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Comment by int0x29 | Hacker News Reader

These self defense groups sound great until you think about all the problems with vigilante groups. Also they have a history of turning into cartels.

That and all things being equal I suspect most of the people in these groups would rather not be fighting.

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It's not an ideal situation, but since the Mexican government refuses to do its job and protect their people and uphold the law what choice do they have?

Right now these people are just doing whatever they can to survive but it's just treating the symptom. The source of the problem is the Mexican government who is either incompetent or happy to take bribes to look the other way while their citizens are left the mercy of paramilitary gangs.

What can the government do at this point? We are talking about criminal syndicates with basically standing armies. If the Mexican government goes to all out war it will lead to a humanitarian disaster.

They should send in the army. How is what's happening there now not already a war and a humanitarian disaster? The only difference is that the civilians are the ones forced into fighting and they're having to buy their guns from rival gangs to do it. Actual soldiers with the firepower of the government should be doing the fighting instead of random farmers.

Calderón did exactly that. Fought an all-out war with the cartels. 60,000 people dead and nothing changed.

He fought a war against unsanctioned drug trafficking. Drugs are not an enemy you can defeat. He should have gone to war against the cartels, but then I guess that's hard to do when your Secretariat of Public Security is working for them. Either way, as with any war, deaths are to be expected. Freedom and sovereignty are usually considered to be worth the cost.

What choice do they have?

This is not your usual vigilante group. This is a reaction to an overwhelming force of criminal gangs killing citizens and the government being powerless to stop them.

> This is a reaction to an overwhelming force of criminal gangs killing citizens and the government being powerless to stop them.

Is the Mexican government, with their tens of billions in military spending, actually "powerless" to stop these gangs? I very much doubt it.

> Is the Mexican government, with their tens of billions in military spending, actually "powerless" to stop these gangs? I very much doubt it.

Then to be blunt, you don't know how a fucking thing.

The cartels have their own intelligent networks, anti-air missiles, RPGs and anti-tank weapons, encrypted radio comms and their own 5G/LTE networks. They have helicopters, armored vehicles, etc. In many cases they have the support* of the people.

* through fear, intimidation, coercion, social bonds, financial motivators, etc.

The cartels also have tens of billions.

If the cartels had more military fighting power and training than the entire Mexican army, air force, and navy the entire country would have been overthrown by now. If Mexico's entire armed forces really are outgunned and outclassed then I guess the cartels should have it. They might as well take Canada too since their military is roughly as powerful as Mexico's and there's a long list of countries with far less military spending then Mexico they could consider invading since they are so unstoppable.

The strength of a military or militant organization is not a binary concept. It is context dependent.. a remote mountain area is the kind of place that the military you describe simply is spread too thin to have much coverage of. Sure they could go beat an insurgent in a single battle but that insurgent will dissolve into the hillsides and re emerge later..

There have been many examples of non-corrupt officials being elected and then killed.

The corruption isn't always "I want to get rich" type, sometimes it's "I don't want to be murdered in a horrific way" type.

What other choice ? Politics are yet to give a solution after decades of problems.

Based on all the historical events, I'm guessing it'll eventually balance itself out. The violent vigilante groups are one critical weight on the scale. Without it, the cartels will have free-range to commit whatever atrocity they want without needing to think about the consequences.

Now, with these vigilante groups that speaks the exact same language that the cartels too understands, it gives those cartels a reason to think before they bully civilians. Because if they did it wrong, there's a chance some of them will start to lose bodyparts in a very unanesthetical way. If a few once incontestable cartel leaders puts on a show of crying and begging for mercy in a darknet video, it tends to educate everyone on what power really means potentially in a good way.

Of course, none of it is reasonable and civil, it's the darkest part of human behavior, but sadly sometimes it's the only way to communicate with the bad people. Mr. Hitler didn't surrender because the allies did a good job showing him that killing is bad, instead they bomb that rat in his own hole and scared him to death.

I don't like violence and I don't like people who uses it unnecessarily, but it's still a tool in the toolbox just in case the opponent is that unrecoverably bad.

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