keith\_Berry](#): > > Er…I’m American too, and I’ve known lots of other Americans who have cowered and showed no courage, wether it be in personal behavior, ideals, intellectual bent, etc. Kinda a ridiculous statement. You can be patriotic and realistic at the same time. Obviously, of course, not ““all”” Americans have courage, not all Americans are willing to defend themselves, some Americans are weenies and are willing victims. I spoke in a _generality_. The fact is, that there are enough Americans like me who have **zero tolerance** for violence and who will refuse to let any criminal harm our families. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/106 "2010-12-19T18:44:53Z")
Originally Posted by Susanann …and that is EXACTLY why they will pick on people like you, and on the Mexicans. (Sorry about the finger wagging, but the truth hurts) > [@CBEscapee](#): > > They won’t pick on you. They’ll kill you. Probably in front of your family after they have done unimaginable things to all. You can have the arsenal of your choice and they will laugh at you. They attack heavily armed police and soldiers. Do you really think your boundless courage will keep them at bay? You really do not understand how cowardly, defenseless, defeated, helpless, and pitiful you sound… do you? Get together a 1000 people like you, or a million people who think as you do, and no wonder you guys are slaves to the criminals and corruption, no wonder you guys become victims. You already gave up. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/107 "2010-12-19T20:23:55Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You are accepting the single most destructive drug in our society, alcohol. Either do it, or don’t do it. If you want to institute some form of chemical Calvinism, where messing with your brain is sinful and illegal, doesn’t make much sense to prosecute the relatively harmless while drunks wrap their cars around trees. By the thousands. Amen. And also, for the first two decades of the “war on drugs” the (US) use went up, nor do we don’t have much recent data on opioids. (There’s a a lot of cross use/addiction between pills and brown-tar heroin.) The point is that the violence in Mexico has more to do with shifts in the power structures of the Mexican cartels, than enforcement or use in the US. The problem is that they’d already firmly established their various “domains,” long before this present crisis point. They can’t just be scared off by a posse of valorous citizens, or jingoism and bromides. ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/108 "2010-12-19T20:29:28Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > Originally Posted by Susanann > …and that is EXACTLY why they will pick on people like you, and on the Mexicans. > (Sorry about the finger wagging, but the truth hurts) > > You really do not understand how cowardly, defenseless, defeated, helpless, and pitiful you sound… do you? > Get together a 1000 people like you, or a million people who think as you do, and no wonder you guys are slaves to the criminals and corruption, no wonder you guys become victims. You already gave up. We have had the answer to the problem all along without recognizing it. Who need the _Magnificent Seven_ when we have the _Magnificent Susanann_? I’m sure the minute you clear immigration at the border the cartels will know their demise is imminent and throw down their arms. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/109 "2010-12-19T20:47:16Z")
(Haven’t read the whole thread yet, but I wanted to post while my thoughts were fresh) What’s wrong with Mexico? Porfirio Diaz, the dictator of Mexico at the time of the 1910 revolution, once said, ‘Poor Mexico – so far from God and so near the United States." Thanks to drug trafficing creating an outside source of wealth and power and enabling criminal empires, Mexico is on the verge of becoming a narcorepublic like Columbia. And it isn’t a phenomenon unique to the third world; in the 1980s the government of Italy fought something close to a civil war against organized crime cartels. Judges literally wore masks while trying the accused. A tipping point is reached once even good people feel that corruption is so endemic that trying to be a hero is at best futile and at worst suicidal. When you literally don’t know who to trust, you go with the flow. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/110 "2010-12-19T20:51:01Z")
> [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](#): > > [At least 141 inmates escape from Mexican prison](http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/12/18/mexico.prison.break/?hpt=T2) I once heard that unlike the United States, in Mexico escaping from prison is not in and of itself a crime, on the theory that “Well DUH, of course prisoners will escape if they get the chance!”. Is this “factoid” true? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/111 "2010-12-19T20:54:04Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Mexico needs a firm, ruthless, decisive leader to get the lid on the national crisis- Who in turn would need very, very trustworthy bodyguards. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/112 "2010-12-20T01:03:33Z")
I can drive into certain neighborhoods in St. Petersburg and in Tampa and in Fort Myers and take my pick of drug dealers. I can buy, if I have the money and don’t get killed, any damn drug I want at pretty near any time of day or night. Those are just three areas that I am familiar with. I do not believe illegal drugs use is on any kind of decline, based on my own observation. But everyone knows I am an old, grouchy, stubborn SOB and that’s just the way it is. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/113 "2010-12-20T01:19:10Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Mexico needs a firm, ruthless, decisive leader to get the lid on the national crisis . . . :dubious: Someone like Iturbide? Santa Anna? Maximilian? Porfirio Diaz? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/114 "2010-12-20T05:49:32Z")
Well, it’s definitely not getting any better anytime soon. [ > [@](#): > > Relatives of an anti-crime crusader who was gunned down this week outside a Mexican state governor’s office had their family business burned down Saturday by unknown arsonists, firefighters reported. The blaze that consumed the lumber operation in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, was apparently set intentionally, the local fire department said in a statement. > > The business belongs to the family of Jose Monge, the husband of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who waged a two-year battle to bring her 17-year-old daughter’s killer to justice before she herself was shot to death. ]([News & Analysis | Yahoo News Canada](http://ca.news.yahoo.com/mexico-arsonists-burn-lumber-business-belonging-relatives-slain-20101218-153925-576.html)) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/115 "2010-12-20T06:19:08Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > I spoke in a _generality_. The fact is, that there are enough Americans like me who have **zero tolerance** for violence and who will refuse to let any criminal harm our families. A worse generality. To have zero tolerance for violence is not to tolerate its use for **any** purpose – not even self-defense, home defense or law enforcement. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/116 "2010-12-20T06:21:00Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > You really do not understand how cowardly, defenseless, defeated, helpless, and pitiful you sound… do you? > Get together a 1000 people like you, or a million people who think as you do, and no wonder you guys are slaves to the criminals and corruption, no wonder you guys become victims. You already gave up. Somehow it always **is** the victim’s fault. Funny how that works. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/117 "2010-12-20T08:21:10Z")
Looks like a good sized portion of San Martin Texmelucan went up in flames today, after an oil pipeline was broken into. [ > [@](#): > > At least 28 people were killed, 13 of them children, in a disaster authorities blamed on oil thieves. At least 52 people were hurt and 84 remained in a shelter late Sunday after fleeing San Martin, which is about 55 miles (90 kilometers) east of Mexico City. More than 115 homes were scorched, 32 of them destroyed. ]([http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT\_MEXICO\_PIPELINE\_EXPLOSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-12-20-02-41-45](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_MEXICO_PIPELINE_EXPLOSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-12-20-02-41-45)) Apparently thieves ruptured the pipeline to try and steal the oil, but the pressure was too much for them, so they just took off, leaving the pipeline spewing oil. Oh, and it went into the river, too. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/118 "2010-12-20T08:56:57Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Somehow it always **is** the victim’s fault. Well, you know the answer to that now, dontcha? Shoot the victim’s mother in the head and burn down her family’s business. That’s the Mexican way. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/119 "2010-12-20T13:59:35Z")
I really really like **Susanann** , her parody of a “these colors don’t run” moron with no clue how things actually happen in the real world is spot on. “Hey, Ramon, I know we have the arms and ability to attack and win against a fortified _policia_ station, or to attack a literal army base. Right?” “Si! We have arms and soldado’s to spare!” “I really wanted to make an example of the new Americano woman and her daughers, but I understand she has a handgun, and refuses to allow us to intimidate her.” “Oh really? Well dang. I certainly can’t stand up to that kind of will. I’ll certainly leave her be then.” “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH…” Cut to funeral scene, with 2 caskets being lowered into the ground and **Susanann’s** husband in a wheelchair, paralyzed for life. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615/120 "2010-12-20T14:02:13Z")
Ew, **Tristan**. I mean, **Susanann** is irritating me as much as everyone else in this thread, but seriously, fantasizing about her children dying and husband being crippled for life seems a bit over the top. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-mexico/564615.md?page=7)