10 ms·

This is good to see. I don't usually see a lot in the press about Mexico accept for the cartel-related news. Hard to believe I forget that Mexico is more or les

by mlacks 8y ago

This is good to see. I don't usually see a lot in the press about Mexico accept for the cartel-related news. Hard to believe I forget that Mexico is more or less a normal country, not some dystopian war zone.

Insanity 8y ago
Maybe you should head over there to see for yourself what it's like. This summer, I'll be heading to Mexico (Monterrey) and San Antonio again, and I'm looking forward to Monterrey a lot more than San Antonio. Mexico, apart from certain regions (like almost everywhere) is pretty great.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  I agree with the sentiment but the "(like almost everywhere)" part frustrates me. Where are the armed guards at gas stations in Canada? Where are the mass graves in Sweden? Where's the bribery-is-business-as-usual in England? Don't pretend like everywhere has these kinds of problems. It really undercuts the valid point you have that there's a lot of great places in Mexico and it's generally populated by good people.
  - modzu 8y ago
    how is op saying "almost anywhere" has the same issues? canada and sweden have issues too. talk to many aboriginals?
    - loeg 8y ago
      The countries of the American continents have a ton of historical baggage with regards to treatment of first nations / indigenous / aboriginal / native american people and plenty of current baggage. And I don't doubt Sweden does too. However, the current status is not in remotely the same league as the violence, corruption, and warfare raging throughout Mexico. This is quantifiably worse.
      - modzu 8y ago
        i didnt say anything about mexico. im replying to someone who says there arent parts of canada or sweden comparable to mexico. well this is ignorant. look up missing and murdered aboriginal women. does that count as violence to you? because aboriginal women make up like 1% of the canadian population, but something like 25% of murdered women. of course in broad strokes canada and mexico are very different (canada is wealthy, has no cartel, etc) but that doesnt mean there arent little bits of bad there and doesnt mean there arent bits of good in mexico (remember this reply traces to a parent comment praising a notewrothy academic study coming out of a country generally only mentioned in mainstream news for its problems). thats all.
        loeg 8y ago
        Taking a step back, I'll try to explain where I'm coming from. My read of Waterluvian's comment is that: 1. "Problems" (e.g., violence) quantifiably differ in magnitude between Mexico and other places. And, 2. Those differences matter. That is, the dismissal in the form of "well, everywhere has problems" is disingenuous. To illustrate that, he provided three specific salient examples (armed guards at gas stations, mass graves, and rampant corruption). My read of your response to that comment was that you dismissed the idea that armed guards, mass graces, and rampant corruption are a level beyond the violence in e.g., Canada and Sweden, because "what about aboriginals?" By dismissing Waterluvian's comment, you made a statement normalizing Mexico's level of violence. So I tried to clarify that the difference in level of violence matters, and, here we are. > i didnt say anything about mexico. Sure you did. Denying "A != B" says something about A. > im replying to someone who says there arent parts of canada or sweden comparable to mexico. That's not what the comment you responded to said. Violence and corruption is quantifiably endemic to Mexico. Small populations in Canada and Sweden see outsized violence, but on the whole, those countries experience less violence. To put some real numbers on it, there were 611 homicides in Canada in 2016, across a population of 36.26 million. That's 1.68 per 100,000 people. The homicide rate in Canada peaked at 3.03 per 100,000 in 1975. In contrast, the homicide rate in the US peaked at 10.1 per 100k in 1974 and now hovers around 4.5 per 100k. Mexico's homicide rate in 2016 was 19.3 per 100k. And "as of 2014, Mexico has the 16th highest rate of homicides committed against women in the world."[0] If you're trying to illustrate that Canada is just as violent as Mexico, you picked a poor example. [0]: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/CDDandCMDPDH_forthesession_Mexico_CEDAW52.pdf http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/CDDandC...
  - Insanity 8y ago
    I meant you can find issues in all countries. I live in a pretty safe country (Belgium), but there are parts of Brussels I would not like to walk at night. It does not have to be as extreme as mass graves. But murders, robery, drugs, and other crimes occur in the countries you named as well. (That said, I do consider them safe countries)
  - Panoramix 8y ago
    Canada and Sweden are really really far from the median for the planet. They are not representative at all. Try again with Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Colombia, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, etc.
- mersenne 8y ago
  Regio here. Hope you have some great carne asada with Carta Blancas. If I may ask, what brings you here?
zeofig 8y ago
Only a small part adjacent to god-blessed America is something like a warzone.
- tamalesfan 8y ago
  The 91 people killed in January while stealing gasoline from a deliberately ruptured pipeline burned to death 320 miles South of the US border. When 43 students were rounded up by the police and handed over to a cartel for execution and disposal in 2014 they were 532 miles south of the US; halfway to Guatemala. The 2011 Monterrey casino arson attack that killed 52 people was 90 miles from the US. I know it's the fashion to Blame America First in all things, but Mexico has enormous problems well beyond its border with the US.
  - cosmez 8y ago
    Killed while stealing gasoline? they were filling running old trucks with gasoline and drilling on gasoline pipes.
  - CptFribble 8y ago
    The drug violence is fueled by the USA's demand for drugs. We also lack the political will to try things that have worked elsewhere, like decriminalization, even on a small scale. Not saying the USA is responsible for solving Mexico's problems, but we do have a lot of national soul-searching to do if we want to get serious about drug violence in both countries.
    - loeg 8y ago
      Nitpicking (sorry), but decriminialization of use doesn't fix the supply side of the equation — production, distribution, and sale would still be black market. To erode the cartels' profits we would also have to legalize (or decriminialize, but at that point, might as well just legalize) production and sale.
    - tamalesfan 8y ago
      > The drug violence is fueled by the USA's demand for drugs. So goes the conventional group think. Thing is Mexico isn't the only nation that shares a long border with the US. Yet somehow Canada isn't yet another murder capital of the world, busily feeding the relentless US appetite for drugs. But analyzing the difference between Mexico and Canada isn't something you're allow to do; it rapidly produces extremely uncomfortable results that contemporary good-thinkers don't ever dare entertain.
BurningFrog 8y ago
A good reminder that the news is a terrible way to learn about the world.
- daenz 8y ago
  Depends on what you want to learn. If you want a full scope of the risks plauging a certain region, the news can be pretty good. The issue is when you view incidents in the news disproportionally to their true rate of occurrence. However, with incidents like cartel kidnapping and murdering 40+ students, including flaying them alive, and almost half of the individuals arrested in connection to the crime are police[0], it's not exactly the kind of incident where any rate of occurrence besides 0 is acceptable. I'd rather know that things like this happen in a specific region than not know. Anything else is reckless ignorance. 0. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cartel-members-arrested-in-hunt-for-43-kidnapped-students-a6828741.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cartel-mem...
  - gammateam 8y ago
    Reminds me of when people think of the United States based on how the autonomous Chicago police force deals with violence in South Side Chicago
    - daenz 8y ago
      Any and all accurate data is good data for assessing the risk of a region.
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      Foreigners routinely comment on the low level of training and discipline exhibited by the US police force.
r00fus 8y ago
I’d say this article and your reaction says more about the nature of the news media as a whole than it does about you or Mexico.

by mlacks 8y ago

Insanity 8y ago

Maybe you should head over there to see for yourself what it's like. This summer, I'll be heading to Mexico (Monterrey) and San Antonio again, and I'm looking forward to Monterrey a lot more than San Antonio. Mexico, apart from certain regions (like almost everywhere) is pretty great.

Waterluvian 8y ago
I agree with the sentiment but the "(like almost everywhere)" part frustrates me. Where are the armed guards at gas stations in Canada? Where are the mass graves in Sweden? Where's the bribery-is-business-as-usual in England? Don't pretend like everywhere has these kinds of problems. It really undercuts the valid point you have that there's a lot of great places in Mexico and it's generally populated by good people.
- modzu 8y ago
  how is op saying "almost anywhere" has the same issues? canada and sweden have issues too. talk to many aboriginals?
  - loeg 8y ago
    The countries of the American continents have a ton of historical baggage with regards to treatment of first nations / indigenous / aboriginal / native american people and plenty of current baggage. And I don't doubt Sweden does too. However, the current status is not in remotely the same league as the violence, corruption, and warfare raging throughout Mexico. This is quantifiably worse.
    - modzu 8y ago
      i didnt say anything about mexico. im replying to someone who says there arent parts of canada or sweden comparable to mexico. well this is ignorant. look up missing and murdered aboriginal women. does that count as violence to you? because aboriginal women make up like 1% of the canadian population, but something like 25% of murdered women. of course in broad strokes canada and mexico are very different (canada is wealthy, has no cartel, etc) but that doesnt mean there arent little bits of bad there and doesnt mean there arent bits of good in mexico (remember this reply traces to a parent comment praising a notewrothy academic study coming out of a country generally only mentioned in mainstream news for its problems). thats all.
      - loeg 8y ago
        Taking a step back, I'll try to explain where I'm coming from. My read of Waterluvian's comment is that: 1. "Problems" (e.g., violence) quantifiably differ in magnitude between Mexico and other places. And, 2. Those differences matter. That is, the dismissal in the form of "well, everywhere has problems" is disingenuous. To illustrate that, he provided three specific salient examples (armed guards at gas stations, mass graves, and rampant corruption). My read of your response to that comment was that you dismissed the idea that armed guards, mass graces, and rampant corruption are a level beyond the violence in e.g., Canada and Sweden, because "what about aboriginals?" By dismissing Waterluvian's comment, you made a statement normalizing Mexico's level of violence. So I tried to clarify that the difference in level of violence matters, and, here we are. > i didnt say anything about mexico. Sure you did. Denying "A != B" says something about A. > im replying to someone who says there arent parts of canada or sweden comparable to mexico. That's not what the comment you responded to said. Violence and corruption is quantifiably endemic to Mexico. Small populations in Canada and Sweden see outsized violence, but on the whole, those countries experience less violence. To put some real numbers on it, there were 611 homicides in Canada in 2016, across a population of 36.26 million. That's 1.68 per 100,000 people. The homicide rate in Canada peaked at 3.03 per 100,000 in 1975. In contrast, the homicide rate in the US peaked at 10.1 per 100k in 1974 and now hovers around 4.5 per 100k. Mexico's homicide rate in 2016 was 19.3 per 100k. And "as of 2014, Mexico has the 16th highest rate of homicides committed against women in the world."[0] If you're trying to illustrate that Canada is just as violent as Mexico, you picked a poor example. [0]: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/CDDandCMDPDH_forthesession_Mexico_CEDAW52.pdf http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/CDDandC...
- Insanity 8y ago
  I meant you can find issues in all countries. I live in a pretty safe country (Belgium), but there are parts of Brussels I would not like to walk at night. It does not have to be as extreme as mass graves. But murders, robery, drugs, and other crimes occur in the countries you named as well. (That said, I do consider them safe countries)
- Panoramix 8y ago
  Canada and Sweden are really really far from the median for the planet. They are not representative at all. Try again with Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Colombia, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, etc.
mersenne 8y ago
Regio here. Hope you have some great carne asada with Carta Blancas. If I may ask, what brings you here?

zeofig 8y ago

Only a small part adjacent to god-blessed America is something like a warzone.

tamalesfan 8y ago
The 91 people killed in January while stealing gasoline from a deliberately ruptured pipeline burned to death 320 miles South of the US border. When 43 students were rounded up by the police and handed over to a cartel for execution and disposal in 2014 they were 532 miles south of the US; halfway to Guatemala. The 2011 Monterrey casino arson attack that killed 52 people was 90 miles from the US. I know it's the fashion to Blame America First in all things, but Mexico has enormous problems well beyond its border with the US.
- cosmez 8y ago
  Killed while stealing gasoline? they were filling running old trucks with gasoline and drilling on gasoline pipes.
- CptFribble 8y ago
  The drug violence is fueled by the USA's demand for drugs. We also lack the political will to try things that have worked elsewhere, like decriminalization, even on a small scale. Not saying the USA is responsible for solving Mexico's problems, but we do have a lot of national soul-searching to do if we want to get serious about drug violence in both countries.
  - loeg 8y ago
    Nitpicking (sorry), but decriminialization of use doesn't fix the supply side of the equation — production, distribution, and sale would still be black market. To erode the cartels' profits we would also have to legalize (or decriminialize, but at that point, might as well just legalize) production and sale.
  - tamalesfan 8y ago
    > The drug violence is fueled by the USA's demand for drugs. So goes the conventional group think. Thing is Mexico isn't the only nation that shares a long border with the US. Yet somehow Canada isn't yet another murder capital of the world, busily feeding the relentless US appetite for drugs. But analyzing the difference between Mexico and Canada isn't something you're allow to do; it rapidly produces extremely uncomfortable results that contemporary good-thinkers don't ever dare entertain.

BurningFrog 8y ago

A good reminder that the news is a terrible way to learn about the world.

daenz 8y ago
Depends on what you want to learn. If you want a full scope of the risks plauging a certain region, the news can be pretty good. The issue is when you view incidents in the news disproportionally to their true rate of occurrence. However, with incidents like cartel kidnapping and murdering 40+ students, including flaying them alive, and almost half of the individuals arrested in connection to the crime are police[0], it's not exactly the kind of incident where any rate of occurrence besides 0 is acceptable. I'd rather know that things like this happen in a specific region than not know. Anything else is reckless ignorance. 0. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cartel-members-arrested-in-hunt-for-43-kidnapped-students-a6828741.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cartel-mem...
- gammateam 8y ago
  Reminds me of when people think of the United States based on how the autonomous Chicago police force deals with violence in South Side Chicago
  - daenz 8y ago
    Any and all accurate data is good data for assessing the risk of a region.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    Foreigners routinely comment on the low level of training and discipline exhibited by the US police force.

r00fus 8y ago

I’d say this article and your reaction says more about the nature of the news media as a whole than it does about you or Mexico.