Morality and Mexico

wkirby
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Morality and Mexico

I was listening to a report on the radio about the Papal visit of Mexico over the weekend and they pointed out that over 80% of Mexicans identify themselves as Cathoholics.

If that's the case, and if religion is the source of all morality, could someone please explain to me the violence and murders associated with the drug trade?

Forgive me if this isn't categorised properly, I didn't know where else to start the conversation.

Why can't people accept that Atheism is by definition no faith? I don't believe in Atheism, I simply am Atheist.


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The U.S. "War on Drugs" is

The U.S. "War on Drugs" is the main reason for all the violence in the drug trade.  Sure, drugs themselves can lead to violence, but that's not what's going on with the drug cartels. It's not like two crackheads fighting over  the last hit. They got plenty to go around.  Their government is so corrupt it's a joke. But it's all good business for the DEA.  If the WOD were to stop, the cartels would lose their stronghold.  

And everybody calling themself a catholic is a joke as well, but it's convenient. I'm sure if you look up stats on religion in Haiti you'll find they are all catholic too.  Santa Ria by night with a few hail maries in the morning. 

Catholicism is just convenient.  I had a friend who wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.  One day religion came up. He said to someone else "yeah, i'm catholic".  I said I thought you didn't believe in God. He said " I was raised catholic. My family is catholic. We never went to church tho. But if there is a God- I'm catholic".  lol   I'm sure you are saying to yourself "well he's just fucking retarded".  My only reply is He's the average Joe.

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I worked at a company with a

I worked at a company with a buddy of mine and this manager that was Mexican.  I knew this guy before working for him and we all ended up partying together, going to Vegas for special events, etc.  Every Sunday, though, he goes to church with his family and I asked him once what religion he was since I never really cared about which denomination and he said "I'm Catholic."  I asked him why and he said "both my sisters are and my parents are so, I am."  The thing that pissed me off is that he never really defended why he was except for that answer.  That "belief by default" shit doesn't fly with me and I know he doesn't have to go the whole nine yards and go into intricate detail about his beliefs, but it's not just him; it's the majority of people that believe that use that excuse.  It shows weakness and a desire to be blind, deaf and dumb rather than use the tools that they were born with.  It's a damn shame.    


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tonyjeffers wrote:The U.S.

tonyjeffers wrote:

The U.S. "War on Drugs" is the main reason for all the violence in the drug trade.

You get a gold star. Smiling

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Beyond Saving
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 Nowhere near 20% of

 Nowhere near 20% of Mexicans are involved in the drug trade. I have seen estimates that the drug trade in Mexico employs around 500,000 people to 1 million people on the high side, so with a population of 113 million you are looking at 0.5%-1% of the population and most of them are employed in farming to grow drugs or muling not the violent side of actually trading the drugs. There was around 13,000 killings in Mexico last year attributed to the drug trade and many of those were probably done by repeat offenders.

 

I have no idea what religion the violent portion of drug cartels in Mexico tend to be affiliated with, but you are dealing with a relatively small portion of the population causing a lot of violence. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


wkirby
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Beyond Saving

Beyond Saving wrote:

 Nowhere near 20% of Mexicans are involved in the drug trade. I have seen estimates that the drug trade in Mexico employs around 500,000 people to 1 million people on the high side, so with a population of 113 million you are looking at 0.5%-1% of the population and most of them are employed in farming to grow drugs or muling not the violent side of actually trading the drugs. There was around 13,000 killings in Mexico last year attributed to the drug trade and many of those were probably done by repeat offenders.

 

I have no idea what religion the violent portion of drug cartels in Mexico tend to be affiliated with, but you are dealing with a relatively small portion of the population causing a lot of violence. 

So by this rationale are you proposing that it is only a small proportion of the remaining 20% of non-catholics that are causing all of the problems? Wouldn't it be more logical to work on the same ratios, therefore (by your numbers) 400,000 - 800,000 catholics directly involved?

And just to throw another dynamic in, apparently evangelical forms of christianity are on the rise as well although I don't know what kind of outright numbers more broadly identify themselves as christian.

Why can't people accept that Atheism is by definition no faith? I don't believe in Atheism, I simply am Atheist.


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Vastet wrote:tonyjeffers

Vastet wrote:
tonyjeffers wrote:

The U.S. "War on Drugs" is the main reason for all the violence in the drug trade.

You get a gold star. Smiling

 

             So is marijuana legal to possess in Canada ?

             How about cocaine ?

             Meth ?

             So unlike the US, Canada's all laid back about personal consumption of mind altering substances ?

 

          ( don't get me wrong, I'm all for copping a good buzz, I'm just wondering how different Canadian drug policy is from the US... if at all ? )

 

 

 

 

 


Beyond Saving
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wkirby wrote:So by this

wkirby wrote:

So by this rationale are you proposing that it is only a small proportion of the remaining 20% of non-catholics that are causing all of the problems? Wouldn't it be more logical to work on the same ratios, therefore (by your numbers) 400,000 - 800,000 catholics directly involved?

And just to throw another dynamic in, apparently evangelical forms of christianity are on the rise as well although I don't know what kind of outright numbers more broadly identify themselves as christian.

 

No my only point is that the criminals are simply a small portion of the population- even if 100% of the criminals claim to be Catholic only a small portion of the Catholic population is involved. So to attempt to draw some connection between the high number of Catholics in Mexico and the problems with the drug cartels is absurd. There has been plenty of harm done directly by the Catholic Church in history, I see no reason to attempt to draw some imaginary connection between the church and drug cartels when clearly none exists.

 

Most likely there is a high population of catholics in Mexico because the Catholic Church has done a lot of missionary work there. When you are starving to death and a Catholic Church offers you food and shelter you become catholic really fast. Churches have done more to offer shelter to orphans and provide the opportunity for them to do something other than become drug mules than probably any other organizations- certainly more than the government has.

 

IMO, it is one area where us atheists fall pathetically short. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to have an atheist orphanage in Mexico that spent time teaching the children useful things like science, how to grow crops in the desert and finance so they could learn to profit from trading goods instead of spending their time being brainwashed by scripture? Unfortunately, the Mexican people have little choice and often the only place to turn to is churches which provide food, shelter and protection but do nothing to teach them or provide the tools to be independent; churches are more interested in creating more dependency and therefore more followers. I think it might be fair of accusing the church of using the bad situation for their gain, but to point to drug cartels as a failure of Catholic morality is ridiculous. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


wkirby
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Beyond Saving wrote: No my

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

No my only point is that the criminals are simply a small portion of the population- even if 100% of the criminals claim to be Catholic only a small portion of the Catholic population is involved. So to attempt to draw some connection between the high number of Catholics in Mexico and the problems with the drug cartels is absurd. There has been plenty of harm done directly by the Catholic Church in history, I see no reason to attempt to draw some imaginary connection between the church and drug cartels when clearly none exists.

 

I am not attempting to draw any lines, I am merely asking the question about how those who are blessed can reconcile their concept that it is only the religious with morals. Time and again I hear zealots of all religious faiths claiming that if you don't believe religion x you must be immoral. If that's true, explain Mexico.

I apologise if it appeared as though I was trying to suggest all  - or even the majority of - catholics are drug dealers, murderers, etc. My question is purely on morality.

Why can't people accept that Atheism is by definition no faith? I don't believe in Atheism, I simply am Atheist.


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ProzacDeathWish wrote:So is

ProzacDeathWish wrote:
So is marijuana legal to possess in Canada ?

It can be. And even when it isn't, not only are the consequences not as severe, but American influence is negligible. The only real impact the drug war has had on Canada is keeping weed more illegal than legal, so the border stays as open as it is, for commerce.
In Canada there are Provinces that have set up clinics were you can go get a fresh needle and do your drugs in a safe and monitored environment, free of the fear of arrest. Because studies concluded it lowered the spread of things like HIV, and reduced the risk of overdose.
It hasn't gone so far as to be federal policy, but I think it will in time.
Meth is already rarely used here. The easier it is to get safer drugs, the less demand for a product like meth. There are some trouble spots, but it is extremely rare compared to use in the states.

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Coke is an odd one. I

Coke is an odd one. I occasionally run into someone who does it, but not often. I don't often hear about it in criminal circles unless it's part of something else. I can't remember ever hearing about someone busted for coke. It's always illegal guns, assault, maybe murder, and oh, there was some coke as well. Probably also the whole arsenal including weed and lsd and shrooms etc.
For cops here, drugs are more a thing you stumble across than you hunt for. We don't have choppers with infrared flying over our cities and teams of troops walking through fields hunting for grow ops. Cops don't search everyone looking for a reason to haul them away. Generally, anyway.

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In my country marijuana was

In my country marijuana was highly illegal for a long time and not even legally defined. It was criminal to have "a greater amount than small", whatever the small meant, so much for letter of the law. So there were cases in media like old sick people were sentenced to jail because they grew the pot to ease their pain or something. Mostly they got a presidential amnesty, Havel used to be very generous with these, maybe too much. 

A couple of years ago marijuana legislative got a minor facelift and now growing a couple of plants is just a transgression, not a crime. If you don't sell them. From now on we see in media not small scale growers harrassed by the over-active police, but a little different situation. We see police raids on mega-grow rooms with hundreds of plants and fully automatic light controls, watering, fertilizing... Usually they're managed by Vietnamese gangs. I'd say Vietnamese organized criminality is definitely on the rise, since the economic problems. The grow rooms are found by police by checking the power consumption rates per building. Such a waste of plant material! The state should take over the ganja trade and create a new opportunities for employment.

As for other drugs, meth is very popular. So popular that  abroad they reputedly call it "czecho". It's easy to produce, powerful and... the producers get usually busted when the manipulation with petrol solution and stove starts a fire. Last time I heard some people cooked meth in a hotel room in Prague, right in the centrum. 

Of course, there is a heroin community in larger cities, but I get an impression it is not on the rise.

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When one of you can honestly

When one of you can honestly claim to live around a city with a near-complete absence of antiloitering and antivagrancy laws, where people have been shot for not paying for someone's vices... gimme a ring. I'll be more than happy to hear what you have to say about narcotics.

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Pfft. Most of those will

Pfft. Most of those will drink Listerine to get drunk.

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wkirby wrote:I was listening

wkirby wrote:

I was listening to a report on the radio about the Papal visit of Mexico over the weekend and they pointed out that over 80% of Mexicans identify themselves as Cathoholics.

If that's the case, and if religion is the source of all morality, could someone please explain to me the violence and murders associated with the drug trade?

Forgive me if this isn't categorised properly, I didn't know where else to start the conversation.

When I went to Peru they told me 90% of Peruvians claim to be catholic and 80% of that 90% are catholic by tradition only. We were told that barely any one follows the pope or the vatican. I also got the same responses from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Columbia and Mexico.

It's like Tony Soprano wearing a cross. He does it because it is fashionable not because he believes in it.