[meadsjn]

Mexico is an impoverished, crime-ridden, third-world cesspool precisely because of the collective choices made by its inhabitants over the past centuries.

Communism, crime, corruption, Catholicism, violence, superstition, and illiteracy -- all personal choices made collectively, and all the common elements shared by Mexico and the nations of Central and South America. All these countries are rich in natural resources; capable of sustaining booming economies and advancing societies, had the people not repeatedly and collectively made poor choices based on pride, greed, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, and sloth.

Maybe they can blame it on their languages. Do Spanish and Portuguese have words for individual liberty, free markets, personal integrity, private property ownership, etc., etc.? I'm sure they do, but only in the cursing category.

[stanley windrush]

Thanks for tossing Catholicism in with all the other "evils" of the third world cesspools. Sheesh. Let's think of all the Protestant proselytizing that's gone on down there for the past few decades. I don't see much of a change. Mexico is corruption in a nutshell; run by the few powerful elites since the revolution in 1917. Apparently they really don't seem to care what form of Christianity they "profess" with regards to understanding liberty and free market economics as we do here. You could call them 'cultural Catholics' but that's about it.

“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” ― Fulton J. Sheen