MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKERS: A BYPRODUCT OF POOR BORDER SECURITY

MICH News ^ | 21 Dec 04 | Jim Kouri

[starfish923]

Mexicans have been smuggling drugs and illegals for YEARS and YEARS.
My uncle was on the border patrol in Nogales, Arizona, for 35 years. He died 10 years ago.

This was the same story for as long as he worked on the line.
Nothing seems to have changed, except the media coverage.

[proxy_user]

War against drugs = war against capitalism = war against human nature.

Maybe that's why we have been so unsuccessful?

[starfish923]

War against drugs = war against capitalism = war against human nature.
Maybe that's why we have been so unsuccessful?

Maybe.
I think it's really more simple and basic than that. It's about Mexico's relative poverty, corruption and unwillingness of the moneyed to share more pesos.
It's also about OUR willingness to keep the status quo for their cheap labor.

Follow the dinero.

[River_Wrangler]

You are correct! I lived and did business in Mexico in the early seventies during the Neuavo Laredo drug wars. It was an open secret as to who was in that business. The Gringos were the ones with the bullet holes. It was then and is now a cash driven service and will be hard to contain.

[starfish923]

It was then and is now a cash driven service and will be hard to contain.

Supply and demand.

Our society decided, back in the 60's, that drugs of whatever kind were wonderful. They still stayed against the law, but also during the 60's, our society decided that "bad laws were made to be broken," a.k.a. relative morality.

Mexico supplies our demands. The Mafia, apparently, can't keep up with the competition, OR, uses the Mexicans because of their cheaper prices/labor too.

Hard to contain.

[quack]

They're only trafficking the drugs Americans refuse to traffic.
(Sorry,someone was bound to say it)

[AreaMan]

War against drugs = war against capitalism = war against human nature.

I guess you were trying to be concise but I don't really equate drug dealiing with capitalism.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

So maybe another capitalist group puts together a fund to provide a private security firm/bounty hunter incentive, eh? We invoice the gummit for outsourced services, we put all the seized weapons and vehicles up for public auction, make a new countering Capitalistic force! And the hospitals and their insurers would probably help us a bit, since we will decrease their emergency costs.....I'll put up the first few bucks, anybody wanna join me?

[txdoda]

Yep, if our gov't fails in the WOT as it has on our 35 yr. WOD.......this country is in very deep doo-doo.

[AreaMan]

So maybe another capitalist group puts together a fund to provide a private security firm/bounty hunter incentive, eh?

Hey, there ya go a market based solution to the drug problem.

[satan]

I believe there are many who would join you. The problem is the "bought" politicians at the top. Years ago a group of us proposed:

A letter of marque and reprisal was an official warrant or commission from a national government authorizing the designated agent to search, seize, or destroy specified assets or personnel belonging to a party which had committed some offense under the laws of nations against the assets or citizens of the issuing nation, and was usually used to authorize private parties to raid and capture merchant shipping of an enemy nation.

Answer was not only no, but you'll be arrested if you try this.

[meenie]

Terrorists support their operations with the illicit drug trade. Terrorism is the leading growth industry in the world. If the exorbitant profits in the drug trade was not continued by protecting the drug lords through prohibition, terrorism would lose its financial means to expand.

[AreaMan]

If the exorbitant profits in the drug trade was not continued by protecting the drug lords through prohibition, terrorism would lose its financial means to expand.

I see, so legalizing drugs will end the profits of drug cartels?

[meenie]

Price supports seem to prop up every other business, I don't know why it doesn't affect drugs the same. I haven't heard of any drug user complaining because he can't find drugs, the cost is the main concern.

[TKDietz]

"They still stayed against the law, but also during the 60's, our society decided that "bad laws were made to be broken," a.k.a. relative morality."

I don't think our society decided this in the 1960's. I think this way of thinking has been there since man first started making laws. And by the way, morality and laws are not the same thing.

[starfish923]

I don't think our society decided this in the 1960's. I think this way of thinking has been there since man first started making laws. And by the way, morality and laws are not the same thing.

With all due respect, I disagree, at least for this country. I am old. I remember the years of the new mantra: bad laws were made to broken. BEFORE that, there WAS some respect for the law, police, authority. I remember the "pig" screams at police. I remember the flag burning and the new TOTAL disrespect for law.

Law and moralty are not the same thing. In most cases, they ought to be. Right IS right and wrong IS wrong. Laws ought to GENERALLY follow our morality.

Relative morality is lawyer law.

[AreaMan]

And by the way, morality and laws are not the same thing.

Generally, not always, laws are legislated morality. You just have decide who's morality will be legislated into law.

[TKDietz]

"I remember the years of the new mantra: bad laws were made to broken. BEFORE that, there WAS some respect for the law, police, authority. I remember the "pig" screams at police. I remember the flag burning and the new TOTAL disrespect for law."

Probably more than a disrespect for the law during that period was the disrespect for the government. It wasn't really a total disrespect for the law, if so there would have been a lot more theft and murder and other crimes. People for the most part still had respect for most laws. But large numbers of people lost all respect for the government in general, and many lost respect for certain laws, in particular the draft laws and the drug laws.

Disrespect for the government and certain laws was not something that came new in the sixties though. This has happened throughout the world and throughout history. In our country before the Revolutionary War there was utter contempt for the government in Britain and a great deal of disrespect for their laws. Many of our founding fathers engaged in smuggling and black markets. Some of them became rich that way. These people weren't necessarily immoral. They just had contempt for the government and certain laws.

This has always gone on in our country. There was so much contempt for our own government in the mid eighteen hundreds that we had a civil war. People broke laws they didn't agree with back then too. And of course there was the period of Prohibition, where millions of Americans just ignored the anti-alcohol laws. These people weren't all terribly immoral. They just had no respect for certain laws. They didn't feel like the government had any business telling them how to live their lives and they weren't going to play along.

Laws that are most likely to be ignored are those prohibiting things that people feel like they can do without hurting other people. Those are the kind of laws where a lot of people are going to just take a "mind your own business" attitude toward the government. I feel that way about seat belt laws. I just can't believe some cocky cop can pull me over on his two wheel death trap and write me a ticket for not wearing my seat belt. I just plain don't like wearing seat belts. I was in an accident once where I would have been killed if I was wearing my seat belt, and I won't wear the damned thing unless I'm driving on windy roads. I don't give a hoot what the law says. If that makes me immoral, then I'm immoral.

A lot of people feel that way about drug laws, especially simple possession or use of marijuana. I know I do. I quit smoking marijuana a long time ago because I got to where I didn't like it anymore, but I never felt immoral for breaking the law by smoking it. It was none of the government's business if I wanted to smoke marijuana. The morality of smoking marijuana was something between me and God, not between me and some bully with a badge, or some pompous ass in a black robe. (Laws against marijuana breed disrespect for those who enforce them by many of the millions and millions of us who smoked it and by those millions who still do.)

"Law and moralty are not the same thing. In most cases, they ought to be. Right IS right and wrong IS wrong. Laws ought to GENERALLY follow our morality."

I agree that laws ought to follow our morality, but we should try to stick to limiting things almost all of us agree are wrong, and even then not legislate against conduct that isn't really seriously harmful or terribly risky for the rest of us. Hardly anyone would dispute that laws are necessary against things like murder, theft, and rape, but there are other things that are in more of a grey area.

"Relative morality is lawyer law."

Who do you think writes laws? All laws are lawyer laws. And what is moral to one is not necessarily moral to the next. Most criminal laws proscribe conduct that we all agree is immoral and just plain wrong, and most of us happily obey those laws. But there are some laws proscribing conduct for which there is far less of a consensus as to morality or wrongfulness. In many cases these laws are ignored. I'm not really bothered by that unless those who engage in that conduct are hurting other people.

[TKDietz]

"You just have decide who's morality will be legislated into law."

That's where the problem lies. In most cases we all agree on what is moral or immoral, or at least what is harmful or particularly risky to innocent people. Hardly anyone has a problem with laws proscribing that conduct. When we start proscribing conduct that is not harmful to innocent people or particularly risky for others, the likelihood that large numbers of people are going to ignore those laws is great.