6 ms·

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the

It surprises me how much Americans don't understand how deeply the cartel is in every transaction. Yes, sending money to Grandma to pay for a car is funding the cartel who probably got paid to make the car available. Grandma may even pay small direct bribes to the cartel just to be able to live her life. Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) or we can make Mexico a safe and excellent country again, and that means getting rid of the cartel. And yes, other countries have their issues too and we should help stabilize those countries as well. If the Mexican government can fix their cartel issue, we can go back to normal remittances. Until then the US will make policy choices to resolve problems. As always, the salt of the earth people will pay the cost for politicians being bad at things.

wombat-man 1mo ago
I think it's possible, but pretty difficult. There's just too much money to be made selling drugs to the US.
- vorpalhex 1mo ago
  I am against marijuana but I think it's clear legalizing it successfully starves the cartel of a lot of drug financing (and therefore we should both legalize it and have public campaigns against using it, ala alcohol). Even the weird state based legalization has caused the cartels to pivot into things like avocado farming and mining. Drug users don't seem to be overly preoccupied with what drug they use. Probably shifting them towards lower risk choices (pot, ketamine) and aggressively crack down on dealers is a winning combo. (A lot of low level dealers are just graduated drug users but the line between buying and selling is a large one and dealers do immense harm while also shielding more dangerous criminals. Incentives against dealing incl aggressive enforcement are powerful at dissuading low level dealers, which in turn starves the criminal organizations.)
  - InitialLastName 1mo ago
    > Drug users don't seem to be overly preoccupied with what drug they use. What? In the case of opiates (which is the most significant drug problem we have at the moment), users are often physically addicted to a specific substance and that addiction was often initiated by legitimate medical usage of that substance. They'll certainly care if you say "hey, you can't use heroin any more, have some weed instead".
    - vorpalhex 1mo ago
      The medical pipeline for opiate addiction has been gone for several years now. Most users were exposed to fentanyl unknowingly through buying other tainted drugs, often expecting percocet or even ecstasy. Some of these users do require methodone treatment, but you can't give drug users unregulated access to opiates. That is just not gonna work out. Either they are going to self taper ("stretching" their tail of their stash) or they are going to end up in a hospital and get tapered by a professional.
lokar 1mo ago
A safe and prosperous Mexico would be a huge advantage to America. We should be investing a lot more into this.
- wil421 1mo ago
  The US has been investing heavily in Mexico. They are our top trading partner.
- g8oz 1mo ago
  Something I found interesting was that China and Mexico have a similar Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita income (~$26000).
driverdan 1mo ago
What you're suggesting is that all Mexicans suffer more because some money may somehow end up in the hands of the cartel. And that, for some reason, the US should help do this. That's absurd. If you really want to eliminate the cartels make recreational drugs legal.
- gruez 1mo ago
  >What you're suggesting is that all Mexicans suffer more because some money may somehow end up in the hands of the cartel. It's not just Mexicans. Cartels don't respect borders.
- vorpalhex 1mo ago
  You give your sister $100. You find out later that she uses $50 of that money to buy heroin and inject it in herself. Do you keep giving her the $100? Absolutely not! This isn't even a real question. If you directly enable a person or group of people or country to harm themselves and others, you have a duty to stop doing it. If US remittances are directly fueling the cartel which beats, rapes, murders and even engages in torture, then not only may the US cease that but it is plainly ethically bound to do so. Yes, this will make it hard for Grandma to buy a car. You can't fund the people who torture and rape random Mexican farmers so Grandma can buy a car. > If you really want to eliminate the cartels make recreational drugs legal. While murdering drug users with their own money may seem like a clever solution, you are in fact still doing murder just in long form.
  - gusgus01 1mo ago
    You pay taxes in the US? You are directly enabling a country to harm others. You ever buy a phone? You are directly enabling a chain of groups to harm people (in the name of creating that phone). You ever give a dollar to a homeless man? You might be directly contributing to them harming themselves (or possibly just letting them buy food/drink). Heck even your example about your sister, I think some people would argue that it's still the moral choice. Clearly there's a spectrum here. Black and white thinking and statements aren't helping and shouldn't be the basis for policy decisions.
TMWNN 1mo ago
>Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) Indeed, it is not. But not for lack of trying. The biggest migration in history is the 10% of Mexico that has moved to the US since 1970. <https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1trqnn8/height_trends_over_time_among_19yearold_males_and/oopyb4v/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1trqnn8/he...> As of 2024, 11 million Mexican-born people live in the US. <https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-were-they-born?migrationCountry=Mexico https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-...>
- dpm2 1mo ago
  Where do you get the line about the biggest migration in history from? Your link seems to just be to a one sentence Reddit comment from someone with the same username as you, and no source.
  - TMWNN 1mo ago
    Feel free to come up with another country that has sent 10% of its population over 50 years to one other country, and is large enough that that means an eight-figure population transfer.
- amanaplanacanal 1mo ago
  Fron what I can tell, immigration levels right now are about the same as they were in the late 19th century, when a lot of our great grandparents first came to the US. At that time, the scare was about the Chinese, as opposed to brown people from South of the border.
  - TMWNN 1mo ago
    > Fron what I can tell, immigration levels right now are about the same as they were in the late 19th century, when a lot of our great grandparents first came to the US. ... and which, in turn, led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which gave the US 40 years of relief from the influx to integrate the existing population. We need another such.
triceratops 1mo ago
> that means getting rid of the cartel. Stop Americans buying drugs from them. Even invading Mexico won't get rid of the cartels.

wombat-man 1mo ago

I think it's possible, but pretty difficult. There's just too much money to be made selling drugs to the US.

vorpalhex 1mo ago
I am against marijuana but I think it's clear legalizing it successfully starves the cartel of a lot of drug financing (and therefore we should both legalize it and have public campaigns against using it, ala alcohol). Even the weird state based legalization has caused the cartels to pivot into things like avocado farming and mining. Drug users don't seem to be overly preoccupied with what drug they use. Probably shifting them towards lower risk choices (pot, ketamine) and aggressively crack down on dealers is a winning combo. (A lot of low level dealers are just graduated drug users but the line between buying and selling is a large one and dealers do immense harm while also shielding more dangerous criminals. Incentives against dealing incl aggressive enforcement are powerful at dissuading low level dealers, which in turn starves the criminal organizations.)
- InitialLastName 1mo ago
  > Drug users don't seem to be overly preoccupied with what drug they use. What? In the case of opiates (which is the most significant drug problem we have at the moment), users are often physically addicted to a specific substance and that addiction was often initiated by legitimate medical usage of that substance. They'll certainly care if you say "hey, you can't use heroin any more, have some weed instead".
  - vorpalhex 1mo ago
    The medical pipeline for opiate addiction has been gone for several years now. Most users were exposed to fentanyl unknowingly through buying other tainted drugs, often expecting percocet or even ecstasy. Some of these users do require methodone treatment, but you can't give drug users unregulated access to opiates. That is just not gonna work out. Either they are going to self taper ("stretching" their tail of their stash) or they are going to end up in a hospital and get tapered by a professional.

lokar 1mo ago

A safe and prosperous Mexico would be a huge advantage to America. We should be investing a lot more into this.

wil421 1mo ago
The US has been investing heavily in Mexico. They are our top trading partner.
g8oz 1mo ago
Something I found interesting was that China and Mexico have a similar Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita income (~$26000).

driverdan 1mo ago

What you're suggesting is that all Mexicans suffer more because some money may somehow end up in the hands of the cartel. And that, for some reason, the US should help do this. That's absurd. If you really want to eliminate the cartels make recreational drugs legal.

gruez 1mo ago
>What you're suggesting is that all Mexicans suffer more because some money may somehow end up in the hands of the cartel. It's not just Mexicans. Cartels don't respect borders.
vorpalhex 1mo ago
You give your sister $100. You find out later that she uses $50 of that money to buy heroin and inject it in herself. Do you keep giving her the $100? Absolutely not! This isn't even a real question. If you directly enable a person or group of people or country to harm themselves and others, you have a duty to stop doing it. If US remittances are directly fueling the cartel which beats, rapes, murders and even engages in torture, then not only may the US cease that but it is plainly ethically bound to do so. Yes, this will make it hard for Grandma to buy a car. You can't fund the people who torture and rape random Mexican farmers so Grandma can buy a car. > If you really want to eliminate the cartels make recreational drugs legal. While murdering drug users with their own money may seem like a clever solution, you are in fact still doing murder just in long form.
- gusgus01 1mo ago
  You pay taxes in the US? You are directly enabling a country to harm others. You ever buy a phone? You are directly enabling a chain of groups to harm people (in the name of creating that phone). You ever give a dollar to a homeless man? You might be directly contributing to them harming themselves (or possibly just letting them buy food/drink). Heck even your example about your sister, I think some people would argue that it's still the moral choice. Clearly there's a spectrum here. Black and white thinking and statements aren't helping and shouldn't be the basis for policy decisions.

TMWNN 1mo ago

>Either all of Mexico can move to the US (probably not a winning solution) Indeed, it is not. But not for lack of trying. The biggest migration in history is the 10% of Mexico that has moved to the US since 1970. <https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1trqnn8/height_trends_over_time_among_19yearold_males_and/oopyb4v/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1trqnn8/he...> As of 2024, 11 million Mexican-born people live in the US. <https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-were-they-born?migrationCountry=Mexico https://ourworldindata.org/where-do-migrants-live-and-where-...>

dpm2 1mo ago
Where do you get the line about the biggest migration in history from? Your link seems to just be to a one sentence Reddit comment from someone with the same username as you, and no source.
- TMWNN 1mo ago
  Feel free to come up with another country that has sent 10% of its population over 50 years to one other country, and is large enough that that means an eight-figure population transfer.
amanaplanacanal 1mo ago
Fron what I can tell, immigration levels right now are about the same as they were in the late 19th century, when a lot of our great grandparents first came to the US. At that time, the scare was about the Chinese, as opposed to brown people from South of the border.
- TMWNN 1mo ago
  > Fron what I can tell, immigration levels right now are about the same as they were in the late 19th century, when a lot of our great grandparents first came to the US. ... and which, in turn, led to the Immigration Act of 1924, which gave the US 40 years of relief from the influx to integrate the existing population. We need another such.

triceratops 1mo ago

> that means getting rid of the cartel. Stop Americans buying drugs from them. Even invading Mexico won't get rid of the cartels.