Is Mexico Really ‘Dysfunctional’?
Perhaps — but Joe Biden's cheap applause line deserves to be used against him in the court of public opinion.
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God help me. I’m beginning to sound like Joe Biden. I hope there is a cure. If not, the next thing you know, I’ll be confusing Herbert Hoover with Franklin Roosevelt, insulting Indian-Americans who don’t work at 7-11, calling Barack Obama “clean” and “articulate,” and vowing he’ll will never take away my gun. For now, I’ll have to accept the fact that my views on Mexico are similar to those espoused by the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
A few weeks ago, while addressing about 20 Latin American professionals in San Diego on the subject of immigration and the 2008 election, I blurted out that Mexico was “broken.” It’s not just that a country of 110 million people and a functioning if imperfect democracy with abundant resources can’t provide enough jobs for its own people so they don’t have to take their chances north of the border; or that the Mexican government is filled with corruption and has long pampered the rich at the expense of the poor; or that the country has no economic policy to speak of beyond oil revenue and remittances from expatriates in the United States.
The real indictment of Mexico, I told the audience, is that it has become so dependent on money received from abroad —some $25 billion last year alone— that it would consider an act of war any effort to repatriate the millions of Mexican illegal immigrants living in the United States. Well-to-do Mexican professionals south of the border tell me that the thing they fear most is that the United States will ship back large numbers of illegal immigrants that the Mexican economy can’t absorb.
“When you treat your own people as the equivalent of a heat-seeking missile that can wreak unspeakable destruction on society,” I said, “your country is broken.”
Now I see where Joe Biden reached much the same conclusion in December 2007 when he reassured an Iowa crowd concerned with illegal immigration that the solution to the problem starts with Mexico and the Mexican government.
Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union Tribune, a nationally syndicated columnist, a frequent lecturer, and a regular contributor to CNN.com.
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55 Comments
1. Marc Malone:I hate this part: Biden is right. Many countries south of the border are dysfunctional. Corruption there is not rampant; it is integral. It simply ruins an economy. When they export their people, they export their corruption, too. Close the danged borders! And, oh yes, go after the people who employ the illegals. They’re killing us.
Oct 7, 2008 - 1:42 am 2. vivo:Ruben Navarrette recently wrote that Biden was chosen as a gimmick to mask Obama’s weaknesses. Palin is more than a gimmick. Biden is a solid politician. Navarrette doesn’t hide his right-wing thinking. He follows his Party’s strategy: name calling and smearing. His credibility as a journalist is lost.
He goes further to call everyday Americans (Republicans) “good”, and media elites, liberals, late-night comics “bad”. This opinionated labeling is an insult to so many Independents. 80% of Americans think Republicans are the bad guys. Where did he get his unbiased opinion from?
He alludes “the career politician (Biden) is starved for attention”. Is he blind by not looking at McCain’s outrageously exaggerated TV ads? Biden is a polished, respectable man who knows his place in the campaign and cannot be compared to the clownish Palin, or McBush.
He says that Biden has become “an attack dog after his old friend, JMcCain”, by saying he is out touch with average American issues, like the economy. A guy who owns seven homes, 13 cars, has a $100 MM equity and flip-flops every two days?
I smell desperation in the right-wing air . . . They’re probably thumping their “Christian” chests and feeling guilty of all the mess they get into . . .
Oct 7, 2008 - 2:46 am 3. Ed Wallis:“vivo,” Either you’re new and naive here, or you’ve been “sent” by Mr. Navarette. Dear Ruben couldn’t be “right-wing” for the life of him. As a side note, McCain’s spanish language ad came AFTER Zerobama had a spanish language ad which took a few words of Rush Limbaugh out of context…only the latest evidence of Navarette’s inept writing.
Oct 7, 2008 - 3:00 am 4. David Thomson:“Biden is a polished, respectable man who knows his place in the campaign and cannot be compared to the clownish Palin, or McBush.”
Joe Biden often seems unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. He has literally claimed his wife was killed by a drunk driver even though the evidence clearly contradicts this assertion. I am utterly convinced that Biden would be asked to submit to a psychiatric evaluation if he were a Republican.
Oct 7, 2008 - 3:08 am 5. vivo:Ed Wallis:
Oct 7, 2008 - 3:00 am
Navarrette is a right-winger to me. I read some of his articles. There are, unfortunately, many right-wing Latinos. They are really retrograde. I’m surprised you misinterpreted my view.
Oct 7, 2008 - 3:13 am 6. Jarhead:I believe that when Mr. Navarrette calls Mexico “broken,” he is referring to the Mexican government, its policies, and the resulting economic failures.
When Biden says Mexico is a “dysfunctional society,” I interpret that differently. He is criticizing the Mexican people themselves as well as the country’s institutions. I hate to say it, but he’s right. A functional society wouldn’t tolerate the corruption and exploitation that people of Mexico put up with. The people of a functional society would revolt.
Without the release valve that is illegal immigration into the United States, maybe the pressure would build until that revolution was inevitable. That is why the Mexican governrment is so adamant about allowing the migration of their energetic and dissatisfied to continue.
Oct 7, 2008 - 4:36 am 7. mishu:Biden is a polished, respectable man who knows his place in the campaign and cannot be compared to the clownish Palin, or McBush.
hahahaha. Biden said Roosevelt, as President, went on TV to calm American’s fears after the stock market crash in 1929. That shows his “polish” while his opponents are “clownish”. Nice try vivo.
Oct 7, 2008 - 4:46 am 8. KansasGirl:Joe Biden is a bureaucrat and a buffoon.
Oct 7, 2008 - 5:30 am 9. Sandra M:Want to change Mexico? Translate Ayn Rand’s novels into Spanish. Reader’s Digest had a Spanish edition and Hayek’s THE ROAD TO SERFDOM in abridged form had as great an influence on South America as it had in the states.
People respond to ideas but the ideas common among Mexican intellectuals are basically Marxist.
Translate into Spanish the works of Ludwig Von Mises, Milton Friedman, Hayek et al.
One of my biggest frustrations with the two Bush presidents was their total ineptitude when it came to the battle of ideas. Sarah Palin will do better. McCain? Not so much.
Oct 7, 2008 - 6:18 am 10. Ed Wallis:OK, “vivo” I misrepresented your view.
You were NOT “sent” by Navarette…but by Axelrod…now that I’ve read a few of your other posts in other threads.
You, “vivo,” now join the “notable” list of posters like
“Jeff”
“Christine”
“nlcatter”
“schnargley”
“Ron Kean”
“realitycheq”
“just say no to Fox”
“Boris”
“Matt”
who are here to distract, divert and otherwise spread nonsense…and will for that be ignored.
Oct 7, 2008 - 6:42 am 11. uburoi:Mexico is dysfunctional, and so are the Mexican-American slums in Los Angeles where I live; Tijuana Norte. Many good people living with many very bad people with virtually no rule of law.
Joe Biden is a bottom-feeding, opportunistic political lightweight, and everyone who has lived or worked in DC knows it. I also think he’s drunk half the time he opens his mouth.
Ruben seems center-right on many issues and center-left on others; I give him high marks for participating on this site; I rarely agree with him, but he does at least wade into the fray.
Except for the twits pursuing fake degrees in Chicano Studies at various state universities around SoCal, nobody refers to conservative Latinos as “retrograde.” Socialists, who call themselves “Progressives” in public because they cannot say what they really are without losing another election, use terms like “retrograde” to describe people who are hostile to their set of bad ideas.
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:07 am 12. BMoon:I agree in part, with you Sandra. While today there are educated Mexicans who do understand economics, such as some in the PAN Party, education in economics would do wonders for the mass population who still believe that government exists to provide all their necessities and politicians who promise that are the good guys, who waste their little capital on frivolties and do not understand saving and investing, whose entrepreneurial attempts are hobbled by beuocracy and corruption…who, hey, in a lot of ways are like the boomer generation in the States!
What both nations need, and desperately so, is something deeper - a moral-spiritual base, which the Founding Fathers clearly understood, to be the foundation of a free society.
“Poor Mexico, poor United States! So far from God, so near to each other.” ( Carlos Fuentes, paraphrasing, dictator Porfirio Diaz at the end of his novel, The Crystal Frontier.
(P.S. Ed wallis - “schnargley” is not a Leftloon, but a satirist.)
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:42 am 13. Benson:Color me unimaginative, but I can’t see how Mexican society could possibly reform Mexican politics.
Pervasive corruption and incompetence are usually the results of cultural values plus the powerlessness of the electorate. People in “developing” nations typically understand and tolerate corruption as normal. Everyone participates in it and uses it to their advantage when they can; it’s factored into the economy, rather as taxation is in the USA.
Given a value system that does not militate against corruption — and validates the authority of the higher social strata — a so-called “developing” nation can not develop. I live in such a nation; that has allowed me to see, by observing the sharp contrast, what the Enlightenment means to those few nations that have adopted its values.
I can’t conceive of any way to break the cycle of patronage, populism, power-brokering and looting of the public treasury. The thugs have a stranglehold on the economy and political/jurisprudential systems here. True freedom of press and speech do not exist, because the populace literally does not understand or approve of such things. That includes the academics, many of whom have advanced degrees from the USA, UK, Europe (no help there!).
It all starts with the fundamental assumptions of the culture, and some cultures consider the concept of the dignity of the individual alien and dangerous. There is no real debate over such questions where I live, because the people can’t conceive of them as questions in the first place. Genuine Liberty is feared and hated. Democracy is a shibboleth in political parlance, but not one person in ten thousand understands its prerequisites.
Honest government is mocked by “third world” values, and in the final analysis, it’s the values that determine outcomes. Mexico has no bootstraps.
Oh, and Ruben Navarrette, Jr., a right-wing journalist? It’s news to me.
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:48 am 14. Credit Man:Dear Vivo, I rarely agree with Navarette on just about anything he says. He blame shifts just like you do.
We, the Americans, are the reason there is an invasion of Mexicans? Excuse me! This is just another statement coming from the blame America first. I guess that we should stop capitalism and make this a socialist country. Then the border walls would go up quick because everyone would want to leave! Yes, I blame Mexico. I think we ought to buy it. There is someone there that would sell it to us and we could turn it into another Las Vagas.
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:48 am 15. Jack Okie:Umm, Ed:
Unless someone else has taken over Schnargley’s name, he doesn’t belong on your list, as you yourself note in this thread:
http://tinyurl.com/5vtmep
Oct 7, 2008 - 7:52 am 16. Douglas Bogle:One thing about Latin America,( Mexico included ) is that corruption is part of getting what you need.
When was the last time you went to get a passport and they told you ” we have no paper to produce your passport”. Never. In LA this is common. So, I have a cousin that….
The US is far more corrupt, ie $700B + $120B(pork), however we Americans act so suprised.
I like my corruption up front and center. This allows me the choice as to if I want to add to the system of corruption.
On Nov. 4, 2008 I choose not to be a part and will vote accordingly.
Oct 7, 2008 - 8:38 am 17. Michael Hoskins:And when unemployment gets above 6% for a month or three, I bet I know how to find 6 to 12 million or so.
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:34 am 18. rocketeer:Else, yawn.
Wow, Joe Biden finally got one right? I guess even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut!
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:40 am 19. Michael Hoskins:jobs, that is.
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:47 am 20. Ed Wallis:“Jack Okie” 7:52am, The “schnarg” persona never responded - nor did anyone step up to the plate to confirm his “conservative-takin’-a-sarcastic-in-your-own-shoes-whack-at-liberal-whackjobs”…though I’m completely open, should he, you or anyone else have information to that effect.
Your premise could be right, in that some writer from the IMAO site once wrote something elsewhere as “sarcasm” (what younger folks improperly label “irony”) which I mistook as such.
Oct 7, 2008 - 9:56 am 21. octavian:Dear Mr Wallis: What does retrograde mean?
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:20 am 22. robotech master:Mexico is about as “broken” and “Dysfunctional” as iraq… the huge difference being that in 20-30 years iraq has the chance of not being a 3rd world hellhole… unlike mexico which will pretty much always be a third world hellhole.
As for blaming the US… for once they have it right… mexicos problems are pretty much solely the US’s fault. If we stop letting the illegals cross… if we started killing mexican drug dealers if we stop funding the mexican government their would be a civil war and mexico would be on the way to becoming something… all depends on the mexicans though…
The only way to fix mexico is to fix their government and the only way to do that is either invading and taking over the country or mass deportation and forcing the mexicans to fix their own government.
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:23 am 23. Valerie:Until you take the ”latin” our of the culture of countries like Mexico, you will never see much change.
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:47 am 24. TheTownCrier:Biden…respectable? Only in DC!
Sen. Joseph Biden - Bearing false witness…
In 1972 Sen. Joseph Biden, the Democrat nominee for vice President, lost his wife and young daughter in a car accident. Losing your family in a auto accident is a gut wrenching tragedy, to be sure. No one underestimates that and no ever blamed Mrs. Biden for the accident.
Right up there with despicable things one human can do to another, is falsely accusing the innocent of a crime. “Bearing false witness” is even in the 10 commandments, but Mr. Biden’s feigned Catholicism doesn’t let that stop him.
Last night CBS Inside Addition reports, “In a striking moment in December 2007, he opened his heart to University of Iowa students. “Let me tell you a little story. My wife and three kids were Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree, a tractor trailer, a guy who allegedly, and I never pursued it, drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family, killed my wife instantly, killed my daughter instantly, and hospitalized my two sons.”
Out on the stump recently and for years, Biden has repeated this charge. Lately, he has tried to soften it with the thought that he doesn’t know if the semi truck driver was drunk…., “ I never pursued it”. He didn’t follow the case about the death of his wife and child? Give me a break.
The court certainly did. The driver was never charged and was cleared of any wrong doing. Mrs. Biden, driving a station wagon full of kids and a Christmas tree pulled into the truck’s path. The driver, also a victim, had not been drinking and for the years before his death his reputation suffered with the false charge that Biden put out in the public for sympathy and political gain.
He will use his dead family and an innocent fellow American for his own personal profit. Don’t be surprised when he uses the rest of us.
http://www.insideedition.com/news.aspx?storyID=2048
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:53 am 25. Jack Curtis:Given: Mexicans risk coming to the US for a reason; doing so is not fun. Mexico was settled by Europeans before the US, has resources and able people. If Mexico had competed successfully with the US, that traffic would not exist. Since the operative difference is a result of an amalgam of culture and government, the applicable cure for the traffic must be applied there. By Mexicans. Failing that (so far, the case)forcible exclusion from the US or acceptance of the traffic seem to be the choices. Mass influxes of disparate peoples are politically destabilizing in history and now. Pick your druthers!
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:57 am 26. Ed Wallis:“octavian”:
ANSWER: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retrograde
…I’m not waiting for your “bada bing bada bang bada boom” response, just answering your respectful question.
Oct 7, 2008 - 12:00 pm 27. Marc Malone:Let’s call Mexico’s bluff. Round up all the illegals. It’s easy. Offer a $50/head bounty. Need drinking money for the weekend? Turn in an illegal. Can’t make your rent this month? Turn in a few illegals. Need to see the doctor? Turn in a couple illegals, and pick up some tortillas on the way home with the change. Round them up, and push them forcibly across the border. THEN seal the danged borders tight! Shoot a few of them as they try to cross back over again.
Oct 7, 2008 - 12:31 pm 28. urbanleftbehind:Marc,
What if you make some mistakes, e.g. I will open a can of whup-ass if you try to turn in my citizen a@@!!!!
Oct 7, 2008 - 12:57 pm 29. urbanleftbehind:Marc,
How would you go about picking up the illegal for your $50 a head. I just hope you dont make a mistake and have someone like me or other legitimate “AMDs” open a can of whoop-ass on ye!!!
Oct 7, 2008 - 1:04 pm 30. Deguello:I used to think so, but given the Democrat engineered financial collapse;aided and abetted by wall street greedheads,and the stupidity of Joe Jose? Sixpack together with the viabality of the Obama candidacy,the US has overtaken Mexico in dysfunctionality.The USA has become another thirld-world nation. A civil war is only a matter of time.There are few Mexican oligarchs a stupidly corrupt as Barney Frank,Chris Dodd,or Pelosi;as inept as the idiot Bush,as ignorant,and stupidly radical as Obama,and as corrupt as`our plutocrats. After this collapse,the USA has forever lost the right ot look down on the mafia,let alone any “third world” government.It’s our political class that is third,no,make that 10th rate.
Oct 7, 2008 - 2:09 pm 31. Bobnormal:Robotech,you have it right,I for one say when we are finished in Iraq,we should say “Presidente Calderon,you have 18 months to clean house or we will do it for you”. I believe the Mexican people deserve better,but they don’t even realize it.
Oct 7, 2008 - 5:02 pm 32. David P:INVADE INVADE INVADE!!! extreme I know but hey,I can’t visit Mexico,not the coasts not the ruins,my daughter can’t go build a church because of crime and rampant corruption,what a shame………
Bob
P.S. Rueben is anything but right wing LOL
Do you ever watch Mexico’s National News, you tell, are they dysfunctional?
Oct 7, 2008 - 5:12 pm 33. Marc Malone:urbanleftbehind - You’re right. You should. But it won’t be me turning in illegals. It’ll be other (legal) hispanics. They know who’s legal or not, and they don’t like them. The illegals call the legals “porchos”. I think it means suckers or somesuch.
You don’t have to worry. Just show your SS card. Most States already require you ro be able to produce ID, or you can be detained for up to 48 hours, until they can establish your identity.
I can think of many ways to make the payments work. That’s just process. Who cares?
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:13 pm 34. Marc Malone:David P - Si. Esta una problema granda, alla. Pero, yo no creo las nuevas de Mexico. No esta la verdad, como aqui. Bastante? Pendejo!
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:16 pm 35. vivo:Ed Wallis Oct 7, 2008 - 6:42 am:
You, “vivo,” now join the “notable” list of posters like
“Jeff”
“Christine”
“nlcatter”
“schnargley”
“Ron Kean”
“realitycheq”
“just say no to Fox”
“Boris”
“Matt”
who are here to distract, divert and otherwise spread nonsense…and will for that be ignored.
“Nonsense” to you is anything left of the right wing. Wake up, man! You are a minority in the whole World. Grab your guns and start praying when your desperate neighbors will try to dispossess you.
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:30 pm 36. vivo:mishu Oct 7, 2008 - 4:46 am:
“Biden is a polished, respectable man who knows his place in the campaign and cannot be compared to the clownish Palin, or McBush.
hahahaha. Biden said Roosevelt, as President, went on TV to calm American’s fears after the stock market crash in 1929. That shows his “polish” while his opponents are “clownish”. Nice try vivo.”
Yeah, nice try . . .
Oct 7, 2008 - 10:33 pm 37. Ed Wallis:“Grab your guns and start praying when your desperate neighbors will try to dispossess you.” - (posted under “Is Mexico Really Dysfunctional?”) “vivo” spreading the Socialist revolution one post at a time.
Oct 8, 2008 - 4:31 am 38. deguello:Vivo: what an ironic handle,cconsidering your brain is dead, poisoned by historically obsolete,left-wing drivel.
Oct 8, 2008 - 8:37 am 39. robotech master:While I’m a firm believer in that the US should invade half the world… We have 2 wars right now(dropping down to 1 soon hopefully). We have alot of problems at home and with russia and china on the move again we can’t deal with mexico by straight invading.
The Euros would freak out because no reason is good enough for them to wage war… expect for someone invading them. Their will be no support about alot of whining and thats not going to help get mexico on its feet. It will entrench the government to thinking is they can hold on the euro trash will come to their rescue.
Mexico and iraq are very much the same countries in alot of respects. Local warlords/drug cartels/crime groups/racist groups control bits and pieces of areas. Almost all of these groups either hate the US, hate whites, hate both… alot.
The ppl follow these groups due to poor education and a lack of real world knowledge. Invading will confirm the stereotypes they see the US thus in turn requiring that we kill alot more ppl then we should have to or requiring that we take much longer to fix things.
The only realistic option at the moment is mass deportation+covert ops through the US mil and intel groups. The hope would be that illegals in the US picked up enough US values to say “look were stuck here in mexico so were going to change it for the better”. Mexico is already in a very low scale civil war right now… throw 20 million+ppl on the fire with some leadership and supplies from the US= full scale civil war with the chance of a good set of ppl taking over mexico and fixing the problem.
“Unaproved” cross border raiding by the border patrol and uniformed US Mil to target the drug cartels nearest to the US border will greatly destablize the mexican government hold on those areas as well as kill off alot of currupt government officals.
While invading mexico would fix the problem… a civil war would do it far fastest and hopefully if the right ppl are in leadership positions it will last far longer. The mexican ppl need to take the lead in it or they will only fall back into the same pattern and things will just repeat.
Sorry for spelling and bad syntax but typing fast and without a spell check(commie IE old version).
Oct 8, 2008 - 9:18 am 40. kwh:One thing you can trust about illegal immigrants from Mexico: Their work ethic is high, and they will work for peanuts. It is truly amazing how Mexico’s economy is so unable to exploit the industriousness of their own people that the US enjoys such a large supply of Mexico’s “surplus” labor force.
Of course, I’m being ironic labeling Mexico’s failing as “amazing”: Socialist states regularly oppress their people with an economy that makes the rich, well-educated planners proud but fails everyone else. Mexico has at least as much natural resources as the US, a huge amount arable land, and a workforce that will cross desserts on foot to fill day-jobs offered in Home Depot parking lots. Normally these ingredients would combine to yield healthy growth in both the Mexican industrial and agricultural sectors — enough to employ the “surplus” workforce, but instead these areas languish as they have throughout the 20th century.
The trouble is that Mexico’s ruling class (and enlightened commentators from the US) can’t bring themselves to criticize any aspect of socialism — even its failures — so America’s business class is to blame for illegal immigrants, not the obvious failures of Mexico’s economy. That perspective is truly amazing.
Oct 8, 2008 - 11:13 am 41. BJM:I visit Mexico often, have many friends there, both Mexican and ex-pats. The Mexico I know is so different than many commenting here seem to believe.
Yes, Mexico is dysfunctional, it has serious problems with corruption, modernizing/extending infrastructure, urban pollution, the rural poor, urban underclasses and a justifiably intractable native population. Mexican bureaucracy is openly corrupt and frustrating to deal with; but ours is as well. Not corrupted by obvious graft(or so we like to think), but by regulation, entitlements and ennui.
And, yes, the oligarchs control access to credit, own the politicians and impose high tariff barriers to control trade for their own profit. Mexico must address a support net (other than illegal immigration/US dollar repatriation) and bootstrapping for their poor to stabilize and grow their economy; sooner than later.
However the infrastructure, quality of life and opportunities have dramatically improved over the last ten years. There is an expanding, upwardly mobile middle class much like ours was in the 1960’s when we moved to suburbia en mass.
Regional cities in D.F.’s orbit have become satellite centers of business, service sector and industry. Affordable housing developments grow in every direction, cell phones are as common as in the US, cable TV, wifi and internet usage expands at a fast clip.
Mexico is our southern gateway; one that can swing both ways to a common good or one that must be perpetually barred and guarded. I’m not advocating erasing our borders, but we need to work out an accommodation for our own security and prosperity.
Oct 8, 2008 - 11:42 am 42. octavian:Dear Mr Wallis: All you’ve done is given me a simplistic definition from a dictionary. Obviously, you believe the word has an implcation - probably political or social - beyond that detailed in a dictionary. Lets read it. And lets leave off the NJ slang, as most people don’t understand it.
Oct 8, 2008 - 12:56 pm 43. BMoon:I have lived in the DF for 20+ years and agree with BJM. But while cell phones, new residential developements, and new cars abound everywhere, and the idea of personal responsibility still has yet to permeate the Mexican Weltanschauung (I knew I would put those two words together someday.)
Politically, they are Lefty Dems always seeking to put the balame on somebody else, especially those that are successful due to personal responsibility and initiative. In that case, the U.S fits the bill perfectly to cast all guilt upon and alleviate the massive accumulated guilt due to the government’s failure, as well as the moral laxity of the general population.
Oct 8, 2008 - 1:06 pm 44. Phil Carter:Mexicans are North Americans. I oppose illegal immigration and believe the border should be slammed shut. However, our worthless politicians should quickly design a workable immigration policy that allows decent people to immigrate and keeps out the undesirables. The question of what to do with the people here is much more complex. If they work and pay taxes perhaps we should keep them and forget all the rhetoric about what laws they broke to get here. If they are on public support or criminals, ship them back and let Mexico worry about them. A hard working, law abiding, assimilated Mexican population can only make a positive contribution to our culture!
PS I am a conservative!
Oct 8, 2008 - 2:42 pm 45. Ed Wallis:“octavian,”
Your question was, “Dear Mr Wallis: What does retrograde mean?”
I answered that, though I thought most folks could have found an online dictionary (much less a thesaurus!) on their own. Lacking any qualifying context or reason for asking such an off-topic silliness, you are through, and may go home now.
Oct 8, 2008 - 5:29 pm 46. Benson:Mexico, like many “developing” and “third-world” nations, puts on a good show. I have visited there many times, and I love the place. The parallels between Mexico and where I live are many, and close.
Yes, it’s all pretty impressive, and creates a sense of purpose, hope, and progress — walk down the street here, and you see many indications of “development”: well-dressed people, lots of shiny new cars, skyscrapers, people buying and selling, buildings going up. Great, huh?
And some wear T-shirts with English on them. That led me to conceive of the concept of the “T-shirt fallacy.” Ask those trendy folks what those words mean, and you will almost never get anything even remotely like a correct translation. Sometimes the shirts are emblazoned with vulgarisms and the most putrid profanity. The T-shirt is a misleading facade, and a symbol of how easy it is to misunderstand what this place is.
Underneath, the values of the culture prevail, and will for centuries to come. This nation, which never went through an Enlightenment, Reformation, Counter-Reformation or truly revolutionary revolution (war is one thing, a revolution another), is mired in ideas that stifle true development. Foreign-educated locals here absorb almost nothing of the values of the nation in which they study; it’s all shrugged off as alien and incomprehensible. The result is a showy, unintentional hoax, not at all what it seems to observant but naive visitors.
Take Singapore. Please. It’s a near-dictatorship, devoid of the freedoms that Western Civilization considers fundamental. Clean, modern, efficient and impressive, Singapore is the model for nations like N. Korea and Burma — proof that one can have economic progress without Liberty. Singapore is a horrible example because it encourages the dictators who believe they can improve their nations if only everybody will get in line and follow orders.
You have to look beneath the surface and spend years dealing with the locals before you can grasp the fact that many nations present superficial evidence of “progress” even as they have self-imposed and very severe limitations on their development. Corruption, the venality of the jurisprudential system, the anti-Liberty mindset of the population are not so easy to see while you travel around and take in the glitzy sights. Nearly 20 years on, I’m still learning, and still being surprised and disappointed by the huge gap between reality and favorable, impressive, admirable appearances.
(Addendum on the T-shirt fallacy: on TV here, a starlet appeared wearing a bright black-on-yellow T-shirt that read, “F**K the DJ.” No ** on that shirt! Che Guevara T-shirts are common, and ask a local who that guy was, and you get a blank stare. Quote from a movie, The Recruit: “NOTHING is what it seems.”)
Oct 8, 2008 - 6:52 pm 47. Marc Malone:Phil Carter - I’m not sure that illegals pay taxes, kinda by definition.
Regardless, I’d rather have people immigrate who want to become Americans, because they share our ideals. I don’t want people who are just looking for a job, or to partake of our lavish freebies. I’d also like to keep them from sending their $50B/yr out of the country.
Oct 9, 2008 - 1:53 am 48. vivo:Ed Wallis Oct 8, 2008 - 4:31 am:
““Grab your guns and start praying when your desperate neighbors will try to dispossess you.” - (posted under “Is Mexico Really Dysfunctional?”) “vivo” spreading the Socialist revolution one post at a time.”
Looks like my post responding to you was deleted.
Oct 9, 2008 - 3:13 am 49. john from cinncinati:Very constitutional . . .
retro is it like affecting a position one wasn’t old enough to have seen or participated in, only a stylized version, as one you want to believe what it was really like. like Che shirts, rockabilly/greasers, and hippies? like reruns of i love Lucy, or conservatives. just fake it till you make it, all these retro movements are based in reality, and take on a life of their own. a reprise of sorts. the che shirts are the capitalist notion of a revolutionary. curious George in a beret, would be more like it.
Oct 9, 2008 - 4:23 am 50. BMoon:A hard working, law abiding, assimilated Mexican population can only make a positive contribution to our culture!
100% with you there, Phil. Mexicans are family centered, Christian, and have a work ethic when it is not discouraged by cronyism and paternalism.
Plus they have kids, and will make it unnecessary to be like Europe, where the native European population turns anti-life, and from abortion, “alternate” lifestyles, materialism, and selfism, misdirected ecological concerns, ETC. refuse to have kids, they have import massive workers from Islamic countries, and pretend that it is not destroying their entire foundations of liberal democracy.
Oct 9, 2008 - 9:34 am 51. Phil Carter:I think taxes paid to a phony soc sec number still go in to the pot of money our politicians get to steal and/or redistribute.
Oct 9, 2008 - 9:48 am 52. hp:anyone else notice that the democratic campaign uses an awful, AWFUL lot of judgmental words?
Oct 11, 2008 - 12:14 pm 53. Snake Oil Baron:So what happened? Not long ago Mexico was seeing lots of NAFTA related growth, avoiding a Hugo Chavez friendly government and making reforms. Where did the progress go. I know that oil prices and other economic problems have occurred but how does a nation go from having a promising future to being a broken society so quickly? Or is it a broken society with a promising future?
Oct 11, 2008 - 6:49 pm 54. koblog:I’ve been to Mexico a few times. It is a pit of hell.
I thought the worst place in the world was Pakistan, but it’s actually Mexico — ten miles across the border from San Diego.
Mexico can’t even purify its water. Even in resorts like Cabo San Lucas.
The cops are on the take because it’s considered part of their salary.
The roads are a joke: dirt paths plowed smooth once to show how much the government cares for the people, only to become, after the rains, deep impassible gullies.
Americans treat their dogs better than Mexicans treat their children.
And they treat their dogs…well, you don’t want to know.
Oct 11, 2008 - 8:07 pm 55. deguello:Hey Koblog, for a moment I thought you were describing living conditions in New york City.Mexicans treat their dogs far better than american exploiters treat their illegal mexican(and even their Anglo) workers.Finally,after a camarilla of marxoid democrats degenerate plutocrats,and spendthrift gringos,helped by a moron of a president, destroyed the U$ financial system,The phrase Third World ” will henceforth sound ironic when spoken by a gringo.
Oct 14, 2008 - 6:06 pm