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Mexico is a scary place. Violence and or the threat of violence reigns supreme. People are afraid to be outside at night. Every scalable wall is covered either

Mexico is a scary place. Violence and or the threat of violence reigns supreme. People are afraid to be outside at night. Every scalable wall is covered either with broken glass or razor wire.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
unixhero 5y ago
Uh like the United States is too right? [0],[1],[2],[3]? 0, https://www.dailynews.com/2021/12/28/parents-of-girl-14-killed-by-lapd-in-north-hollywood-burlington-shooting-speak-out/ https://www.dailynews.com/2021/12/28/parents-of-girl-14-kill... 1, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/matthew-willson-shooting-brookhaven-atlanta-b1998909.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/matthew-wi... 2, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... 3, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
- hugh-avherald 5y ago
  Weird comment. Your first two links are of accidental and out-of-the-ordinary homicides, which are not really 'scary' or an indication of violent society.
  - unixhero 5y ago
    The first two are symptoms, the two last are national statistics. I don't see this as weird, but I will take it, I love being weird!
- jevoten 5y ago
  If by "like" you mean "1/6th as much", then yes. Homicides per year per 100.000 inhabitants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...): Mexico: 29.1 United States: 5.0 Czech Republic: 0.6
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    Homicide is a local phenomenon that national statistics don't really convey. The homicide rate (per 100,000) for a few cities in the US: New Orleans, LA - 30.5 Detroit, MI - 41.5 St Louis, MO - 64.5
    - emerged 5y ago
      Wouldn’t it make sense then to also provide the rates for the worst cities in Mexico?
      - stickfigure 5y ago
        No, because the vast majority of the country doesn't look like the worst cities. If I said "St Louis is a scary place. Violence and or the threat of violence reigns supreme. People are afraid to be outside at night. Every scalable wall is covered either with broken glass or razor wire." you'd rightfully call bullshit.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The homicide rate (per 100,000) for a few cities in the US And a few in México, for comparison: Tijuana, B.C.: 134.2 Ciudad Juárez, Chih: 104.5 Uruapan, Mich.: 85.5 (These are also the top 3 in the world for cities not notionally at war, and the next 3, plus one more of the top 10, are also in México.)
- helloworld11 5y ago
  Your claim and links are the classic example of using scary specific cases and anecdotes to extrapolate an argument while ignoring statistical and general tendencies. Mexico's homicide rate is several times higher than that of the U.S. as a whole and the two countries simply don't compare in terms of insecurity, at all. Nor do they compare in sheer crappiness of police response. People may complain about U.S police having their major flaws (and rightly so in many cases) but the police in Mexico are a whole different story of ineptitude, corruption, danger and in the least case, simply not showing up to do their most basic job. Also, there are many, many mass shootings in Mexico, almost weekly, sometimes even daily in fact, it's just that they garner little or no major media attention and that they happen under different contexts.
  - unixhero 5y ago
    While I can agree that it is several order magnitude higher in Mexico. That does not change my point. Also the links from Wikipedia are statistics on a national level, so I am not cherry picking data. Let's remind of what my point is: it is bad in Mexico, AND it is bad in the United States.
    - helloworld11 5y ago
      I disagree. Generally it is not terrible in the U.S. and it's much, much worse in Mexico. Truly you miss the basic point on the differences between violence down here and what happens up north. There are certain U.S. cities with abysmal murder rates due to certain parts of them, granted, but most people living in most of the country are incredibly safe and can can count on remarkably effective justice/police institutions from their government compared to the majority of what's the case in Mexico. For much of the U.S. murder rates by area or state are at western European levels. Your comparison is off base enough to be a case of whatsaboutism.
dariusm5 5y ago
I lived in Mexico for a few years but decided to leave last year after getting married and having a child. It's an awful place if you value things like safety, health, education, infrastructure, and most importantly, the rule of law. For me all the news reports of kidnappings and violence were just background noise until it hit close to home. My wife's sister-in-laws family was kidnapped and badly beaten to the point where her brother developed a permanent mental handicap. They were released and are now scrambling to immigrate to the US. In a separate incident, the person who organized our wedding was also kidnapped but never found. These types of cases are so common here that they don't even make the news, whether local or national.
- burglekutt 5y ago
  What city was this in? Every state and city in Mexico can be a different story, but it seems to change every year. Guadalajara seemed safe a few years ago and is now considered dangerous, for example. Yucatan seems like it has been safe for a decade.
  - dariusm5 5y ago
    Both kidnapping cases were in towns in Jalisco, not too far from Lake Chapala.
    - burglekutt 5y ago
      Interesting. Chapala is a major gringo enclave and it’s got a rep for being safe.
helloworld11 5y ago
I happen to live here. The degree of danger depends enormously on where you live and what you do. Not everywhere is this dangerous and not everything is covered in razor wire and broken glass. This is not at all to downplay the grotesque degree of violence that permeates much of Mexico, but a bit of perspective on specifics helps. I do night street photography as a hobby, for example, and in many years of that, wandering the streets of several Mexican cities during late night hours (carefully but not with utter paranoia) I've never once been assaulted or physically threatened so far.
cloverich 5y ago
When I lived on the border I was at a family gathering once and was mingling with some folks who used to do business in Mexico. These are all legal and normal businesses run by people with ties to Mexico -- friends or family on both sides, completely bilingual, etc. One by one they were recounting their "The time I decided to close shop and stop going to Mexico..." and I was impressed -- every single story was effectively "Fear local police will kill me". My friend's dad was held at gunpoint, forced to go to an ATM and withdrawl cash, then driven out to middle of nowhere where they pretended they were going to kill him for fun. Like -- super petty lawlessness stuff. Not high brow "send a message" cartel activity. Totally nuts. These kinds of stories aren't hard to find in people that immigrate from border towns on the Mexican side to the other -- they are everywhere. It made me so sad to live on the border for multiple years and feel too unsafe to ever venture over.

Mexico is a scary place. Violence and or the threat of violence reigns supreme. People are afraid to be outside at night. Every scalable wall is covered either with broken glass or razor wire.

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

unixhero 5y ago

Uh like the United States is too right? [0],[1],[2],[3]? 0, https://www.dailynews.com/2021/12/28/parents-of-girl-14-killed-by-lapd-in-north-hollywood-burlington-shooting-speak-out/ https://www.dailynews.com/2021/12/28/parents-of-girl-14-kill... 1, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/matthew-willson-shooting-brookhaven-atlanta-b1998909.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/matthew-wi... 2, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th... 3, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...

hugh-avherald 5y ago
Weird comment. Your first two links are of accidental and out-of-the-ordinary homicides, which are not really 'scary' or an indication of violent society.
- unixhero 5y ago
  The first two are symptoms, the two last are national statistics. I don't see this as weird, but I will take it, I love being weird!
jevoten 5y ago
If by "like" you mean "1/6th as much", then yes. Homicides per year per 100.000 inhabitants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...): Mexico: 29.1 United States: 5.0 Czech Republic: 0.6
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Homicide is a local phenomenon that national statistics don't really convey. The homicide rate (per 100,000) for a few cities in the US: New Orleans, LA - 30.5 Detroit, MI - 41.5 St Louis, MO - 64.5
  - emerged 5y ago
    Wouldn’t it make sense then to also provide the rates for the worst cities in Mexico?
    - stickfigure 5y ago
      No, because the vast majority of the country doesn't look like the worst cities. If I said "St Louis is a scary place. Violence and or the threat of violence reigns supreme. People are afraid to be outside at night. Every scalable wall is covered either with broken glass or razor wire." you'd rightfully call bullshit.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The homicide rate (per 100,000) for a few cities in the US And a few in México, for comparison: Tijuana, B.C.: 134.2 Ciudad Juárez, Chih: 104.5 Uruapan, Mich.: 85.5 (These are also the top 3 in the world for cities not notionally at war, and the next 3, plus one more of the top 10, are also in México.)
helloworld11 5y ago
Your claim and links are the classic example of using scary specific cases and anecdotes to extrapolate an argument while ignoring statistical and general tendencies. Mexico's homicide rate is several times higher than that of the U.S. as a whole and the two countries simply don't compare in terms of insecurity, at all. Nor do they compare in sheer crappiness of police response. People may complain about U.S police having their major flaws (and rightly so in many cases) but the police in Mexico are a whole different story of ineptitude, corruption, danger and in the least case, simply not showing up to do their most basic job. Also, there are many, many mass shootings in Mexico, almost weekly, sometimes even daily in fact, it's just that they garner little or no major media attention and that they happen under different contexts.
- unixhero 5y ago
  While I can agree that it is several order magnitude higher in Mexico. That does not change my point. Also the links from Wikipedia are statistics on a national level, so I am not cherry picking data. Let's remind of what my point is: it is bad in Mexico, AND it is bad in the United States.
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    I disagree. Generally it is not terrible in the U.S. and it's much, much worse in Mexico. Truly you miss the basic point on the differences between violence down here and what happens up north. There are certain U.S. cities with abysmal murder rates due to certain parts of them, granted, but most people living in most of the country are incredibly safe and can can count on remarkably effective justice/police institutions from their government compared to the majority of what's the case in Mexico. For much of the U.S. murder rates by area or state are at western European levels. Your comparison is off base enough to be a case of whatsaboutism.

dariusm5 5y ago

I lived in Mexico for a few years but decided to leave last year after getting married and having a child. It's an awful place if you value things like safety, health, education, infrastructure, and most importantly, the rule of law. For me all the news reports of kidnappings and violence were just background noise until it hit close to home. My wife's sister-in-laws family was kidnapped and badly beaten to the point where her brother developed a permanent mental handicap. They were released and are now scrambling to immigrate to the US. In a separate incident, the person who organized our wedding was also kidnapped but never found. These types of cases are so common here that they don't even make the news, whether local or national.

burglekutt 5y ago
What city was this in? Every state and city in Mexico can be a different story, but it seems to change every year. Guadalajara seemed safe a few years ago and is now considered dangerous, for example. Yucatan seems like it has been safe for a decade.
- dariusm5 5y ago
  Both kidnapping cases were in towns in Jalisco, not too far from Lake Chapala.
  - burglekutt 5y ago
    Interesting. Chapala is a major gringo enclave and it’s got a rep for being safe.

helloworld11 5y ago

I happen to live here. The degree of danger depends enormously on where you live and what you do. Not everywhere is this dangerous and not everything is covered in razor wire and broken glass. This is not at all to downplay the grotesque degree of violence that permeates much of Mexico, but a bit of perspective on specifics helps. I do night street photography as a hobby, for example, and in many years of that, wandering the streets of several Mexican cities during late night hours (carefully but not with utter paranoia) I've never once been assaulted or physically threatened so far.

cloverich 5y ago

When I lived on the border I was at a family gathering once and was mingling with some folks who used to do business in Mexico. These are all legal and normal businesses run by people with ties to Mexico -- friends or family on both sides, completely bilingual, etc. One by one they were recounting their "The time I decided to close shop and stop going to Mexico..." and I was impressed -- every single story was effectively "Fear local police will kill me". My friend's dad was held at gunpoint, forced to go to an ATM and withdrawl cash, then driven out to middle of nowhere where they pretended they were going to kill him for fun. Like -- super petty lawlessness stuff. Not high brow "send a message" cartel activity. Totally nuts. These kinds of stories aren't hard to find in people that immigrate from border towns on the Mexican side to the other -- they are everywhere. It made me so sad to live on the border for multiple years and feel too unsafe to ever venture over.