Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue • Hacker News Board

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#231

Post by drawkbox » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:42 AM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #81

It's us , the USA, that is causing this paper to shutdown. The cartels are financed by the insatiable drug appetite of its close neighbor. Our inability and/or unwillingness to legalize recreational drugs is the feeding tube for these vicious groups.

The War on Drugs is now taking down free press in other countries, it is has gone too far for too long.

It is essentially funding terror and when you see the billions being made in only a few states such as Colorado with 1+ billion in 2016 [1]. Large amounts of wealth, probably 50-100+ billion going to cartels in the south annually to fund very bad things.

Prohibition always creates a criminal black market that becomes uncontrollable when there is a large demand for a product that is illegal. Better to make it legal, remove the revenue for cartels and use some for taxes and lots of jobs in the US. Colorado already has 20k jobs from ending prohibition on marijuana, that could be a 200k nationwide job creator. Legal markets, education, rehabilitation and safe use could also provide many jobs.

Legal marijuana markets in the US are already at such high growth rates that they rival the dot com boom growth [2]. It makes pro-business and safety sense to legalize and make it a health issue not a criminal one, because the criminalization of it is creating very bad blow back and funding terror essentially, destroying privacy and lives along the way. The punishment of non-violent drug users, enforcement and resulting black market criminals are way worse than the act and it is cruel and unusual punishment on individuals and people now on a massive scale worldwide.

[1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/marijuana-tax-revenue-hit-2...

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-04/legal-marijuana-sales-...

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#232

Post by tim333 » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:45 AM UTC

known wrote: post #215

Why not give guns to journalists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_owner...

Not sure how that's supposed to help. If some sniper shoots you it doesn't make much difference if you were carrying a gun or not.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#233

Post by tim333 » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:47 AM UTC

douche wrote: post #197

The entire Spanish new world has been a failed state for the past 300 years. Peruvian and Mexican metals kept them viable for a while, but that ran out long ago. Coke has barely filled the void, thanks to US prohibition.

Columbia has done a pretty good turn around from Mexican style violence to peaceful.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#234

Post by samstave » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:51 AM UTC

telesilla wrote: post #11

I truly love the country of México - I have spent a large periods of time there for the climate, as a place to work and have a wonderful life, away from the chills of winter. I often thought about making a permanent relocation, but this terror is too real and I found myself living in constant anxiety of my friends and colleagues being in danger, and the fear of speaking your mind weighs on you after a while. I am sad…

wow - what a beautiful comment

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#235

Post by btdiehr » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:58 AM UTC

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #77

joemi wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restriction of free speech is a tool of fascist regimes. You don't fight fascism by becoming a fascist yourself.

A hammer is a tool of fascist regimes as well. Doesn't mean you become a fascist by using a hammer. (For what its's worth, I support free speech as well. I just don't support poor arguments.)

Are you sure you don't support poor arguments?

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#236

Post by vacri » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #212

rtpg wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading some anecdote from an Iraqi at the peak of the war. They talked about how most of the time you're totally safe, but every once in a while a bomb will go off and a bunch of people will die. There's a spectrum of danger that a lot of us have had the privilege to not experience. I could imagine getting mugged in some places in Europe, but not really imagine dying in the "mugging gone wrong => someone…

The majority of the US has a murder rate comparable to Canada. The US has particularly extremely tilted murder rates based on location. Relatively small areas with hyper murder rates very substantially skew the numbers. A couple dozen neighborhoods in Chicago for example combine to account for about 2% of all murders in the US (with murder rates 50 to 100 times the national average). A minimum of 95% of the US popula…

> but it is very impressive compared to Latin America and Europe's largest country, Russia.

"Better than Russia!" isn't much to brag about when it comes to social niceties. Given that the US starts out at half Russia's homicide rate even before you filter out anything, it seems like you're intentionally selecting a very bad comparator to make it look good.

And given that 17 of the top 20 homicide-rate countries are in Latin America, that's an even worse comparator. Indeed, the top 4 countries that are around double #5 and below, they're all in Latin America. You couldn't ask for a worse comparator - being better than the most extreme outliers isn't "very impressive" in the slightest.

Likewise, if you're pulling the trick of "oh, don't include the bits where the crime really happens", you need to do the same to the other countries you're comparing against. They have crime centers as well, and it's not an apples-to-apples comparison if you don't treat them similarly.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#237

Post by hwillis » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 6:02 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #219

hwillis wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole premise is that some states want to make it easier than that. What is a state green card even for if it's just redundant with an existing H1B visa and doesn't increase the total number of immigrants whatsoever? Look, here's some perspective. The US annually admits: 65,000 H1B visas 70,000 Refugee visas ~200,000 nonfamily immigration visas ~675,000 undetected illegal immigrants 675,000 immigration visas tot…

> If you want to just drop a kid down so they become a citizen, it is a hundred times easier to do it on a travel visa and it always will be. Regardless of how many state green cards there are, it will always be orders of magnitude easier to get a travel visa, hop on a plane, and stay under the radar for a couple months. That requires that you can afford to buy a plane ticket and then spend nine months not working wh…

>That requires that you can afford to buy a plane ticket and then spend nine months not working while paying US cost of living and pregnancy-related medical expenses out of pocket, which puts it out of reach for most people in the world.

Uh... It requires literally none of those things. You can get into the US on a car, train, boat, bicycle or a good pair of chanclas. You certainly don't need to be here nine months to have a kid. You can certainly find work in that time, and emergency medical care is "free". And while yes, it means more people, those people are a far cry from new immigrants and their numbers can still be limited federally. And regardless, with 12 million immigrants here already, the number of births won't be changing much any time soon.

I think you're rather missing the forest for the trees with the rest.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#238

Post by mirimir » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 6:05 AM UTC

gph wrote: post #56

telesilla wrote: post #11

I truly love the country of México - I have spent a large periods of time there for the climate, as a place to work and have a wonderful life, away from the chills of winter. I often thought about making a permanent relocation, but this terror is too real and I found myself living in constant anxiety of my friends and colleagues being in danger, and the fear of speaking your mind weighs on you after a while. I am sad…

>may things improve for you, though I really have no idea how that will happen. I think a good first step would be changing attitudes towards drug use. We should treat users as patients instead of criminals. And waging a 'war' against dealers and smugglers has only made them more violent and dangerous, while driving up prices and making those who survive even wealthier. There needs to be smarter policies.

What happened to Mexico seems quite clear. Back in the 80s-90s, South American cocaine and marijuana were mainly smuggled via Central America and the Caribbean. Some Mexican marijuana and heroin was smuggled to the US, but quality was low, and there wasn't much money in it.

But then the US clamped down on the Caribbean route. And now cocaine was moving through Mexico. Now most illegal marijuana comes from Canada. So Mexican gangs are mainly moving cocaine (and heroin).

So yes, it's the US drug problem, and the War on Drugs, that's fucked over Mexico.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#239

Post by Animats » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 6:13 AM UTC

hwillis wrote: post #171

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very easy to make AK-like and AR-like guns. Even if it's correct that the majority come from the US, they certainly wouldn't have to. Many hobbyists even do this kind of thing, and it doesn't require any particularly special manufacturing equipment. My guess would be that the reason they seize more ARs than AKs is not related to the source, but because they find ARs preferable. If somehow guns stopped flowing ac…

>It's very easy to make AK-like and AR-like guns. Preface: I know guns, I like guns, I am a competent machinist and I know all about lowers, gun laws, and the shovel AK. It is not easy to make guns. You need huge factories and while the cartels are theoretically capable of such things, its incomparable to US-based gun manufacture. Mexican factories can be shut down. Mexico can do nothing about guns that come from the…

A small shop in Guadalajara was making AR-15 lower receivers, using a Hardinge VMC 600 ii CNC mill.[1] This wasn't the usual operation starting from "80% lower receivers"; they were machining the whole part from plain aluminum billets. The machining job lacks a finish pass, but probably works.

There are some surprisingly primitive yet successful gun factories in the third world.

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-cartel-gunsmi...

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#240

Post by Sunset » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #42

thinkmilitant wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, free speech can be very dangerous. People use it to mobilize others to truly evil acts. But freedoms have always been dangerous. I think they are worth the risk.

The risk is mass murder. Nazis have murdered over 200 people in the last two decades alone in Germany. In Chechenya, only two days ago homophobes murdered at the very least three homosexual people, arrested over a hundred - and credible activists fear for much worse numbers. Fascist and reactionary ideologies always lead to death.

Whole 200 people? Laughable, they need to step their game up. The US government has them beat by millions.