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Comment by edgyquant | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people will tell you Mexico isn’t a bad place despite half the country being controlled by violent warlords. I’m really not sure what the point of “actually”ing here is?

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Honestly the violent warlords are better. Just from my time in Mexico. Areas controlled by police the police will arrest you for any random reason. The violent warlords are running drugs and have no interest in robbing a tourist for $20, it's a total waste of their time.

It isn't the police that is making mexico one of the most violent places in the world, I'm sure they play a part in it as in all developing countries but said violence ends up being linked to the "violent warlords" anyway more often than not in the form of corrupt policemen working for them.

Tourists tend to be treated with kiddy gloves by organized crime because of the response that diplomatic blunders trigger. Odds are as well that, if you as a tourist went out of your way to go to a warlord controlled area you were(or were seen as) their client.

I was in a non-touristy part of mexico, and the only crime we had was when someone left their iPhone with their stuff at a park and the phone disappeared (I would expect the same almost anywhere in North America).

Meanwhile the police shakedowns were incessant. We ended up paying over $100 USDd/day to police in straight up bribes for made up offenses.

100% this is my experience. I don't ever go to the tourist towns so maybe police are less hassling there.

Has it occurred to you that the police and cartels might not be operating as separate entities when it comes to shaking down tourists for cash?

It's occurred to me, but this happens even in places where tourists basically aren't found and there is no well oiled machine for it even be worth the cartel's time to like keep watch for tourists and call the police to shake them down. That and the cartel can just straight up roll up with guns and take all your shit, why wouldn't they just do that if they wanted your money? Instead you find the cartels want nothing and the police want a bribe that would amount to very little for the cartels and not at all worth some arrangement picking up pennies with bumfuck police that almost never see a tourist.

You're making a number of assumptions for what's required in this process beyond "shake down any tourists you like and give us a cut when you do (or we'll kill you)".

>That and the cartel can just straight up roll up with guns and take all your shit, why wouldn't they just do that if they wanted your money?

Being robbed by the government is more palatable to tourists. Would you travel to a place where ununiformed criminals shook you down for $100 a day?

>"shake down any tourists you like and give us a cut when you do (or we'll kill you)".

What you are describing is a tax. A tax is generally understood to reduce an activity which is why cigarettes etc are highly taxed. Not sure this is making the argument you think it is. In fact you are describing a system where the cartel disincentives this behavior, by making it less profitable.

>Being robbed by the government is more palatable to tourists.

Hard disagree with this one.

> What you are describing... by making it less profitable.

Absolutely correct and totally irrelevant to the original point, which was that the administrative overhead for the cartel is vanishingly small.

>Hard disagree

It was palatable enough for you to travel to Mexico.

I mean yeah, but I've also travelled as a private citizen to a number of places that someone politically-uncorrect would call "3rd world shitholes" like Iraq, Syria, etc. I've travelled places where I've been handed an AK by the locals and basically told "good fucking luck, try not to die." I'll go pretty much anywhere; I've been shot at, I've been robbed, I've been pushed out of cars abandoned in the middle of nowhere, I've had my shit jacked before and I generally not hold it against the police or the country in general if ununiformed criminals do that.

This is purely a matter of opinion but being told I have to worry about the cartels and the police is a bigger pill to swallow than just worrying about the cartels. The fact I personally was willing to go doesn't indicate I find being robbed in uniform more palatable.

The point is that a police uniform gives a veneer of respectability to robbery (they even call it something different--a bribe!) that a mugging does not posses, and presents as a routine matter instead of an assault or threat of violence (the threats there, of course, just less explicit). The uniform is a bone-stock, fundamental element of the police bribe dynamic. You can hard disagree that tourists find it more agreeable, but you need to throw out some kind of argument for why that is (more than just how hard ya are).

Um the paragraph you appear to have interpreted as "how hard you are" was a response to my tolerance to travel to somewhere in Mexico (re: It was palatable enough for you to travel to Mexico.) I'm utterly baffled you took that as a reply to something else, but I'm pretty sure in any case that characterization was bad faith. The whole point was not that I find it "palatable" but that I'm willing to travel to unpalatable places.

In any case, you're telling me I "need" this or that to disagree with a mere opinion about "palate", which is just insane. An opinion cannot be proved, I think you know this, and I don't see you offering some kind of poll that samples tourists about who they'd rather be robbed by or whatever you may be looking for either so I will disengage now.

Remember that you asked this question...

>That and the cartel can just straight up roll up with guns and take all your shit, why wouldn't they just do that if they wanted your money?

...and I gave you this answer (paraphrased)...

>Because it's easier to get the cops to do it for them.

Looks like we're done here.

Could you imagine a scenario where what is happening in the cartel controlled areas is putting pressure on the non cartel controlled areas and that pressure results in the police behaving the way that they are?

In other words, do you think it's possible that the cartels are responsible for the shitty police behaviour in the rest of Mexico?

It's an interesting question.

In US I find gang-active areas there is far less police hassling as they are focused on either severe crimes or just fucking off doing nothing. I've lived in several semi-dangerous cities and police do not enforce traffic laws (like at all) as they have bigger fish to fry. Your odds of getting shook down are practically zero. Whereas in bumfuck US you get pulled over all the time for practically nothing, "civil asset forfeiture" (aka shakedown) cuz a dog looked at you wrong etc. I will admit my basis for comparison is a bit different though as I don't worry at all going into even the most dangerous parts of US because here I can legally have a gun, in Mexico all I can do is run.

I suspect based on my other Norte Americano experiences the police in Mexico would be even worse without the cartels, but I'm not sure.

Resources spent dealing with gang activity in one area are resources that can't be spent on dealing with police malfeasance in another area.

We are all impoverished by corruption, even in areas outside of where we live.

It's a nice thought that resources would be redirected to correcting malfeasance but in practice in most of the US it seems resources get redirected to pettier and pettier "crimes" when there is less serious crime.

Have you ever left your Midwest bubble?

I don’t live in the Midwest and yea I’ve been all over the world. Do you have a point?

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