Free Republic is your path to freedom
Give once
Or donate monthly and a sponsoring FReeper will contribute $10
Urgent: Save Lazamataz! Donate
Posted on 04/19/2011 6:35:17 PM PDT by jazusamo
The signature crimes of the most violent drug cartel in Mexico are its beheading and dismemberment of rival gang members, military personnel, law enforcement officers and public officials, and the random kidnappings and killings of civilians who get caught in its butchery and bloodletting.
But this disparate band of criminals known as Los Zetas is no longer just a concern in Mexico. It has expanded its deadly operations across the southwestern border, establishing footholds and alliances in states from New York to California. Just last year, federal agents tied a cocaine operation in Baltimore to the Zetas.
“Those of us who live and work along the border know they’re already here,” said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., whose Texas county lies on the Rio Grande 50 miles southeast of the Zetas’ stronghold of Nuevo Laredo. “There’s already been killings and many residents here are living in fear.”
Sheriff Gonzalez, whose Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition sought help from the federal government to control growing violence along the border, said the rising brutality of Mexican drug gangs, particularly the Zetas, “never stops shocking me.”
Trained as an elite band of Mexican anti-drug commandos, the Zetas evolved into mercenaries for the infamous Gulf Cartel, bringing a new wave of brutality to Mexico’s escalating drug wars. Bolstered by an influx of assassins, bandits, thieves, thugs and corrupt federal, state and local police officers, the Zetas have since evolved into a well-financed and heavily armed drug smuggling force of their own.
Known for mounting the severed heads of their rivals on poles or hanging their dismembered bodies from bridges in cities throughout Mexico, the Zetas have easily become the most feared criminal gang in Mexico — where 35,000 people have been killed in a continuing drug war. Everyone is a potential victim: men, women...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Ping!
?F
people go into business to make money ...if there is no money to be made they quit/leave/stop.
(Hey, Laura...clean up after your own dog and make your own bed. Or hire someone legal to do it.)
They only contact they have are with their low wage illegal servants and nannies...Just like Meg Whitman!
2. Do you support fedgov using the Commerce Clause to impose a national marijuana prohibition?
Compare the rate of violent crime in the US vs the Netherlands. Amsterdam - probably the most dangerous city in Holland - is as safe as the safest US cities of its size.
And finally, how do you justify fedgov imposing a nationwide prohibition on mj from a constitutional standpoint?
I really don’t care what people do with their lives. If they want to spend it toking in their parent’s basement, I don’t care.
What I really dislike is how many of those same people, who claim the right to do what they want, end up asking me for spare change when I pass them on the street corner.
It really amazes me how our politicians and many of our authorities act as though this is not a problem. The favorite targets of the Cartels are...politicians and authority figures. I guess when the Cartels start murdering our police, politicians, etc. then perhaps they will think it might be a problem after all.
It always surprises me when people say legalizing drugs will cure all the border issues. Not all border crime is related to drugs to begin with, and at one time legalizing drugs may have made a difference but as you said we are way past that point now. Even if we decided to legalize drugs we have to get rid of this type of vermin first.
There are two very different points here. One is the legalization of Marijuana. That is a debatable point, worthy of the democratic process.
The second is the question of whether the legalization will end the horrific crimes that we are experiencing with the Zetas and other drug gangs. If you really think that the medical marijuana business is a serious competitor to the drug gangs and are openly available in the market the same as the black market, I totally disagree with you. The medical marijuana business is a relatively small, closely monitored niche. Again, this means it is not generally available at will to anybody who wants it. When and if the day comes that pot is totally legalized, that does not cancel out the criminals who run it. Remember after Prohibition? Did Al Capone just go away or did the feds have to ultimately go after him and bring him down? Even though they got him on tax evasion, his culture permeated and still exists in Chicago. With today’s drug gangs it is far, far worse. These are embedded animals running an extremely prosperous business. They will not go away and will not stop being the savages they are. That needs to be dealt with first. That is my point.
Absolutely. This criminal element has no place in American culture. It has nothing to do with being Mexican or Latin or like so many liberals who cry over the Muslims. Zeta, MS-13 and their ilk are simply wild animals who have no basis in basic humanity cannot be tolerated and are contributing to the tearing apart of our society. In the days of Prohibition, we had cops with shoot to kill orders and there was no ‘sensitivity’ to the cultural differences of the gangsters.
Most of the mafia gangsters of those times had at least some human culture and killed only each other. They even monitored their own ranks and would kill their own if they killed a cop, politician, judge or any civilian who would bring heat on their crime families. Even worse would be if they killed a woman or child. You see from all the mounds of bodies being dug up and heads all over the place the scourge these animals are bringing. Meanwhile, let’s give a big cheer to Obama / Holder and their lawsuit against Arizona!
I don't think you answered my question on the Commerce Clause. Let me ask it again this way. Do you think fedgov's use of the Commerce Clause to impose a national prohibition on marijuana is in keeping with the clause's original meaning... yes or no?
That makes no sense. The first thing you want to do is deprive your enemy of his funding. The Drug Czar under GW Bush said that marijuana was the biggest source of revenue for the cartels.
Marijuana prohibition insures that a large revenue stream will continue to fund the Mexican cartels. Why not deprive them of a big source of their funds, and fight them at the same time?
The short answer to your question is no, I do not believe that the Federal Govt. has the right to impose the Commerce Clause on the states to impose a national prohibition. I believe in states rights to regulate or not, that which is not dictated as a federal right in the Constitution.
This is a very critical argument, and especially looking back at the end of Prohibition. You and I are probably very close to agreeing on all the fundamentals here. One area we may be a bit apart on is that I don’t believe that the ending of Prohibition was itself the catalyst to regaining control over the mobs. Although I will never accuse the feds of being honest and totally altruistic, there was a sense of law and order that had to be enforced for society to function in relative peace. Our grandparents valued it and demanded a strong federal hand when needed to bring crime under control. The culture was different.
Today’s politically correct climate has turned our constitution into a suicide pact where we don’t dare confront the destroyers of our society for fear of hurting some liberally protected group. This is my major concern.
Now back to this interstate commerce issue. You raise a strong point and I respect you for it. I believe the states’ abilities’ to function and maintain peaceful, neighborly relations with each other is only as good as the federal government’s maintaining its responsibility for common defense. I believe the failure of the federal govt. to protect the borders continues to exacerbate the problem you have where California is generally tolerant of foreign illegal invasion and generally liberal about legalizing marijuana, and Arizona is fighting with all they’ve got to control a very bad crime situation arising from Mexico. Given the desperate situation in AZ, I don’t see a scenario where they welcome legalizing it. Unless or until the feds get serious about this border issue and attacking the attackers, I cannot see liberalizing the marijuana distribution laws. The fault lies in the federal govt. because they have failed in their constitutional duties. I don’t see a workable scenario where it’s legalized in California and not in Arizona and they can live peaceably as neighbors. We need a new president and committed congress to fix the borders first.
Because if the American people were to decide right now tonight that they wanted to legalize any or all illegal drugs it would still take a while to change the laws. These folks are so incredibly dangerous we should have stopped them yesterday and literally if we wait very much longer we will have the very same large scale violence that Mexico has today.
Drug cartels may make most of their money from marijuana but they are diversified, all their eggs are not in one basket- drugs of all sorts are not even their only source of income. They engage in large scale people smuggling, prostitution, kidnapping, murder for hire, smuggling of misc. items- you name it.
If it were possible to legalize marijuana say tomorrow at 8 AM- assuming that the cartels decided to no longer deal in marijuana (not likely) they would simply put all their manpower/assets into another of their enterprises. The real likely outcome would be the cartels would be in control of legal marijuana production and distribution. They already control through bribery and fear many of our politicians and have an established delivery network and growers to be the go-to people for even legal marijuana if that became a reality.
Years ago smuggling pot across the border was not an organized activity- and those that did it were mostly individuals and it was unheard of for them to be armed or dangerous. At that time legalizing pot may have made a huge difference- but who knows? What we actually did was basically look the other way at all border crime- so it grew and the criminals became more organized and diversified and the money grew to the point that smuggling routes were worth battling for. Mexico and the U.S. both ignored the situation until Mexico has lost control of their country. We have to deal with thise hard core criminals and put them out of business to solve the border issues. We are running out of time rapidly because they are indeed beginning to become very organized in this country and will use the same tactics they did in Mexico- basically bribery and terror and will take control of first the border areas and then the rest of the country.
At this point saying that legalizing drugs will solve the problems on the border would be like saying when the Mafia was at it’s peak that all we had to do to break it up was to legalize prostitution.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.