Posted on 12/06/2008 11:06:45 AM PST by Flavius
Narcos give the police a choice: Plata o plomo? (Silver or lead?)
In other words, go on the take for silver or we’ll pay you off in lead.
So sad what is happening to this wonderful country.
So you completely ignore the question to you, and make no attempt to address the point made.
Interesting.
L
Sorry...talk to my Aunt who put a bullet in her head after 15 years of drug use. Cleaning her apartment and the floor where her brains splattered was something that a 16 year old remembers the rest of his life. Hairless, skinny, toothless, penny less, she thought her family was uncool, tools of right wing fundamentalism and her drug use (meth, pot, heroin, hash, LSD pills, paint) was an expression of freedom and non conformity. Her belief that the “cop pigs that control her right” to do what she wants with her body ended up killing her. My parents didn’t need to do any drugs not even alcohol and so their parents and further back. They worried more about the kids and grand kids than getting “high” and looking “cool” and trying to find “themselves” and their place in the universe by screwing up their synapses with chemicals 24/7. Anyone or group that promotes any drug use for pleasure, getting high, I stay away from.
The Lord of the Flies.
I understand where you’re coming from. I am not pro-drugs or pro-drug use.
I can see for myself that there will always be a demand for drugs.
America learned the hard way from alchohol (a drug) prohibition, that the black market suppliers will step in and fill the need, and enrich and empowern themselves, corrupt officials, and usurp the constitutional rights of citizens. Prohibition of alchohol was repealed, and the gunfights between different gangsters supplying illicit beer stopped.
Now, drug prohition has been enacted, and the gunfights, massacres, corruption, and usurption of rights are exponentially worse.
The drug cartels are making more money than Al Capone could have dreamed of, and the police are profiting when they seize assets.
Meanwhile, the drug use continues unabated, because people will always do drugs.
Alchohol sales are regulated and taxed. This does not mean that the government encourages drinking.
Most two peso street thugs in Mexico can't afford guns. The guard was there to prevent quick smash and grabs. This was a hit on the police commander. the police commander did something to anger the local drug lords and they took him out. The others were just in the way. It's probable that a "friend" of his or even member of his family made a few bucks (USD) off the deal.
The only armed security guards who I've seen in Mexico have been employees of large multinational corporations who spend most of their time sitting in the shade, hanging out in the cafeteria and occasionally walking through the parking lot of the machiladora to deter car burglaries. These guys can legally carry revolvers and pump action shotguns. No "automatic" weapons.
The narcotraficantes, as you can see from the tape, can carry anything they want. Cheap Chinese AKs seem to be popular these days.
Mexico has gone to hell. If we don't close our borders the US will end up like the Roman Empire in the 5th century.
During the 1960's the generation who won WWII ran the country. To them "war" meant the decisive defeat of a great evil. Therefore, we got the War On Cancer (some progress but no final victory in site), the War On Poverty (which the poor lost) and of course the War On Drugs which it is starting to look like the constitution lost.
The problem that the WWII generation didn't recognize in the 1960s when all these "wars" were started, is that in the era of nation states "wars" have typically not ended the way WWII did. More often they end in exhaustion of or bloody, indecisive stalemate - like Vietnam or Korea.
No matter how anyone feels about the legalization of drugs I think we can all agree that at very least we need a better metaphor.
By the 1960's the generation that had led the WWII campaign had been pushed aside. Indeed, they had been mostly pushed aside in the late 40's and 1950's.
While Tom Brokaw has declared my parents generation the greatest, I feel strongly that it was my grandparents generation that went unheralded and the true champions.
Look at the sacrifices my grandparents generation endured. They fought on the battlefields of WWI, watched helplessly as an estimated 675,000 Americans aged 20 to 40 died due to the flu epidemic within a matter of a few months, endured Prohibition that gave organized crime a solid footing in the USA, suffered the Great Depression while providing for their families, sent their sons and daughters off to serve and die during WWII, planned every element of the war and production necessary to win the war, and insisted on nothing less than unconditional victory.
If the generation Tom Brokaw declared the greatest is due that status, then the generation before should be declared the generation of life because they faced death like no American before or since, and fought with great determination for life. If indeed Brokaw is correct in bestowing the label greatest upon the generation he choose, someone needs to enlighten me as to the captains of industry of that generation, along with the generals and admires that delivered our WWII victories that were of my parents generation.
It was Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" that sought to fight in Korea and Vietnam to less than unconditional surrender.
Now, it's just my hunch predicated upon the history of my grandparents generation, but I believe they would be dumbfounded by the War on Drugs having lived through the crime, corruption and grief that was Prohibition. They would be most unsettled by the tens of thousands of deaths and carnage Americans have suffered due to the War on Drugs and how anyone not profiting from the failed effort could think it worthy to continue. The FBI estimates over 200,000 American youths are now in gangs affiliated with the foreign drug cartels and foreign paramilitary organizations, and their ranks are swelling.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.