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2008-09-01 Caribbean-Latin America

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Posted by Anonymoose 2008-09-01 13:01|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 Sounds like they're seriously working on their failed state certificate.

Is it my imagination or does Mexico really seem more like Mussolini's Italy than any real democracy? Just seems that the Mafia are still to powerful for the police to deal with.

Posted by AlanC 2008-09-01 13:14|| 2008-09-01 13:14|| Front Page Top

#2 It's a combination of several groups that each are too difficult to deal with: the drug lords, the labor union leaders, and the top-forty family leaders. Between them or alone they can bring the country to a halt, and doing so is preferable to giving up what they have.

Posted by Steve White 2008-09-01 13:20|| 2008-09-01 13:20|| Front Page Top

#3 This is the reason why drugs should be legalized. We can tax them, regulate them and better control the distribution to the already addicted through medical professionals. It would reduce AIDs, crime and end the easy profit that fuels these mafias.

Those that say it would increase drug use should note that keeping them illegal has done nothing to reduce the problem. Drugs are readily available to anyone who wants them.

We need to fix the problem in the same way that we dealt with prohibition. Let's just acknowledge the problem and deal with it within the law rather than outside of it.

Posted by Betty Grating2215 2008-09-01 13:31|| 2008-09-01 13:31|| Front Page Top

#4 Hardly much tax revenue to be raised if it's legalized...it seems to me everybody who wanted to would grow their own plants. And how would you regulate home-grown plants? Or would you try to make growing their own plants illegal even though it's been legalized. I don't think that would go over very well. I always hear that argument to tax it...and I'm very skeptical about it.

Posted by Harcourt Gletch7831 2008-09-01 14:45|| 2008-09-01 14:45|| Front Page Top

#5 Overwhelmed with delinquency and crime? More like they are part and parcel of it.

Clean up the police and half the battle is done.

Posted by Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields 2008-09-01 14:46|| 2008-09-01 14:46|| Front Page Top

#6 This is the reaosohn drugs should be legalized

Drug consumption fell during Reagan's preesidency. But then camùe Clinton who scaled back drug enforcement, softened penalties for drug smuggling
and began to make noises about legalization. This is teh result.

Hover the right strategy is attack the problem at the user not productione end. No more people using drugs => no more people smuggling or producing.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2008-09-01 14:49|| 2008-09-01 14:49|| Front Page Top

#7 Waiting for roumors of a midnte plane from Bangla, brining Merry Makers for a busman's holiday.

Posted by .5MT 2008-09-01 15:29|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net] 2008-09-01 15:29|| Front Page Top

#8 JFM, Agree 100%. We can't keep drugs out of prisons. How do we think we can keep them off the streets? The problem is drug use is a moral problem and we Americans have reservations about government tackling moral issues. That's part of why our schools are so bad.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-01 15:41|| 2008-09-01 15:41|| Front Page Top

#9 There is a time to moralize and a time to act. What time is it?

Posted by Richard of Oregon 2008-09-01 16:12|| 2008-09-01 16:12|| Front Page Top

#10 It's time to criminalise being high in public and decriminalising drugs.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-09-01 16:22|| 2008-09-01 16:22|| Front Page Top

#11 "Mexico Starting To Fall Apart"

Starting?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2008-09-01 17:05|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/] 2008-09-01 17:05|| Front Page Top

#12 What time is it?

Mickey's big hand is on the five and his little hand is on the twelve.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-01 17:11|| 2008-09-01 17:11|| Front Page Top

#13 I didn't know they were importing Meth from Mexico or anywhere else south. As for legal, how are users going to make the money to buy that stuff [after a heavy sin tax like tobacco or alcohol], since they're unlikely to be holding down a job to sustain the habit? Isn't interesting that when one talks about legalizing one substance, the nanny police are criminalizing the use of another. Hell, soon if you just use regular sugar, let alone transfat, you're going to be put on rehab. /sarcasm off

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-09-01 17:18|| 2008-09-01 17:18|| Front Page Top

#14 I live less than 20 miles from the border, used to go south a lot: Tijuana, Ensenada, and Puerto Nuevo for lobster dinners, San Felipe twice a year for 4-5 day beach time. I wouldn't go now if you paid me. The cartels have grown too large and rich and well-armed to be combatted without resorting to the Columbian model (death squads), I'm afraid. Most of the police, and a bunch in the Mil/Army are corrupt

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2008-09-01 17:18|| 2008-09-01 17:18|| Front Page Top

#15 ... we Americans have reservations about government tackling moral issues.

If goverment doesn't tackle moral issues, what precisely is it that it does? All criminal laws are a codification of a moral code and the case for most civil laws being the same is easily made.

Posted by AzCat 2008-09-01 17:26|| 2008-09-01 17:26|| Front Page Top

#16 If goverment doesn't tackle moral issues, what precisely is it that it does?

Enforce Millsian liberty. That's why contraceptives are legal in Connecticut and abortions are legal everywhere.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-09-01 17:55|| 2008-09-01 17:55|| Front Page Top

#17 Build the Border Wall. Secure the borders.

Posted by Tiny Phaper7687 2008-09-01 18:12|| 2008-09-01 18:12|| Front Page Top

#18 Drug consumption fell during Reagan's preesidency.

Right.

Nancy Reagan said "Just say no."

Bill Clinton said "It ain't immoral if it's only oral."

POTUS sets a moral tone, an example, and people tend to follow it. There was a reason I felt squeamish the whole time Clinton was in office. Everybody thought it was cool as long as the economy was humming but, as we found out on 9/11, it wasn't.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2008-09-01 18:36|| 2008-09-01 18:36|| Front Page Top

#19 We can tax them, regulate them and better control the distribution to the already addicted through medical professionals

We couldn't even properly treat most of those addicted to alcohol, nicotine and prescription painkillers. How would we accomplish treating the much larger and more incorrigible number of those addicted to drugs currently illegal as well?

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-01 22:58|| 2008-09-01 22:58|| Front Page Top

#20 Underscores the need for the border fence NOW.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-09-01 23:15|| 2008-09-01 23:15|| Front Page Top

#21 OldSpook - not just thing thing, but every development/issue WRT Mexico includes, as part of any intelligent and rational reaction, the same element: make the border real and enforceable. It's very analogous to the Israeli security barrier, er, apartheid/Berlin Wall/genocide wall - sure there are small pains it causes, and some people get upset, but all this is nothing as against the benefits. Recall the absurd delay and caterwauling about the Israeli barrier - and how it all turned out?

Frank G, I knew we were neighbors, and I have much the same story - grew up going to TJ and beyond for lobster, beer, surf, etc. Mexicans are among the warmest nicest folks on Earth, and I've been lucky to compare in dozens of different countries. But I wouldn't go south now at gunpoint. Tropical resorts maybe - mainland, or even Cabo - but nothing near the border, or in the DF.

I recall reading an internal email or something over in Baghdad, and smiling with irony and disgust at the travel warning on Nuevo Laredo - the language was the same as that applied to Iraq (this was during the "lost years" of 05/06). I used to shock/edumucate many friends back here (via phone/email) and even over there by pointing out that Fallujah and Baquouba and Nuevo Laredo were all places to avoid, for the same reason.

Posted by Verlaine 2008-09-01 23:49|| 2008-09-01 23:49|| Front Page Top

#22 Oh Mexico City...

A taxi driver tried to rob me there. That didn't go well... for him

Posted by European Conservative 2008-09-01 23:59|| 2008-09-01 23:59|| Front Page Top

23:59 European Conservative
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23:36 Jolutch Mussolini7800
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