Dear Friends,
It seems to me that Felipe Calderon should be deeply embarrassed. To be the head of a government that has done such a poor job that people want to leave in droves. Fleeing the violence, poverty and government corruption. A human hearted man would be ashamed…
But Calderon is not. He is unabashed. In fact, he even has the gall to go to the nation that is feeding, clothing, housing and otherwise providing for his citizens, and chastising it. Chastising it for not being friendly enough. This guy is the stereotypical hypocrite.
The laws against illegal immigration in Mexico are draconian. The laws regarding legal immigration are draconian as well. Add to this the utter corruption in the Mexican police force. Immigrants cannot receive welfare in Mexico. Especially illegal immigrants. Immigrants in Mexico have to have outside income or be employed by the Mexican state. They are not allowed to have jobs in Mexico.
The US media have been rife with stories about older people going into Mexico to buy prescription drugs. (That were prescribed to them). After the pharmacist sells the US citizen the drugs the pharmacist then calls the police. The police intercept the old folks. Arrest them. Then ransom them back to their children.
The total lack of opportunity in Mexico is directly related to the utterly corrupt and (fortunately less) socialistically inclined government. One example of the foolishness is that the Mexican government has nationalized all it’s oil. The Government run extraction company is extraordinarily inefficient. The ready access to oil money funds more corruption in the Mexican government.
Had the Mexican government went the capitalist route a (possibly Mexican) company would lease the land from the government to extract the oil. The company would be held responsible for environmental problems. The company would be responsible for cleaning up after the oil has been extracted and the company would be responsible to keep the infrastructure up to date. Another advantage of the capitalistic approach would have been better and more thorough geological research. More importantly… less money would be underground to contribute to governmental corruption.
The violence in Mexico is the result of the utter corruption in the Mexican government. Even as Calderon pointed his finger at the US for problems his government has created he disregarded the three fingers pointing back at him.
Put it this way… If the easy access to weapons in the US leads to violence in it’s neighbors… why is Canada so quiet? If keeping drugs illegal creates violence in neighboring countries… Why is Canada so quiet? Huge amounts of Marijuana come into the US from Canada.
So is the problem really somewhere else Mr. Caldron? Or is it closer to home?