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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

#41

Post by fractallyte »

miked85 wrote: post #22
ttul wrote: post #7

At some point, Mexico ought to be considered a failed state…

Agreed. Cartels run the country. The government is mostly corrupt and completely ineffective.

That could also be a description of its northern neighbor...

Edit: admittedly, a rather loaded statement. There's a lot more complexity involved, but essentially, it's an analogous situation: corporations and cartels are dictating politics. This is corruption! (Perhaps it's too much to call it a "failed democracy", but it's certainly a "subverted democracy".)

In the context of illegal drugs, Mexico would not be in this state without the US; and vice versa. Is it a parasitic or a symbiotic relationship...?

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

#42

Post by thu2111 »

pengaru wrote: post #24
ttul wrote: post #7

At some point, Mexico ought to be considered a failed state…

Ask yourself what country is responsible for the war on drugs fueling the black market funding the cartels.

Nearly all of them? This problem is not caused by some weird, out of line policy of the USA. Basically nowhere wants hard drugs on the streets. And some places that experimented with legalisation rolled it back or changed their approach. Where I live there are still quite a few places with junkie lights, remnants of a hands off approach some decades ago. It led to a central public park becoming completely taken over and turned into a shanty town by addicts. Eventually the approach changed to one of less tolerance, the addicts were moved into rehab or died, and the shanty town was forcibly cleared by police.

I see people on this thread acting as if Mexico's inability to control cartels is a problem exclusively created by America. But those cartels exist elsewhere and America is not the only market for illegal drugs. The issue is wider than that.

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

#44

Post by andyana »

rsj_hn wrote: post #34
walrus01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cartels only exist because of its illegality. Same reason alcohol smuggling gangsters existed during the US prohibition era.

> 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…

That's not something most people associate with cartels in Mexico.

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

#45

Post by gscott »

pengaru wrote: post #30
ALittleLight wrote: post #4

If I were running things in Mexico I would legalize or decriminalize all drugs. Setup compounds to securely house the police forces. Change the policy to "balazos, muchos balazos".

If you were running things in Mexico you would have zero ability to legalize or decriminalize all drugs in the actually relevant markets (USA).

And even if it was legalized so anyone could make drugs in Mexico... the cartels would kill the non-cartel makers of drugs along with fighting with other cartels at the same time.

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

#46

Post by gonzo41 »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #31

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…

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.

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

#47

Post by josephcsible »

fractallyte wrote: post #41
miked85 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Cartels run the country. The government is mostly corrupt and completely ineffective.

That could also be a description of its northern neighbor... Edit: admittedly, a rather loaded statement. There's a lot more complexity involved, but essentially, it's an analogous situation: corporations and cartels are dictating politics. This is corruption! (Perhaps it's too much to call it a "failed democracy", but it's certainly a "subverted democracy".) In the context of illegal drugs, Mexico would not be in th…

The US government may be ineffective in a lot of ways, but it's still very effective at maintaining a monopoly on the use of force.

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

#48

Post by boterock »

dvt wrote: post #9
ALittleLight wrote: post #4

If I were running things in Mexico I would legalize or decriminalize all drugs. Setup compounds to securely house the police forces. Change the policy to "balazos, muchos balazos".

> If I were running things in Mexico I would legalize or decriminalize all drugs This is a naïve "Bernie bro"-style take. What do you with cartel turf wars? Legalize murder? The problem is not only complex on a local scale (city or country), but there are geopolitical pressures at play as well. Cartels tend to be very populist, often funneling money back in their communities making them (paradoxically) better. On the…

These turf wars exist because these people have a lot of power from trafficking drugs over a very widespread area. In the moment that every person can have a coca plant in their house, the trafficker loses this power.

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

#49

Post by NegativeLatency »

rsj_hn wrote: post #34
walrus01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cartels only exist because of its illegality. Same reason alcohol smuggling gangsters existed during the US prohibition era.

> 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…

Parent mean “[Drug] Cartels” not all cartels

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

#50

Post by josephcsible »

rsj_hn wrote: post #34
walrus01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cartels only exist because of its illegality. Same reason alcohol smuggling gangsters existed during the US prohibition era.

> 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.

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