On 27 June 2014, the Mexican military arrested Dr. José Manuel Mireles Valverde and 45 of his followers for violating Mexico’s Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives. Dr. Mireles is the titular leader of Mexico’s home-grown autodefensas: armed citizen militias dedicated to defending the local populace against cartel-related extortion, rape, torture, death and dismemberment; and human rights abuses by the Mexican police and military. His recent message from prison was published by borderlandbeat.com . . .
“One of the people who sent me a letter strongly questioned me whether our struggle was worth it, because some of us are imprisoned while others are being assassinated along with their entire families. This is why I want to send a short message.
The national front of autodefensas was made official on May 5, 2014 and on May 28, 2014, it became known worldwide with 12 states of the republic, in the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros.
By 6pm that day, there had already been 19 states that had registered. A day before my arrest, a 20th state registered. YES IT WAS WORTH IT.
To all of the autodefensas of Michoacán and of the Mexican Republic, I tell them to continue to organize, to take care of their life, their house, their towns, and their productivity, if we fight; we won’t die when the criminals want us to die.
If we fight, we will only die when God wills it. I tell you this from experience. After seven ambushes, and a plane crash, I kept fighting organized crime in Michoacán and my worthwhile witnesses have been the reporters of Denise Maerker. As well as those from the newspaper El País and the Washington Post and others who were with us in some of our battles.
This is why I tell you to organize and to take care of your communities, by neighborhood and by the entrances and exits of the towns.
While to the brave legitimate autodefensas of Michoacán I ask them—without neglecting a minute of their lives, of their families, their property, and their productivity— to stay in the background without letting your guard down, while the new government installs the rule of law, with the constitutional respect that you deserve, such as the Chamber of Deputies or the true representatives of the people.
For all these reasons I say that YES OUR STRUGGLE WAS WORTH IT, since our towns, thanks to our brave autodefensas, now with their Rural Police uniforms or some without uniforms, continue to patrol and take care of our towns and communities, procuring peace and dignity that they need for a happy and productive life. YES IT WAS WORTH IT.
Even though I’m imprisoned and 400 comrades are too, YES IT WAS WORTH IT because in Tepalcatepec, they gave us 24 hours to live and after those 24 hours, “not even the chickens” would be alive.
This threat was made on February 24, 2013, THE SICARIOS OF THE REGION and all of our autodefensa advice have survived to date, October 14, 2015. YES IT WAS WORTH IT, even though I’m imprisoned and others are in a cementary, IT WAS WORTH IT. That’s all.
Thanks to TTAG I have been following him. Uncommon bravery especially for an educated man who has lots of alternatives. . I wonder if the people of Mexico will ever unite and destroy the established family regimes that keep them poor and powerless.
That family regime structure goes all of the way down to the bottom. I knew several people who were robbed, assaulted, defrauded, and even raped in small towns in Mexico who couldn’t even report it to the police because the families of the offenders were the police and the local judiciary.
The Religion of Rome also conspires to keep Mexicans poor, and powerless. The true Biblical Christian faith frees and strengthens a people and a nation. May a true Reformation come to Mexico (and here as well).
Read: “my interpretation of the indefensible and demonstrably false superstitious nonsense spouted by bronze age primitives is better than your version of that same indefensible and demonstrably false nonsense and you’re at fault for all the worlds problems because of it”
Bigotry, it’s what’s for breakfast.
Oh now. The “useful idiots” that are used by the Powers That Be are legion. In the past, it was those that believe in a higher power. Easily manipulated by those acting as G-ds mouth pieces.
Now, for the last hundred years, it is the athiests and agnostics that are the new “useful idiots” being used by the Powers That Be to help them committ mass murder. Per Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot and the progressives of the west that support the murder of the unborn. (50 million + and counting)
So to me, it is obvious that a higher power exists, but now, many christians, with obvious exceptions, can practice Christ’s teachings as they were intended.
It is mostly the athiests and agnostics that are communists/progressives/statists and all their spawn that will need to answer for thier support of a system of government in which hundreds of millions of people have been murdered in the last hundred years.
Painting with a very broad brush there. I am, and know plenty of others, who are not in any way religious, nor do we practice/approve of any kind of aggression. I don’t practice or enable abortion either, but also don’t condone efforts of the “state” to punish those who choose that terribly option to parenthood.
One size does not fit all.
Biblical Christianity created the scientific method, the prosperous societies, and ordered liberty of the West.
Atheism spawned the twin evils of the 20th century (Marxism and National Socialism). Stalin and Hitler are both products of your ideology. It is an ideology that inevitably leads to destruction.
Christianity is both fundamentally historically true, and more productive than your naturalistic superstition. Yes, I call your belief system superstitious. Natural selection, and random mutation (Darwin’s theory) are completely unable to account for the world around us. Natural selection and random mutation both occur, but are not able to create the specific and incredibly complex information (gene code) necessary for life. Anyone who has any understanding of biology realizes that even a single cell is an extraordinarily complicated and deeply wonderful thing.
The thought that Life comes from nothing but random chance is a fantasy and a delusion. Pretending that there is no Creator will not make Him go away. He will demand an accounting from each of us.
Not at all Mama Liberty. I specifically said those that are athiests and agnostics of the communist, progressive/statist bent. And I do mean bent.
I was an agnostic/libertarian way back when. I am still a libertarian, and now a baptized christian.
I follow the guidance and example of G-d that allows me free will to follow his teachings, ie the laws of the universe. I extend that free will to others, as G-d does to me.
The early christians did not depend upon Roman Law to force thier beliefs on others. To be a christian and to follow the laws of G-d was completely voluntary.
This is why I am a libertarian. To use the force of law to impose my christian beliefs on others, is to me, a violation of spiritual law. A direct violation of the very freedom of choice that G-d gives me in voluntarily following his laws.
So I have no need of others, nor do I need to force others to believe as me. So long as they allow me the same courtesy.
But as it stands, both the religious right, and the cultic left, both use the force of law to impose their beliefs on others; which makes both, to me, in violation of G-dly law.
I can’t resist….
Biblical Christianity created the scientific method, the prosperous societies, and ordered liberty of the West.
Babylonian astronomers were using early empirical scientific method to figure out how the universe worked, 2500 years before the Church allowed that the Earth was not flat, nor the center of the universe. There was this guy named Aristotle, he was around about 500 years before the Jesus. He and a bunch of other Greeks did a lot of rational theoretical science. The kind the RCC routinely decried as heresy. The kind that got you prohibited from teaching, the kind that got you excommunicated, the kind that got you tortured and sometimes killed.
Prosperous and civilized societies have happened despite the influence of the RCC. They existed long before that con was even created.
Atheism spawned the twin evils of the 20th century (Marxism and National Socialism). Stalin and Hitler are both products of your ideology. It is an ideology that inevitably leads to destruction.
Correlation is not causality, they didn’t do anything in the “name of no god!”. But, since we’re on it, the RCC through direct orders to its hierarchy helped install Hitler as dictator. Back in 1933 the official position of the RCC was to order Germans Catholics to ‘love, honor, obey, and protect the Nazis’. The Nazis often used Catholic doctrine, and traditional anti-semitic arguements, which were readily received, as the people were accustomed to hearing them from the RCC. Despite some rocky roads, the Church was quietly pleased with the way the Nazis handled the Jews.
Christianity is both fundamentally historically true, and more productive than your naturalistic superstition. Yes, I call your belief system superstitious. Natural selection, and random mutation (Darwin’s theory) are completely unable to account for the world around us. Natural selection and random mutation both occur, but are not able to create the specific and incredibly complex information (gene code) necessary for life. Anyone who has any understanding of biology realizes that even a single cell is an extraordinarily complicated and deeply wonderful thing.
Just because you say the moon is made of cheese, and don’t know any better, doesn’t make it so. Darwin’s theory is tested and proved millions of times per day. That you are unaware of the experiments that proved how the primary building blocks for life could arise from the primordial ooze, is your shortcoming, not that of science. Anyone who *does* have an understanding of biology knows that the only way that the whole of the planet works is evolution. There is no other plausible scenario. Let alone testable.
The thought that Life comes from nothing but random chance is a fantasy and a delusion. Pretending that there is no Creator will not make Him go away. He will demand an accounting from each o
The lack of understanding that when things happen hundreds of millions of times over billions of years, evolution happens, that is the fantasy an delusion. That there is some deity out there and he has revealed himself to you, that is the hubris. That he would drop in, and only leave us the ‘wisdom’ of marginally literate bronze-age goatherders is kinda sad.
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. I have the weight of the scientific world and the libraries of history on my side, you have faith. You are welcome to believe as you wish, but when you start sounding like the RCC, we’re not going down that road ever again without a fight. We have enough problems with those other Abrahamic folks and their wanting to usher in the apocalypse so that their “rapture” happens.
Your “saints” include Mother Theresa (not her real name) who was pretty much the definition of evil (at least to atheists I know). She was a friend to poverty, she believed in suffering (those people in her ‘care’) were just being warehoused to die, she took millions from a dictator who had impoverished his own people to get it. Rather than use the money she spent so much time raising to better women’s lives by educating them and getting them out of poverty, she instead just set up more warehouses of death.
There’s a reason the Pope fast-tracked that one – people are learning the truth.
jesus christ enough already…
Thomas, given your vitriol, I must assume you were somehow forced to have an abortion. I feel your pain! Tell us your story, explain why forced abortion became your only concern in life!!!
JimmyJonga, As soon as people quit actively bringing their religion to these gun discussions, and ridiculing the rest of us that we’re wrong, or we’re ‘sinners’, or going to ‘hell’, because we don’t share their beliefs – I’ll quit ridiculing them back.
He’s free to believe in creationist nonsense, man-made deities, and completely made-up history. I truly don’t care, until it is put out in a public arena as truth. Then it must be buried with actual fact. Like gun grabbers ‘statistics’, silence grants credibility.
Folks. what spawned which, or who mass murdered better, does nothing to erase the truth. For better or worse, there has never been a god. You are arguing why there should be, some argue why there should not be, but regardless of who presents the best arguments, or in times hopefully past, who can murder the most people to support his definitions, the fact remains. There has never been any god. Many of you can accept that there was no truth to pagan beliefs, there is no truth to muslim beliefs, there could never be any god except for mine, but yours is just as bogus as the rest. The proof is the same either way. All gods assemble on the front lawn tomorrow morning, and we’ll have TV cameras there to record your arguments about why you are the best god. You know it won’t happen, I know it won’t happen, so we are all agreed.
MMM-m-m-m! Baptized! How special. Let me guess, by a man, right!? I was baptized as well. Changed nothing, there is still no god.
Yo, Art! Please enlighten us about who created god!? Your explanation of it just appearing, complete with magic wand, is nonsensical in the extreme, especially since you cannot produce a single photo, much less a video.
16V – I love the way you criticize the RCC. You seem to have missed the point that it was my criticism of the RCC that started this whole brouhaha. I am a Protestant Christian who despises Rome, but loves the Bible.
I was also trained as a biologist and know damn well that natural selection and random mutation explain “how life operates” pretty well, but are completely unable to account for the origin of life, or the origin of species. Biological life is vastly more complicated than anyone understands. All life is based on incredibly complex genetic information. No one has ever shown that natural selection or random mutation are capable of creating this type of information. Life comes from life, not random chance. I have nine years, and three university degrees in the biological sciences under my belt. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.
It may be easy to believe in naturalism if you’ve never studied cell biology, genetics, plant physiology, or mycology. The deeper you go, the more niave Evolutionary theory seems to become.
Art Out West,
I was also trained as a biologist and know damn well that natural selection and random mutation explain “how life operates” pretty well, but are completely unable to account for the origin of life, or the origin of species. Biological life is vastly more complicated than anyone understands. All life is based on incredibly complex genetic information. No one has ever shown that natural selection or random mutation are capable of creating this type of information. Life comes from life, not random chance. I have nine years, and three university degrees in the biological sciences under my belt. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.
Perhaps you earned those degrees in the 1940s. If you did, I understand your perspective. If you earned them anytime in the last 20+ years, you should ask for a refund, they short-changed you, or you skipped a lot of class. Miller-Urey proved that the building blocks could be readily generated. Fox proved the proteinoid microspheres. Does science have it all nailed down, 100% proven bottom up? No. but science gets closer every day. That we don’t have it all figured out does not mean that we resort to mysticism.
It may be easy to believe in naturalism if you’ve never studied cell biology, genetics, plant physiology, or mycology. The deeper you go, the more naive Evolutionary theory seems to become.
If you have seriously studied those fields, resorting to mysticism is a cop-out, at most generous. The deeper you go, the more that you see the beauty of how it all works, where it all comes from, and the fact that if anyone actually designed this stuff, they were pretty stupid, and incompetent. Rather, one sees all the evolutionary evidence of where we are, and what we come from. Especially when one studies genetics.
As I always say, you are free to believe as you wish. But I know the science, we do have very likely explanations for it all. Far more plausible than some incompetent, foolish deity somehow “designed” all the highly flawed animals from amoebas to humans. We are “designed” to be hugely flawed and then fix ourselves? Who would seriously believe in, let alone give a flying damn about such an eff-wit, or worse, just a cruel prick? Children dying of brain cancer, hundreds of millions murdered, all the good, evil, lucky and unlucky things that are 100% in concert with the reality of how we got here – evolution.
As for a deity?
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus
The Exodus is a fabrication, the Jews were never slaves, and the reality is that it is all made up. The Jewish archaeologists tasked with proving it, have proved it never to have happened. There’s a plenty of sources, here’s a starter….
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/archeology.html
16v
great prose from epicurus.
the religious person’s answer to the “if he’s unwilling and unable then is he worthy of worship?”: 1/ you don’t understand, go back to the exegesis of (insert religious book of choice here), 2/ it’s faith-based man, i don’t require rigorous empirical proof because if i believe in it strongly enough it will come true, if it doesn’t then i need to believe in it even more strongly; rinse-scrub-repeat until one of you keels over from oxygen deprivation, and 3/ (my favorite, spoken in a conspiratorial manner) “it’s not the right time man”.
exit stage left followed by bear.
The modern, systematic application of “scientific method”, arose from the institutions of intellectual discourse put in place by the Church. Which may or may not be any more relevant than the particular deity worshipped by the original inventor of the wheel. Probably a weak may, as the sheer quantity of intellectual firepower brought to bear on the problem of understanding God and the bible, had never been assembled prior, and was likely an important catalyst.
Despite correlation/causation blah blah, massive atrocities against ones own neighbors, are certainly aided by severing ties to traditions that strongly suggests there may be some problems with just that. Replacing “thou shalt not kill” with the progressive mantra of “thou shalt do what our experts say is ‘scientifically proven'” certainly is no recipe for current ruler restraint.
Epicurus forgot to include the obvious that mere humans are unable to know what is good and evil on a Universal scale. Me doing evil by killing, does not extrapolate to death prior to age 90 being a somehow impoersonal and universal evil.
“Proving” that no Jew were ever a slave in Egypt by digging in the ground, must surely require a much laxer definition of proof than I tend to employ…..
In general, there is plenty of room for God to work beneath the treshold of what science and sane people call random variation and/or verifiability. And there always will be. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know, and all that.
Stuki Moi, What a pile of psychobabble-nonsense you have excreted. It smells like bovine excrement – because it is…
The suggestion that the Church had anything to do with even ‘rational discourse’ let alone the “systemic application of scientific method” is beyond laughable, it is effen obscene. The Church and it’s eff-tard half-wit-power-hungry cretins were completely engulfed in burying science from 2000 years ago, until right now. They silenced or killed everyone they could lay their pathetic evil hands on who actually knew the Earth was roughly spherical, and not the center of the universe. They declared that piece of filthy human garbage personifying evil “mother theresa” a “saint”.
FTFY.
Epicurus understood that “good and evil” were evolutionary traits, millennia before we proved it. Your implied assertion that murder, rape, and the rest was somehow seen as “good” until your magical sky daddy was created is just pathetic and proves you have no knowledge of history. Your “values” are stolen from the secular humanists, of which there are many more than you would like to admit.
16V,
The rennaissance and its standard bearers didn’t pop out of jungles untainted by The Church, but rather from institutions created to foster dialogue and dissemination of knowledge. Which were created, funded (and sometime encouraged) by The Church. Not by some contemporary atheists guild.
I’m not really sure what your rant about good and evil being evolutionary traits is all about, aside from simply flaunting your naivete and level of indoctrination with the “we proved it” quip, but if Epicurus concerned himself with world religions and evolution, he would surely have been insightful enough to realize that them achieving status as world—, is a pretty strong suggestion they bestow evolutionary advantages on their adherents.
The rennaissance and its standard bearers didn’t pop out of jungles untainted by The Church, but rather from institutions created to foster dialogue and dissemination of knowledge. Which were created, funded (and sometime encouraged) by The Church. Not by some contemporary atheists guild.
Leonardo Davinci practiced his exploration of human anatomy in secret to keep ‘The Church’ from coming after him. The RCC was not about “fostering dialogue” that didn’t suit their needs. Please, crack a fuckin’ history book not written by your masters. One that has multiple sourcings and a boatload of proofs. ‘The Church’ was about blind obedience and money, same as it is today. The renaissance happened despite the efforts of the RCC, not because of it.
I’m not really sure what your rant about good and evil being evolutionary traits is all about, aside from simply flaunting your naivete and level of indoctrination with the “we proved it” quip, but if Epicurus concerned himself with world religions and evolution, he would surely have been insightful enough to realize that them achieving status as world—, is a pretty strong suggestion they bestow evolutionary advantages on their adherents.
If you don’t understand that being nice to people, getting along, not going on needless murderous rampages are not evolutionary traits proven long ago, I don’t know how to help you. We wouldn’t be here right now, having an electronic discussion if we were still the unevolved Africans that exist to this moment. That you can’t fathom the simple truths expounded by the entirety of Epicurus’ writings is indicative of your level of naivte.
The only flaw there is the expectation for some “new” government to fix the problem or honor the individual liberty of the people there. A “new” government might well be better than the old for a while, but it will eventually become the same tyranny. They have proven to themselves that they do not need any government in order to be free men and women. I hope they will continue to act on that.
The Truth About Liberty! Well stated, Mama.
Governments? We don’t need no stinkin’ governments.
Do you really think that national defense is not a legitimate purpose of a government?
What happens when, in your society of cooperative-anarchists you suddenly find that a bunch of men with more guns that all y’all have show up and say ‘we are now your new government. Oh and you can pay your taxes now.’?
And no, you can’t just say ‘we’ll all just get together cooperatively and create a defense committee’.
Look, it sounds great, no government, no taxes, great. But there are some wrinkles with that plan, and national defense is not the only one.
Persistent statism is a psychological dysfunction, IMHO. Progressives just seem to have an extreme case of it. But, it’s all on the same spectrum. People who, deep down, are afraid to be free… statism.
It all boils down to if one believes that the individual possesses inalienable rights and is perfectly capable of exercising those rights without any external coercion.
What happens when, in your society of cooperative-anarchists you suddenly find that a bunch of men with more guns that all y’all have show up and say ‘we are now your new government. Oh and you can pay your taxes now.’?
That has already happened to our nation. The current government is a bastardization. A long time ago it was transformed into something fundamentally very different. The will of our government is enforced, like practically every other government in history, at the end of a gun. This is not consent of the governed. This is not government of the People, by the People. It is an abomination. Perhaps we can vote our way back to freedom. I personally doubt it. But the fact remains, we must do something if we wish to be free.
Of note to us norteamericanos, this is what the eiltes would bring to our country.
All private citizens defenseless and at the mercy of the state and the corrupt drug gangs, the very rich and connected, organized crime, and the ‘crony-capitalist’.
This is what the constitution is all about people, just laws applied equally to all men (which must include those men who make up the government!), and a government that is restricted in what tyranny it can apply, where and when.
And (among others) the power of all men to arm with the same weapons that the state will use.
That’s the idea at least.
The tyranny of the state is explicit in that “constitution,” with the interests of the “state” always superior to that of the people. Nothing in it has any real teeth to actually restrain the foul entity it created. That was never the intent…
What “restricted tyranny” do you see as beneficial to yourself and others?
Now that is an interesting question.
You must agree that there needs to be some government, there have to be some minimal set of laws and institutions in place to enforce those laws, and thus some manner of paying for that government, no? The alternative is anarchy is it not?
“Nothing in it has any real teeth to actually restrain the foul entity it created.”
Indeed, that seems to be the main problem, I think we agree on that.
“What “restricted tyranny” do you see as beneficial to yourself and others?”
I thought that was addressed in the post – the constitution itself. It may not be perfect but it is a good start. There is a need for the state to exist, for national defense, border defense, we need roads, we need certain infrastructure to allow for trade and to benefit the civil society, and I agree that it must be as minimal as possible and restraining it is a fundamental problem.
This is now a new problem, indeed if we look at federalist #51 Madison states;
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human
nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were
to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over
men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government
to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Sorry, I don’t have a magic solution, but I assure you that anarchy is not the answer.
No, I don’t have to agree that any “state” is necessary. 🙂
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. ~ Thomas Jefferson
That is the only necessary… self government, and self defense – whether by individuals or their VOLUNTARY associations. If you want to call that some form of government, go ahead. I call it essential anarchy.
Anarchy does not mean no rules… just no rulers and no slaves. If you are not fit to rule yourself, what would make you (or anyone else) fit to rule others? You cannot be both master and slave at the same time.
“That is the only necessary… self government, and self defense – whether by individuals or their VOLUNTARY associations.”
Yes I understand the idea of voluntaryism and I don’t see it working. Don’t take this wrong as we probably agree on far more than we disagree, but I think for the civil society to work there has to be a law – and equality under the law and a state to be there in some form, and yes it’s not an easy problem to solve.
I do take your points, but I think this is one of those agree to disagree situations.
You are confusing anarchy with chaos. We don’t actually need a government. A free people may choose to implement a very limited one to catalyse prosperity through defense of rights. However, when such institutions no longer serve the People, the People have a right and a duty to dissolve them; replacing them with something new or nothing at all.
The root of our tyranny problem in the United States is that we have forgotten that a government is not necessary. If we create one and it no longer defends rights then it is imperative it be dissolved poste haste. To allow it to continue is unwise, immoral, and deadly. Anarchy =/= chaos
“John in Ohio says:
December 27, 2015 at 17:16
You are confusing anarchy with chaos.”
Anarchy is chaos. With no laws it will be a simple matter of which group has the most guns and will end up ruling over the rest.
Point me to an example of where this has worked on anything larger than a neighborhood size.
“We don’t actually need a government. […] the People have a right and a duty to dissolve them; replacing them with something new or nothing at all.”
Indeed they do, but the idea that we do not need a government is opinion, and I understand it’s your opinion. I reject this idea.
What you are really talking about here is Galt’s Gulch, which is a neat idea I grant you.
It’s unworkable on any real scale, especially one as large as ours. Yes, this is my opinion.
I prefer to live in the world of the possible and the realistic, and as I said before the constitution is a pretty good place to start, and right off the bat I can think of a few adjustments and maybe a few more amendments. But that’s a government, and even what I am talking about is quite a stretch to see implemented. Your ‘cooperative anarchy’ (and mind you I do appreciate the good things about the idea, I am a big fan of Atlas Shrugged) is out there in complete fantasy land.
Excellent discussion. I particularly appreciate the civility with which all of you are engaging with each other.
My own loosey goosey prescription:
Formulate laws to define and protect individual property rights (for both tangibles and intangibles)
Apply and enforce said laws in a transparent manner with equality of access (no special privileges like qualified immunity or immunity from future prosecution in light of new findings)
Make publicly available each and every piece of communication between state entities and actors (memos, reports, analyses etc.)
Admittedly, these are rough ideas that need to be purified and forged in the court of public opinion. Apologies for repeating any ideas you’ve presented already.
Respectfully, I believe you (AR-10) are reading more into my comments then actually appear. I make no claim to some cooperative volunteerism or anything of the sort. I just insist upon my right to be left alone. I insist that I have a right to live without a government. Is it your position that I do not possess this inalienable right? If you do then you are proposing that inalienable rights are a fictitious construct and not a solid reality. Such a belief is at the foundation of statism. I wholeheartedly disagree with such a viewpoint.
Limited tyranny is still tyranny. Only when a person consents is a government legitimate and acceptable.
Well said!
Good reminder that freedom is never free.
Nothing will change in Mexico til the AD’s take it to the corrupt officials and cartels. And then they might just be replacing one set of assholes with another.
But sometimes you just gotta take a chance.
The best way to take it to the cartels is to take it to the cartel’s families.
Nothing will change in Mexico as long as America continues its prohibition. Get rid of the illegal drug trade and the narcos would have a hard time paying all their soldiers.
Please explain how all the world’s drug addicts are in america, sucking up all the worlds supply of illegal narcotics? Are you blaming america first? How does making these things legal take away the power of the cartels?
Do you really believe the cartels will legally compete with a legal business rival?
What example in mexican culture can you show for these changes to happen?
Mexican culture and american culture are both christian That is the only thing that is similar.
Chicago has drug gangs also and the violence does not even compare to Mexico.
The Mexican cartels are funded largely by American drug use. Mexico is a poorly run country that has a porous and long border with america. It is naturally suited to be the trade route across which drugs are struggled. no drugs laws = no need for illicit smuggling route. No I don’t think the cartels would try and legitimize themselves and compete with legitimate producers. I would expect their customer base to go elsewhere and their money dry up. Without the enormous source of income, They would be unable to maintain their hold on the population. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
The question is where is the huge amount of money coming from, to make all the murder and mayhem so profitable to the narcotrafficers? The answer is America. There is no money available in most any other country, and not enough demand even where there is some money. Eliminating all the criminality requires one of two things to happen. Either convince the average American to reverse his constant increase in demand for illegal drugs (at any price), or eliminate all illegal drugs-by legalizing them.
You get it Larry. Say no to drugs campaigns don’t work. Public education of dangers don’t work. Locking up abusers doesn’t work. locking up dealers doesn’t work. good luck convincing Americans to give up the drugs. It won’t happen. Alcohol prohibition didn’t work and neither does drug.
From watching the movie cartel land, I think the autodefensas got it right in taking up arms, when they got it wrong is when they started raiding houses and becoming sort of a police force against some of the citizens it wants to protect.
These narcos are some foreigners to them, they are their neighbors their uncles that friend of a friend.
You keep the polulation armed and on your side then you have all the power.
It’s completely deplorable that the Mexican government changed the constitution from “keep and bear” to “keep” only, saying it was the government’s job to protect.
On top of that, they have been accepting bribes from the cartels, and when the people rise up and protect themselves, the government arrests the people on firearms violations.
Maybe the Autodefensas should rise up against the government while they’re at it.
On a side note, if Mexico didn’t have such horrible gun laws, lots of Americans would gladly come to Mexico and assist the Autodefensas in their efforts. Customs would arrest me if I came across the border with so much as a swiss army knife, much less a glock 19, AR-15, and miscellaneous Mil Surp gear.
“On top of that, they have been accepting bribes from the cartels,…”
It’s quite simple. The Mexican government officials can take the bribe or be killed.
Silver or lead. “Plato o plomo”.
The citizens know who the thugs are. The cartels need to be made aware that the cost of doing their business is that their families, the ones that they love, can be killed at any time by phantoms that disappear into the night.
Plenty of Americans have gone down south to fight the cartels on their own soil. I have gone more than once. I first went down in 2012 with some militia guys. It seems like our ideas have taken root. 🙂
Sad that I have to wonder if Americans would be as ballsy as these Mexicans if push came to shove.
Americans prove they are ballsy everyday. Every time a law abiding citizen is confronted by evil and shoots it in the face.
Americans have more than enough stones. The time is just nowhere near ready for us to rise in armed anger against our own .gov.
Its sad that such a horrible thing had to happen to Mexico to make em fight back but I’m glad they have. VIVA AUTODEFENSAS! Maybe someday their effort will take back the country from the horrors they live today and restore peace.
Wonder how many of the autodefensas guns showed up in the eTrace system and the data used to try to “prove” firearms trafficking to the cartels????
“Cartel Land” is a useful documentary – well worth watching!
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