Violence in Mexico

The horrific acts of violence committed by the cartels are done so to intimidate the public and to project their image as powerful and beyond the control of the government. The U.S. media helps the cartels to project this image and we are too lazy to examine facts that put things into perspective.

First, almost every news article about violence in Mexico contains references to many previous stories about violence in Mexico. Suppose that were the policy for your city? If every murder, rape and robbery were reported on the front pages of every news paper in America; if every crime were the lead story on every news program the world would view your city as a horrible place. Recently, there were multiple murders in American cities. Although the news was reported, there were no references to earlier killings, rapes and robberies in these cities.

Searching for facts to put things into perspective, I read that some media sources believe as many as 40,000 people have been murdered in Mexico since 2006, largely due to the drug war. The fact is that most were murdered because of the fighting among the cartels and most of the dead were involved with a cartel.

Search for this fact. How many people were murdered in the USA since 2006? Over 70,000! Yes, we are twice the size with a larger population. However, most of our dead were not involved in crime. Most of our dead were innocents.

Instead of this comparison, the media compared the number of people killed in Mexico with the number of U.S. military killed in our current wars. A more realistic comparisons puts things into a more realistic view. Are there places in Mexico that are very violent? Yes. Are businesses in some cities paying 'protection money' to criminals ? Yes. Do I travel every two weeks and walk the streets in a Mexican border-city? Yes.

Although I do not see evidence of violence I do see evidence of the impact of our skewed reporting. Tourism along the border is gone. Both U.S. and Mexican border cities suffered huge losses in jobs because of relentless reporting in ways to terrify the public.

Diffculty of Finding Facts- Immigration Example

Often we are overwhelmed with facts. The issues surrounding immigration provide but one example. Even expert studies cannot agree on the impact of illegal immigration. A federal study concluded that there are so many conflicting reports about the cost of illegal immigration to individual states, that it is impossible to agree on the actual cost. However, the federal government concluded that the cost is minimal and there actually may be no cost.

Social Security payments, Worker Compensation Insurance are two 'taxes' that are paid by many illegal workers that cannot be paid to these workers when they retire or are injured. Every illegal alien pays sales tax and support the U.S. economy when they buy goods.

For me it is all simple. Not too long ago most people agreed that there were 20 million illegal workers in the United States and many said that they were costing taxpayers millions.
Today, most agree that there are 10 million illegal workers. Most sources support this belief.

IF the illegal immigrants are responsible for high taxes to social service agencies, schools and hospitals I want my taxes reduced! After all, if half of the reason my taxes were high was due to the 20 million illegal workers and half are gone, we should be seeing a huge tax reduction.

Any law that is designed to reduce the number of people on U.S. soil without authorization that is created because of the impact those people have on taxes, schools and hospitals should be linked to an equal reduction in taxes and funding for schools and hospitals. After all, when 'those people' are gone, there should be a huge tax windfall.

Class and Style

During an interview on BBC today, the person being interviewed said something that caused the host to interrupt. As the host realized that the person being interviewed was not finished speaking, he apologized and asked the speaker to please continue. When common polite behaviors stands out, we may be in trouble as a society.

Name-calling and being so uncertain of one's opinion that one must 'win' every argument is commonplace, especially on 'talk' radio and the Internet.

Too many people search for sources to confirm their prejudices or flawed beliefs. Often they fail to realize that the multiple sources that confrim their belief are all based on a single root source. People need learn how to search for facts.