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Comment by tamalesfan | Hacker News Reader

The 91 people killed in January while stealing gasoline from a deliberately ruptured pipeline burned to death 320 miles South of the US border. When 43 students were rounded up by the police and handed over to a cartel for execution and disposal in 2014 they were 532 miles south of the US; halfway to Guatemala. The 2011 Monterrey casino arson attack that killed 52 people was 90 miles from the US.

I know it's the fashion to Blame America First in all things, but Mexico has enormous problems well beyond its border with the US.

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The drug violence is fueled by the USA's demand for drugs. We also lack the political will to try things that have worked elsewhere, like decriminalization, even on a small scale.

Not saying the USA is responsible for solving Mexico's problems, but we do have a lot of national soul-searching to do if we want to get serious about drug violence in both countries.

Nitpicking (sorry), but decriminialization of use doesn't fix the supply side of the equation — production, distribution, and sale would still be black market. To erode the cartels' profits we would also have to legalize (or decriminialize, but at that point, might as well just legalize) production and sale.

> The drug violence is fueled by the USA's demand for drugs.

So goes the conventional group think. Thing is Mexico isn't the only nation that shares a long border with the US. Yet somehow Canada isn't yet another murder capital of the world, busily feeding the relentless US appetite for drugs.

But analyzing the difference between Mexico and Canada isn't something you're allow to do; it rapidly produces extremely uncomfortable results that contemporary good-thinkers don't ever dare entertain.

The drug violence is fueled by the USA's intelligence agencies being on slash supporting both sides.

Killed while stealing gasoline? they were filling running old trucks with gasoline and drilling on gasoline pipes.

> I know it’s the fashion to...

But thats not what they said. They said a small area within Mexico is like a warzone.

And then you wrote about several small areas, of which you highlighted incidents over the last decade, so I guess nothing is even happening in those areas now?

Interesting way to agree with someone. Handful of knowledge, weird flex but ok.

The original comment claimed that the small violent area of Mexico was (exclusively) adjacent to the US border.

The thrust of the comment you replied to was that in fact, violence was not constrained to the US border.

I think you failed to read tamalesfan's comment accurately (much less charitably). The snarky comment looks especially foolish when you're so off-base.

Okay, I was thinking they were referring to the country adjacent to the US border, and small parts of it

Different way of reading it

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