Just FYI, not everyone on HN is from US.
Incredibly friendly people, great food and beautiful places.
Regarding violence, I find that most drug related violence stays contained within the cartel-world. Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random..
Not that I feel unsafe in the US either though, the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen in either country.
(Most of my time in Mexico is spent in NL, Monterrey, and most of my time in the US near San Antonio, Texas. So I can't speak for either country in it's entirety of course)
What you are saying is astonishingly untrue.
https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...
But, my previous message might have indicated an idea of random shootings everywhere every day, which is not what I meant.
As mentioned, it is not that I feel unsafe in either country and I realise most parts are safe.
Thank you for the interesting link though!
Being on top of large criminal organization is intoxicating just like having power is.
To fight criminality and massive gains in black markets, the only way is to regulate and decriminalize black markets.
In the drug war for instance, compressing markets to a few players, especially in a black market where that is a natural reaction, only pressurizes the danger and leads to: mafias, violence, synthetics to get around legality, unsafe substances, people buying more dangerous substances or wrongly marked products such as opioids of safer types that are really fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics that are acutely more dangerous [1] and made in unsafe conditions, etc. The Controlled Substances Act and list run by the DEA is a cartel dream to create the margins they desire.
Prohibition of alcohol, a dangerous drug that is more dangerous illegal, should have taught this lesson, even back then alcohol was more dangerous to take when made in moonshine and other dangerous types as well as the mafias it created. It seems silly now to make shipping and producing alcohol legally and regulated illegal, no alcohol trafficking crimes happen today as a result of illegality.
> counties that enacted and enforced prohibition had homicide rates increase by about 30 to 60 percent relative to counties that did not enforce prohibition [2]
> When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, many bootleggers and suppliers simply moved into the legitimate liquor business. Some crime syndicates moved their efforts into expanding their protection rackets to cover legal liquor sales and other business areas. [2]
If something is dangerous, to add in more safety you need decriminalization and regulation on legal markets which handle safety much better. This adds in safe players into the game not just the underground black market criminal enterprises.
One day we maybe will learn that making non-violence a crime doesn't always make it safer, in most cases it makes it more dangerous. Though making something illegal or criminal when it is a health issue sure can increase profits on the underground at the expense of safety and harm reduction.
The hardline on opioids in the US, pressurizing doctors with liability and patients addicted that get cut off, they end up on their own and most of the overdoses today are people getting opioids they think are one thing and end up overdosing on fentanyl or carfentanil synthetics from the black market [3][4].
If people are addicted they should be able to get decriminalized opioids safely with the liability on them while they work to get off if they can, that will reduce overdose deaths by possibly half.
Hardline approaches to addiction do not work and it is not criminal, it is a health issue. However, making that illegal makes it not only a health issue, but also more dangerous due to the black market which leads to violence and deaths transforming this approach to a tragedy that we keep doubling down on.
To solve black markets you have to take the decriminalized/healthy/safety/peacekeeping/economic/market/opportunity approach over the force/illegality/hardline approach. Economic opportunities arise in legal regulated markets, safety and harm reduction increase in those markets. In some cases people don't want to turn to crime/black market but that is the better opportunity and may appear to provide more safety for their own survival.
Ultimately economic opportunities in legal/decriminalized markets win more than forceful approaches, because the latter make the criminal opportunity better. We need to take a smarter economic approach, end the war on drugs for instance and come into Mexico with a Marshall Plan like economic push that can help legal/investable markets which will provide more opportunity and everyone wins. You can't win a liberation with force, you need peacekeeping and economic opportunity.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6pvtlm/letheal_amount...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
[3] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-de...
[4] https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...
However, I think the overall situation is more complicated than that, as this article details. The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.
When you have a corrupt and weak state, criminals will see opportunity in preying on innocent civilians and companies through threat of violence.
Edit: Changed "There's nothing here to legalize." to "There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft." to clarify my statement.
True, however with less criminal opportunities due to more legal/decriminalized markets such as ending the drug wars, there are legal market opportunities to offset the draw to black market opportunities, and help stop theft and other crimes by reducing demand providing alternatives to make a safer good living.
Economic opportunities on legal markets need to be safer and comparative or better to the criminal opportunities/markets for any real change to be made.
Theft and any violent crime not related to non-violent markets like drugs that should be legal/decriminalized, those are real crimes that can be pursued as they take other's civil, human and property/ownership rights away.
Would there still be theft and other crimes? Sure but much less so if people had other routes to make money and survive.
Are referring to the U.S? This partially started when drugs found a market in U.S.
If you’re referring to Mexico, well we’re U.S. slave and a conservative country with a broken government. Maybe I just lost hope of my home country.
It'd be just about the dumbest thing a cartel ever did, to engage the US Government in such a moronic 'war.' They'd quickly abandon that idea. It's the reason they don't target prominent people in the US Government as it is now: the US can kill their leadership top to bottom, with just a bit of effort and resources pointed that direction. They know that, so they stay within certain bounds of behavior accordingly.
If you'd review the rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post only civilly and substantively from now on, we'd appreciate it.
There's a great line at the end of Tora! Tora! Tora! from Admiral Yamamoto that would undoubtedly apply in such a scenario, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
The war against ISIS in Syria is a good example: Americans struggled for years, and then Russians came and pretty much ended the whole thing in 3 months. How? By bombarding civilians, including the hospitals, and (allegedly) using chemical weapons.
So, US have no problem winning the fight against guerillas, other than its own restraint.
I still don't believe that brutality and disregard of civilians is the only way to efficiently win an armed conflict against insurgent groups, though.
— Hey, you! Don't kill civilians! — Okey.
— Hey, you! Don't kill civilians! — Идите на х! — Okey
But if 12 headless people are found hanging from the town's main bridge, that's different, people will be scared.