Mexico is corrupt because the people are corrupt. The people are corrupt because they don't take their Christianity seriously. They therefore have no strong internal system of self restraint. They look to government to do something, forgetting that they are the government. An object lesson on the inability of the state to produce a moral people.
You are obviously passionate in your defense of the Mexican people, but you are very presumptuous, making amazing deductions about our backgrounds. You also miss the point.
I have never been on a "fancy vacation" anywhere south of the US, but I have done mission work in Mexico building and repairing orphanges and traveling to small towns to install small inexpensive (and free to the people) water purification systems which we built ourselves. Many people there are indeed beaten down. Many others have learned to play the game. As a whole the culture there is NOT to be "law abiding;" rather, the only restraint on many (not all) people is what they can get away with without getting caught. When a certain percentage of the population, perhaps 20%, is restrained only by the enforced letter of the law if caught, or else by a corrupt paralegal system (involving illegal power, violence, bribery, etc.) of restraints on behavior, that has massive implications for the whole of society, and is indeed very unfortunate for the 80% of people who want to behave well. In fact, that's a large part of what's beating them down!
I think that the system of government in the US is a direct result of the strong Christian background of the founding fathers who recognized the ultimately corrupt nature of men whether in power or of the masses. They were blessed with a governable people who "took their Christianity seriesly" (sorry) and therefore they were able to institute a self-balancing system that disfavored micromanagement and depended substantially upon a spontaneously well-behaving population restrained by its Christianity.
If too many (even 20%) are not well-behaved, then the people choose law and order over freedom, permit their government excessive power, and create a self-perpetuating system in which those at the top seek to perpetuate their power in order to use it for personal gain.
Therefore although I agree with you that the Mexican people have some amazingly good qualities and that a majority of them are not law breakers, the perpetually dismal state of the country as a whole would improve immensely if they only had a critical mass of people with a mature grounding in the faith that made America, which the Mexican people also espouse, Christianity. They do not have that critical mass.
By the way, there is no arrogance involved either. I think that the perfect storm that created these United States was a demonstration and gift from God. These United States are on the edge of losing their own critical mass of people grounded in faith. As a result we are turning more and more to the centralized micromanagement of We the People in which we give up freedom in favor of law and order. With that, decline is inevitable, and unless it reverses, we also will see what ecomcon characterized as "an object lesson on the inability of the state to produce a moral people."
Peace.
In big ways and in little ways. I remember some Mexican police showing us how to put pesos in the pay phones only so far so you can get them back. The mordida is also part of their system and an official wouldn't consider it corrupt at all to take it and no one considers it corrupt to offer one.
I'd like to add my own observations. The police are paid very low wages, barely livable -- under their uniforms in the some cases is the most threadbare underwear -- if they are not proficient yet, or they are honest -- in collecting "user fees".
The response time to an emergency call runs very long -- 45 minutes at minumum, and longer if any response at all. I saw this on some investigative TV show when I was there, as well as anecdotal reports from local co-workers.
The Law, courts, etc. is all by connections, well-established family connections. Not connected? No luck for you.
(Side note: Don't buy property in Mexico -- the deeds of us gringos are just about worthless, they'll figure out some way the land doesn't belong to you, and all you'll have to show for it is your lawyer bills.)
In a way, the law is open -- to persons of energy and vigor and money to spread around. You don't see people hanging around at crosswalks three minutes for a WALK signal on an empty street like you will in Germany and Switzerland. People do what they will to get where they want to go -- on the sidewalk and street and in business and the courts. The rules are "flexible". Yet there is a snide pride in some, and in such a situtation you may not be able to go on directly but must seek agents and intermediataries to get around things.
Bribes and kickbacks are common -- a gringo I know of almost lost his job because his workers didn't trust him -- he wouldn't take the payday kickbacks that were the norm. In a way they felt dishonored.
Religiously, Mexico is an unstable mix. Every calendar will have the Saints Feast Days on it -- that is every single day has it's saint. Veneration of statues of Mary is common. You'll have the most despicable, disgusting place and right in it and well-kept beautiful statue with fresh flowers. Yet the state has a history of hating and actually warring against the church clerics.
Mexico had it's godless secular state long before the godless Marxists detrained in Russia.
There are three great things that make Mexico's law and policing systems so rotten, imo -- rotten in our eyes, that is. They are as you may be suggesting, the strong scent of that deadening form of religious worship known as idol wqorship, preserved not only from recast ancient native practises, but also from the idolatrous Chritianity of many of the conquisadors and clerics. One aspect of that idolatry -- to my view -- is the hard anti-religiousity of the secular state.
The second is the massive mess of the Spanish Codex they inherited, that even in Spain at the time of the colonization of Mexico engendered a grave disrespect for the laws, as an overabundance of laws causes abitrary, haphazard enforcement. The refuge was in family circles, the rule of by a basically non-tyrannical, yet self-serving, small group of elite families, who kept judges and officers in their extended household.
The third is the lack of respect for the laws of agency and contracts by agents. It was a deep and active regard for laws of agency and agents that empowered English colonial experience. Without resepct for the independent actions of agency and agents, micro-management is prevalant, stumbling blocks are set at every distant turn.