IN ASCENCION, MEXICO — In this dusty farm town, an hour south of the U.S. border, more than 40 people were abducted – one a week – in the first nine months of the year. Then, on Sept. 21, the kidnappings stopped.
That was the day a gang of kidnappers with AK-47s burst into Lolo’s seafood restaurant and tried to abduct the 17-year-old cashier. A mob of enraged residents chased down two of the teenage attackers and lynched them in a cotton field on the edge of town. “We’re not proud of what happened,” said Georgina “Coca” Gonzalez, who helped form an armed citizens’ group after the incident to fight crime and prevent kidnappings. “But we’re united now – the whole town. And we all want justice.”
Across the country, and especially in northern Mexico, the breakdown of the legal system is giving way to a wave of vigilante violence. As Mexicans grow frustrated with the depredations of drug mafias and the corruption and incompetence of authorities, some are meting out punishment the old-fashioned way, taking an eye for eye, or in some cases, an eye for a tooth. Some of these retributive acts have happened spontaneously, such as the Ascencion “uprising,” as many here have celebrated it. But other killings in the past year appear to have been carried out by shadowy forces who have left bodies along highways or hanging from bridges with handwritten notes that advertise the dead as “extortionists” or “kidnappers. Late last year, authorities discovered four bodies, including an alleged Monterrey gangster, Hector Saldana, and his two brothers, in a car in Mexico City. The deaths were announced by Mauricio Fernandez, the new mayor of the Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia, even before police identified the bodies.
Fernandez said he had nothing to do with the killings, although he boasted of his plans to create “cleansing teams” to rid his city of criminals.
“Sometimes coincidences happen in life. It’s better to see it that way,” Fernandez told a Monterrey newspaper.
People fighting back, can I get an AMEN.
Way to go, Mexico!!! It’s wonderful to see the Mexican people starting to rise up from the lawlessness and creating their own justice. I’ve always felt that was the true meaning of the movie “Unforgiven”….when justice is denied to people, they will eventually make their own. This is a wonderful event, and I hope will be followed by many many others. Only Mexicans can bring law and order back to Mexico.
#35 – It would be really fun to invent and sell a cure for cancer, then halt production once the line has been crossed into “excess” profits.
Also, the notion that you’re depriving someone by not spending everything you have is based ont he flawed notion that there’s a fixed amount of wealth in the world. Sorry, weath is created and is therefore infinite.
I think Bernie Sanders had it right yesterday as to who controls things in the world.
I never knew Mexico had a legal system? At least one that was not paid off buy the drug trade.
I wish to correct myself. Mayor Fernandez should not be sued. He should be brought up on charges. Perhaps the International Criminal Court.
Vigilanties don’t use due process.
If you all like to imagine that vigilanties are a force who represent the citizens justly then you are in for a big surprise when they burn you.
Good Luck
Publius==draw the line between self defense and the vigilante action here or are you against both?
Amobo==you are getting tiresome. There are different kinds of “wealth.” Those based on consumption of natural resources are often zero sum games with the excpetion being a fake to a replacement resource or new technology finding more of the old resource but all such resources run according to depletion schedules. You also conflate the notion of wealth in isolation with distribution of wealth which is entirely different.
PUKE BIG LIE NO 1: the rich are needed for capital formation/jobs/wealth creation.
Silly Hoomans.
#39 “It would be really fun to invent and sell a cure for cancer, then halt production once the line has been crossed into “excess” profits.”
I have a real world example of this, and unsurprisingly it cuts against the greater good. There are a class of health treatments called gene therapy. They are enormously expensive because there is no sunset on patent exclusivity. Generic versions of the same product are not allowed, ever. These things are in the high hundreds well into the thousands for a few doses.
It is important to consider the ultimate purpose of intellectual property laws. While the inventor is incentivized by gaining rights to market their invention, these rights are supposed to be time-limited to encourage the spread/improvement of technology.
The people that get rich are only an effect, the ultimate goal of society is improvement of the entire population. The reward structure is only useful it if produces actual rewards.
Based on your viewpoint, and your specific reference to cancer… how is one to prioritize between the interests of cancer and the host organism?
#36
Self-defense is being attacked and defending yourself.
Lynching is NOT self-defense.
#37 Bobbo I have to talk at a level that everyone can understand. If I start using 7 dollar words and high-polluting concepts I’ll lose the public educated US readers.
And we wouldn’t want that now would we?
Cursor_
#39
If you believe it to be infinite, then spending it all will only mean more will come along to replace it.
#49
Again incorrect. Killing people to prove that killing people is wrong is the same old unprofitable eye for an eye, hand for a hand, foot for a foot argument.
In the end we will be blind and without hands or feet.
Crime is merely a symptom of a far greater underlying illness. Treat the illness of crushing poverty. It is all over the planet and the haves seem to care little about addressing the illness.
Even though addressing the problem of poverty would add to their bottom line.
Cursor_
blogdelnarco.com
fun to read
#47 – You might be surprised to find I agree with you. You gert as rich as you can *while the reasonable length patent protection* holds.
#52, also referencing your points at #39 and especially the basic idea at #26
I must have put too fine a point on it. You are wrong that there are “no such thing as excessive profits”(#26). We have laws against price gouging and monopolies for exactly this reason.
The two major sectors that are out whack right now are finance and health insurance. These industries have been systematically allowed to operate to the detriment of the population.
When the financial sector, domestically, expanded to encompass 40% of all net corp returns those are excessive profits.
And, when the private health insurance industry increases rates at a multiple of inflation over many years… THAT IS ALSO EXCESS PROFITS.
In the case of finance the goal is properly allocate capital. In the case of the healthcare system it is to heal and comfort people. Unequally rewarding people in pursuit of these goals is fine.
Once individual rewards cease to produce societal benefits those rewards are, by definition, excessive.