Knock it off immediately, Susanann. This kind of commentary doesn’t belong in this forum.
This is totally inappropriate for Great Debates and it probably wouldn’t be allowed even in the BBQ Pit. This is a formal warning: please don’t do this again.
Thank God that thanks to that fact criminal violence is a thing of the past in the USA.
Maximilian, whilst admirable, was neither firm, ruthless nor decisive.
I read a volume of his autobiographical travel jottings once, published before he became Emperor. Banged on a lot about the moral horrors of slavery. Which however true, as with the similar anti-slavery feelings of Frederick the Great a century earlier, implied a certain lack of understanding of the New World which would impede pragmatic rule over people attached to violent and oppressive thinking.
Of course, slavery was abolished in Mexico a generation before him; he was thinking of the USA and Brazil, in the last of which it was finally overthrown by the Emperor Pedro. Who was then overthrown by the outraged landowners.
When I first heard the story og this tragedy, I immediately questioned whether it was thieves or the government’s attempt at a cover up. It is now being reported as an accidendçtal rupture of the pipe.
Roll 212
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13192085&postcount=7
And now for a word for our senior Mexican drug war correspondent Wyatt Cenac…
:mad: Look, you wanna know how to solve Mexico’s mess?! Easy! The Mexicans should stop smuggling drugs into this country!
Instead, they should keep them for their own consumption and mellow out. It would improve things immensely.
No like Cromwell, Bismarck, Uribe.
At this point, a Chavez would do Mexico more good than an Uribe.
Colombia also basically just said “Fuck it” to human rights and via ruthless campaigns by paramilitary folks brought down the violence. Italy stopped the Mafia violence in a somewhat less violent (if less satisfying manner) by triggering the collapse of the existing political parties.
Has Chavez fought crime ruthlessly? Then I support him for any sort of politician (except maybe someone like Pol Pot or Hitler) is better than a narcostate.
EDIT: Actually according to Wiki to be under Chavez crime rates in Venezeula have risen with the homicide rate doubling and Caracas has the highest murder rate in the world so how would a Chavez be good for Mexico…?
I would like to take this moment to publicly apologize to anyone who was offended by my post. When I made it, I did not realize it could or would be interpreted as a “death fantasy” in regards to susanann or her family.
That was not, in any way, my intent, and therefore I sincerly apologize. I will duck out of this thread at this point.
Where is it being reported that way? Can you link to the story?
Looks like the paramiltary groups are saying “fuck you” not fuck it.
[Criminal gangs that emerged from Colombia’s former paramilitary organizations are carrying out massacres, rapes and extortion, a human rights group said Wednesday.](Criminal gangs that emerged from Colombia’s former paramilitary organizations are carrying out massacres, rapes and extortion, a human rights group said Wednesday.)
Where’s Chief Pedant?
He’ll tell you what’s wrong with Mexico!
I think this answers the OP fairly well. Mexican Cartels earnings are over 7% of the entire country’s GDP. I think that if we had a group of criminals in our midst willing to murder wantonly and had 1.03 TRILLION dollars to spend on it we might find ourselves similarly mismatched. This figure is almost a third of our total government spending for the last several years.
These are not some kind of revolutionaries that have a greater social change in mind, leading to some kind of end game goal. They just want their business to continue into perpetuity. Ideally for the drug cartels two things would happen: 1. The Mexican government/people would look the other way and allow them to operate freely and 2. The US would continue to keep price and demand for drugs as high as possible. However, goal #1 isn’t mandatory (obviously) because currently the state lacks the power or will to stop them. It’s #2 that they depend on the most, and you would have to counter both of these problems to ever hope to curb their influence. As was said earlier, these cockroaches have always been there, growing since the 70’s and 80’s, it’s only recently that anyone decided to pull out the fridge and realized they had become much too big to squash.
To confront them head on is often a questionable proposition even for the police and military of their own country. To challenge them yourself is pointless/suicidal/idiotic. You would just be another log into the fire.
To some here in the states it seems like these are just common hooligans that any soccer mom with a hand cannon can repel by sheer will alone, but these groups are armed better than many militaries around the world, and likely more ruthless than most. Some may claim that they would still refuse to cower, but reality shows that these gangs are so brutal that they wouldn’t give a second thought to killing anyone brave enough to stand up, plus committing atrocities against anyone they might have loved as a warning to everyone else. If you took down 20 of their men in a rambo-esque last stand they wouldn’t even blink, and you might even make their point more apparent.
There is definitely plenty of blame to go around, from US drug use and weapons laws to decades of Mexican complacency and general acceptance of corruption. As far as solutions go; when a problem has been brewing this long between two parties, when both sides blame each other for causing it and neither (or at least one party) is really willing to accept responsibility and attempt to fix it, what would you expect to happen? Is this any type of path to conflict resolution?
All true, no doubt. But widespread public corruption in Mexico is a lot older than the cross-border drug trade.
The primary problem with Mexico today is the same problems as yesterday: they don’t have money. To help their problem (not solve the problem, that is beyond our feeble powers) we need to do two unpopular things: first, legalize drugs, so that there is no black market incentive. Second, we need to create a functional “guest worker” program that will offer a legitimate source of income to Mexicans who don’t want to become narcotraficantes. And mostly, they don’t, because thug life isn’t any better there than here.
These are reasonable, responsible, and rational efforts, hence, I despair of them.
The US cannot directly influence the market price, unless they start making their own drugs and undercutting the cartel’s prices. They can only affect demand (by deterring their citizens from using drugs) and operating costs (by hindering the drug cartels’ efforts).
I totally agree. Much like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the political system in Mexico no doubt contributes indirectly to the Cartels, by having a culture where such criminal elements can operate in relative freedom. They own a large share of the blame and even if the US were to legalize all drugs tomorrow, it would require true accountability and changes to the Mexican political culture to ensure that they wouldn’t simply migrate to some other branch of crime. They have already diversified into other illegal areas, although drugs remain the most profitable. I think the only realistic solution will have to include fixing the supply/demand equation on the US side and cleaning up the Mexican government to eliminate the endemic corruption there. Neither is easy and I don’t see political will in either country to make any progress on either front.
It makes me sad, as I’m a spanish-fluent gringo that used to live in AZ and has traveled dozens of time all over Mexico. I love the country and the people, but the place is turning into a real shithole, especially at the borders. They’re our neighbor for og’s sake!
You have to think of it as a supply and demand problem.
Right now in the US the demand is high [no pun intended]: lots of people want to get stoned, and they are obviously more than willing to break our own laws to do it.
At the same time, supply is low: Drugs are illegal so you can’t just order more from China, it takes substantial investment/sophistication to circumvent the law.
Obviously low supply:high demand is going to make prices skyrocket. You can fix either side of the equation, either reducing demand (ie-make people not want to get high) by stricter sentencing, drug education/prevention, mandatory drug testing for US citizens, etc; or you can fix the supply side by legalization and letting people sell without all of the overhead an illegal operation necessarily entails and make it harder for the cartels to have any advantage. Both have benefits and aren’t mutually exclusive; different tacts for different drugs.
I don’t want to seem a quitter, but it just seems like the last 30 years of trying to convince people to not want to get high haven’t really work. At all. Maybe we should try something else?