Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 233 posts

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#181

Post by dsego »

TrackerFF wrote: post #118

Used to date a girl from Honduras (Tegucigalpa), and heard some real horror stories about the day-to-day crime. One day a gang knocked on her parents door (they owned an apartment) and pretty much gave them a 2-day notice to get out. They packed their stuff, and left. Their senior neighbor did not - she ended up getting killed. Apparently gangs like that just seize apartments, and use them for criminal activities (pr…

I've heard similar from a Honduran girl who moved to my country. She says she's never going back.

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#182

Post by [deleted] »

sam_goody wrote: post #171
Gustomaximus wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've pondered on this and wonder if religion could be the answer. I say this as an atheist. But churches, typically already established well in these areas, could have the community structure combines with good social values and zeal/commitment, even fanaticism to see through what would likely be tough time initially to cleaning up areas. Something along the lines of a Knights Templar where segment of a community dev…

To quote a speech I heard in college: "It frustrates me to no end that, as a species, the religious are more fit. Their communities are more structured, and have less crime and violence. Their families larger, more nuclear and more supportive of each other. Their members are more relaxed, and have more purpose to their lives. Evolution would state that, eventually, only the religious will survive. If there is a God,…

[deleted]

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#183

Post by barrkel »

rayiner wrote: post #99
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote: post #95

Criminalization of drugs is a price support program for the cartels. Legalise the drugs and allow legal production - and the cartels will have to find an honest way to make a living like the rest of us have to do.

> Legalise the drugs and allow legal production - and the cartels will have to find an honest way to make a living like the rest of us have to do. This is magical thinking. Organized crime can make money in other ways. This story is about kidnapping, for example. Organized crime exists in many places where it’s not funded by drug trade.

Organized crime can make money in other ways, but fundamentally it profits from regulatory and legal arbitrage: the difference between what is in demand and what is legal to supply. Decriminalization directly attacks the fundamentals of that arbitrage, whether it's drugs or prostitution, or more prosaic like fuel taxes or tobacco duty (smuggling both has been a source of funding for IRA in Northern Ireland, historically).

Kidnapping is more of a capital arbitrage situation. I don't think it scales like drugs. For it to be really worthwhile, it relies on people with a lot of capital coming into the area. If you scale up kidnapping, people simply don't come, or invest a lot more in security.

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#184

Post by gilrain »

StartupTree wrote: post #149
rexpop wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that the violence in Honduras is, in no small part, part of the US State Department's bipartisan foreign policy from which we benefit. Fast fashion, which Americans consume, is enabled by the precarious situations we've foist upon the Hondurans by destabilizing their government, and installing leadership sympathetic to our colonial interests. Your ex-girlfriend's uncle died for my t-shirt. > Ten…

Blaming the US for the endless violence in Honduras is typical internet nonsense.

Yet the "nonsense" is the one with the cogent argument and citations? Interesting.

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#185

Post by wil421 »

3131s wrote: post #125
TrackerFF wrote: post #118

Used to date a girl from Honduras (Tegucigalpa), and heard some real horror stories about the day-to-day crime. One day a gang knocked on her parents door (they owned an apartment) and pretty much gave them a 2-day notice to get out. They packed their stuff, and left. Their senior neighbor did not - she ended up getting killed. Apparently gangs like that just seize apartments, and use them for criminal activities (pr…

As someone who is from the US but lives in a poor country, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to take the already dire situations of place like this and then add in 2-3x the drug trafficking violence compared to the US. Legalizing most recreational drugs around the world is absolutely imperative! If it is not done sooner than later then the largest drug trafficking organizations will be so entrenched that it…

If the drugs become legal who do you think will be making and distributing them in the US? The same cartels and criminal organizations who traffic drugs today.

The end users will have a different experience but selling and trafficking drugs will remain illegal.

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#186

Post by stronglikedan »

bigbob2 wrote: post #67
deepsun wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a bit of advice from eastern european dictatures -- the more people try to refrain from politics, the worse politics screws up their lives. So I ended up respecting politised people, regardless of their views. For a functioning democracy, everyone must do politics, even if it's unpleasant.

Here in the US the media effectively controls who people vote for, and the DNC/RNC is quick to "aggressively interject itself" if that tactic fails; so it seems to me that democracy as we know it is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. The media stopping opining about politics would not change that, even though it will never happen.

You're being downvoted, because it's an uncomfortable truth that challenges people's beliefs that they, themselves, are not falling for the media manipulation, but you're correct.

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#187

Post by webinvest »

raincom wrote: post #168
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote: post #95

Criminalization of drugs is a price support program for the cartels. Legalise the drugs and allow legal production - and the cartels will have to find an honest way to make a living like the rest of us have to do.

The issue is deeper. War on drugs has created many little cartels, many of them don't make much money off of transporting drugs to USA. These local criminal gangs are there to extort money from businesses, kidnapping, selling drugs locally. When PRI was in power, politicians and plaza bosses had mutual understanding: "you can transport drugs, but don't mess with locals who have no connection with drugs". Whenever USA…

The solution is to use the Rico law to prosecute everyone involved all at once as a gang instead of one person at a time. It worked successfully on the 5 mob families of New York.

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#188

Post by Maven911 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #169
pietrovismara wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How brilliant is finance to commodify people's suffering. Surely it helps make the market more efficient?

I recall reading an article on HN the other day which revealed there's even an insurance policy against ransom kidnappings, and that there are companies specializing in dealing with them - particularly, in business settings, they'd pay off the kidnappers and then bill your company for "consulting" (this is so that your company doesn't look like it's supporting organized crime by paying ransom).

And this also exists with insurance and consultants for dealing with ransomware

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#189

Post by leephillips »

sam_goody wrote: post #171
Gustomaximus wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've pondered on this and wonder if religion could be the answer. I say this as an atheist. But churches, typically already established well in these areas, could have the community structure combines with good social values and zeal/commitment, even fanaticism to see through what would likely be tough time initially to cleaning up areas. Something along the lines of a Knights Templar where segment of a community dev…

To quote a speech I heard in college: "It frustrates me to no end that, as a species, the religious are more fit. Their communities are more structured, and have less crime and violence. Their families larger, more nuclear and more supportive of each other. Their members are more relaxed, and have more purpose to their lives. Evolution would state that, eventually, only the religious will survive. If there is a God,…

Religious communities may not be more fit. It depends on what measure you look at: http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.pdf

Re: Stalking her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one

#190

Post by CyberDildonics »

dragonwriter wrote: post #80
CyberDildonics wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also reasonable people check out when people are running around livid because of false information.

> Also reasonable people check out when people are running around livid because of false information. The comment you are responding to both recognizes that and is telling you that that is a fact that is deliberately being manipulated by and to the advantage of the people promoting false information. A major part of the goal of extreme political propaganda, nearly as important as mobilizing unreasonable people, is ge…

This seems like you are restating the same thing I said as if it is contradicting it.
Post reply on HN