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In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

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Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#141
post #109
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISIS did actually govern. They had their own DMV.

Which was always the reason I thought there was more to ISIS than the western portrait of a group of extremist ideologues. State construction and maintenance is not a trivial thing and their are not the sort of skills you stumble upon within a group of "madmen". The groups spontaneous arrival and near immediate success in this regard was a little remarkable imo, and raises interesting questions on support and backing…

They conquered an area, so by necessity they governed. No sane person would claim that was good governance in any shape or form.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#142

I'm reminded of this recent viral Youtube which depicts what is apparently a routine occurrence in South Africa: A professional gang, armed with heavy caliber weapons, executes a sophisticated highway ambush in an attempt to capture a vehicle loaded with cell phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvqDF3Wujc I watched an interview with Leo Prinsloo, the star of the video. He mentioned that although this incident we…

> But observing countries like Mexico and South Africa, where gangs and police forces have started to merge, has helped me realize that there are important nonlinear effects. This happens in the US[1][2], as well. [1] https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fbi-investigating-... [2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-13/villanue...

I was going to say...as someone who grew up in New York in the `60s and `70s, the idea of the police force collaborating with the “gangs” is a pretty commonplace one for me.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#143
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're observing is the process in which states originally asserted themselves as sovereign in the first place. Ie with a ton of violence. Say in ~20 years if those states failed, and Narco states were born out of them, eventually they'll establish a version of governance and im sure sure the cycle would continue.

The mafia's idea of economy is based on sucking people dry via their vices and weaknesses. I don't want any sort of governance by pushers, pimps, and goons.

vices and weaknesses -such as fast food, lottery and tax-free religions?

pushers -like the pharmaceutical industry? Pimps like the folks in Hollywood who make money off of titillation (and more -see Harvey Weinstein for one example) and goons such as the ones who raid travellers of cash in the name of "civil forfeiture"(eg https://www.huffpost.com/entry/civil-asset-forfeiture-cash-m...? )

The difference is becoming less profound than you may perhaps be aware of. Ask yourself -why do the police still commit violent abuses even with body cams and the bad publicity? The answer is -because it doesn't matter, because they can. That is different from "goons" how?

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experience? Infrastructure? Level of development? You can act afraid of Mexico or just go there and have a good time and notice the difference. The only bad parts of Mexico is where the recognized government and the local cartel haven't ceded power and are in conflict. They both like a booming economy and market confidence, just a different strongman to pay from a user experience perspective.

Supposing my pocket is picked in a cartel-governed part of Mexico, what remedies are available?

Insurance is likely your best option for an actual remedy.

That kind of crime can be very difficult to deal with. Prosecution, enforcement, all of it is very expensive. Damages to the victim can be severe or minor.

Best defense is to avoid being a victim and or having options should it happen anyway, and or limiting your personal risk exposure.

As another said, remedies are not robust and that is true for many governments / parts of the world.

Scams, and other petty crime work in similar ways.

Maybe the best overall approach is to run the nation well enough to make the risk / reward equation less favorable by reducing the value of the reward. Another option is education delivered in immediate, can't miss it fashion.

Happy, healthy people tend to not need these crimes, and they will happen less. Educated travelers tend to present unfavorable risk / reward scenarios.

As a potential target, your best defense is to also make that risk reward equation less favorable by both increasing risk perception and marginalizing the perception of there being a reward in like kind.

Similar dynamics apply right here in the USA as anyone living in the wrong part of town can tell you.

Just for general interest, my spouse and I got to put all that to work after buying our first home. After experiencing a little of that kind of crime, we lit the place up, got a dog, and began to approach the neighbors.

Some were moving, and other starter families like us moved in.

It took about a year. Everyone cleaning up, lighting up, dogs, other basics, and lots of positive activity on the streets.

Prior to all of us doing that work, minor property and person crime, as well as the occasional shooting nearby were the norms.

Police would respond, take reports and basically could offer nothing but the promise of more frequent patrols. I am not sure that had any impact.

After talking with a friend who does security for a living, we gained insight:

Simply not being a desirable target is by far and away the most effective thing one can do.

Risk / reward thinking is very highly effective! We noticed posotive impact after only a month or two and after a sustained time, it was a different neighborhood. One where kids could play in the street, go from home to home, etc... it also was one where people did not need locking gas caps and lug nuts too.

We enjoyed roughly a decade.

As people moved, it began to break down. The big change was working on jeeps guy right across the street. Unwilling to participate, the area saw more crime return. Just did not take long.

We left, and two years later it was the same warzone we had changed for a decade.

In the case of pick pockets, you being a stranger, doing your best to not look like a mark, not act like one, and blending in, not flashy all add right up.

To the pick pocket, you become elevated into undesirable and will be fine. They want lower risk, easy marks that offer solid to great rewards.

They can be in, do it, and out and may not even be identified before anyone can really understand what has happened and convince authorities to respond.

Some regions post info on this for travellers unaware and who may act on the info to better their chances.

We do it in airports with the often heard, "it is illegal for others to offer you a ride" notices we hear after air travel arrivals, for example.

We do that because poisoning the waters, so to speak, is effective in ways policing cannot easily be.

Heck, a cartel interested in tourism may well do the same thing any local government would with similar outcomes and maybe a bit more harsh penalty for regular offenders.

None of that is a remedy for you directly, but it all can make the equation less favorable, which does help you, and can be considerable help given indirectly.

The rest is on you, hopefully savvy traveler.

Source: regular attendance when the bell at the fine school of hard knocks rang, graduated with honors eventually.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#145
post #100

I'm reminded of this recent viral Youtube which depicts what is apparently a routine occurrence in South Africa: A professional gang, armed with heavy caliber weapons, executes a sophisticated highway ambush in an attempt to capture a vehicle loaded with cell phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvqDF3Wujc I watched an interview with Leo Prinsloo, the star of the video. He mentioned that although this incident we…

For an Indian example where the links between crime and government are more direct, there was a recent scandal where a disgraced Mumbai Police Commissioner wrote an open letter where he said his (also disgraced) subordinate was tasked by the state's Home Minister to extort 13 million USD from the city's businessmen every month . Heck, I assumed that nearly all politicians and a lot of policemen here are thoroughly co…

Yes, in India a lot of police force acts as extortion agents for whoever is in power. I have some extended family members as officers in police. They told me in every police station there is a policeman whose only job is to collect ransom from local bars, businesses and crime lords. This money is collected all over state and the majority of the cut goes to heads of political party in power. These funds are then used for elections. Everyone gets a cut. The cut depends on which level of bureaucracy you are employed at. This arbitrage exists because India has a lot of very strict and obscure laws around everything and to not have law interfere you have to pay this ransom. This is also known otherwise as licence raj.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An equivalent question is: why does human evil exist? Your answer will depend on your worldview -- your beliefs on matters like origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. If you're not sure, I'd suggest evaluating candidate worldviews with an eye toward comparing the extent to which their propositions correspond to reality and are internally consistent.

It’s not evil. These people don’t go to bed at night thinking they are the villain. The real answer is more depressing: people have to eat. These police are part of a system that is threatening the livelihood of cartels and with the exception of a few people at the top this livelihood is what feeds theirs families.

What? You can definitely find jobs to eat in Mexico. This is the silliest take. It's not like the villages suddenly don't have land to grow food on

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#147
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cartels only exist because of its illegality. Wait, what? You are saying there are no cartels in enterprises where the underlying good is legal? For example, oil cartels don't exist? The cartel will exist if the existance of the cartel causes it to make more money than would otherwise be the case. You should read about all the knee cappings and dirty dealings standard oil did in the U.S. When the US had mob problem…

> For example, oil cartels don't exist? Oil cartels are a different kind of cartel. They don't go around casually murdering their rivals, let alone innocent people as acceptable collateral damage.

Khashoggi was casually murdered by the Saudis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khash...

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#148

I'm reminded of this recent viral Youtube which depicts what is apparently a routine occurrence in South Africa: A professional gang, armed with heavy caliber weapons, executes a sophisticated highway ambush in an attempt to capture a vehicle loaded with cell phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvqDF3Wujc I watched an interview with Leo Prinsloo, the star of the video. He mentioned that although this incident we…

> Once "crime" gets bad enough, the state begins to lose its monopoly on force, and I'm not sure it is possible to recover from that.

Exactly, it's the old hobbes-ian dilemma, you need a "Leviathan" to hold said monopoly on force no matter what, otherwise you risk sinking into a civil war situation.

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#149
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they do the same that politicians do here... they keep the cops busy grabbing individuals, but they turn a blind eye to the shipments of tons that are sent via airplanes that could be intercepted easily. In the end everyone knows that it is a deal between traffickers and politicians.

> In the end everyone knows that it is a deal between traffickers and politicians This is not true in the US. We have no politicians that are suspected of being involved with cartels. While our policies might not help the situation, no politician is actually working with traffickers.

No, that's what the CIA is for. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...

Re: In Mexico, cartels are hunting down police at their homes

#150

why do humans do this sort of thing?

Humans do this when they are extremely poor and must survive poverty by themselves and then, an organization (criminal, by the way) starts to take care of them.

Care is materialized by revenue here, but imho, what is important is that those organizations won by giving those people a future the government failed to provide.

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