Feb
25
Is Libertarianism The Answer For Mexico?
Filed Under Crime | 2 Comments
This Wall Street Journal article chronicled the worsening situation in Mexico where drug-funded gangs are more powerful than the local authorities in 200 counties. Our southern neighbor was listed in a U.S. report as being a possible ‘failed state’ in the coming years (along with nuclear-armed Pakistan).
Much as Pakistan is fighting for survival against Islamic radicals, Mexico is waging a do-or-die battle with the world’s most powerful drug cartels. Last year, some 6,000 people died in drug-related violence here, more than twice the number killed the previous year. The dead included several dozen who were beheaded, a chilling echo of the scare tactics used by Islamic radicals. Mexican drug gangs even have an unofficial religion: They worship La Santa Muerte, a Mexican version of the Grim Reaper.
In growing parts of the country, drug gangs now extort businesses, setting up a parallel tax system that threatens the government monopoly on raising tax money. In Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, handwritten signs pasted on schools warned teachers to hand over their Christmas bonuses or die. A General Motors distributorship at a midsize Mexican city was extorted for months at a time, according to a high-ranking Mexican official. A GM spokeswoman in Mexico had no comment.
“We are at war,” says Aldo Fasci, a good-looking lawyer who is the top police official for Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is the capital. “The gangs have taken over the border, our highways and our cops. And now, with these protests, they are trying to take over our cities
The parallels between Pakistan and Mexico are strong enough that the U.S. military singled them out recently as the two countries where there is a risk the government could suffer a swift and catastrophic collapse, becoming a failed state.
The rapidly deteriorating situation has led to the Mexican federal government using the military to supplant local police forces in the war on the drug cartels and gangs, as many local police forces have become either hopelessly corrupt or dangerously out manned. For instance:
A few weeks ago, a recently retired army general hired to help the resort city of Cancun crack down on drug gangs was tortured and killed. His wrists and ankles were broken during the torture. Federal officials’ main suspect: the Cancun police chief, who has been stripped of his duties and put under house arrest during the investigation.
And to highlight the vast disparity of resources:
The drugs trade in Mexico generates at least $10 billion in yearly revenues, Mexican officials say. The government’s annual budget for federal law enforcement, not including the army: roughly $1.2 billion.
Thus the use of the federal military in Mexico’s own territory. Harsh enforcement and confrontation of the drug trafficers increased when the PAN party took control of the government and took a sharp turn from former Mexican president Vicente Fox’s drug policy. What have been the results?
Officials in both Washington and Mexico City also say the rising violence has a silver lining: It means that after decades of complicity or ignoring the problem, the Mexican government is finally cracking down on the drug cartels and forcing them to fight back or fight with one another for turf. One telling statistic: In the first three years of President Felipe Calderon’s six-year term, Mexico’s army has had 153 clashes with drug gangs. In the six years of his predecessor Vicente Fox’s term, there were only 16.
I would submit that the government officials have their causality a bit confused. Is the violence triggering the crackdown, or is the crackdown triggering the violence?
As described above, this crackdown is not only already extremely expensive, but is not even sufficient. Nearly all local control of law enforcement is absent via corruption and usurpation by the military. Violence and unrest are increasing by the day. People are kidnapped, shot, beheaded, and dissolved in “vats of acid”. Even with all of this, the control policy is not working.
What is the answer to this problem? If Mexico wants to avoid failing as a nation as drug gangs assume regional control, or devolving into a police state, the libertarian policy of decriminalization is the way out.
I have long been a supporter of legalizing drugs, especially marijuana. Mexico is providing the perfect example of what can happen when a government, especially in a poor country, pursues a policy of criminalization of drugs and harsh enforcement.
The first question you need to ask when dealing with a question is this: Is the purpose of law to protect us from force and fraud, or from our own bad decisions? When government begins focusing on the latter, it inevitably loses focus on the former. If someone tries to inject heroin into my arm against my will, then government has a duty to step in and prevent such an act. But if I make the decision to take my money and buy heroin and inject it in my arm, then it is not the job of the state to intervene.
Many people, especially conservatives who support limited regulation in other areas, object to this reasoning. Drugs are so dangerous and harmful that they are outside of the scope of conventional individual responsibility, they say. The way I see it, the arguments against drug use (from which criminalization logically comes) are:
- Drugs impair your judgement
- Drugs harm your body
- Drugs can, and often do, ruin your life in general
These three arguments are completely correct, but I counter them by saying:
- Alcohol and a developing brain (like that in teenagers) impair your judgement
- Cholestarol, fat, sugar, and sodium harm your body, and contribute to the deaths of millions of Americans each year
- I can ruin my life with credit cards, bad relationships, and payday loans
I have never used illegal drugs in my life, and I never will (hopefully the same goes for payday loans!). They are not in my best interest (or anybody’s in my opinion) to use them. But there is a big difference between thinking people shouldn’t do something and having the state use my earnings and lethal force to stop them from doing it. Using my arguments above, if you support outlawing drugs, shouldn’t you then support outlawing Heineken, McDonald’s, and Mastercard?
The litmus test for authorizing the use of government force should not be whether it is bad for people - it should be whether or not people are being forced to do something. It is no suprise that when government takes responsibility for making the right decisions for us, the people then begin to stop doing so at an individual level. This is the case with providing our own healthcare, assessing credit risk, or putting harmful substances in our body.
Before I get to the practical arguments for decriminalizing drugs, I want to make a note about the effects of drugs. By and large, illegal drugs are extremely harmful, but I must take exception with marijuana. I would venture a guess that a majority of the adult population has smoked cannabis at some point in thier lives, and they are fine. And there is also the case of Michael Phelps, whose marijuana smoking didn’t seem to hamper his becoming the most dominant athlete in the history of mankind. Again, I have never personally smoked marijuana (I don’t even like taking Tylenol), but this business about the evils of chronic just doesn’t hold up.
Those who would still support criminalizing drugs counter that the drug trade is dominated by immoral, violent thugs who kill for their turf. This is only the case because of criminalization! The key point that needs to be understood, is that criminals, by default, do not sell drugs. Criminals are in the business of selling whatever it is the government is banning at a particular time. When freedom for blacks was illegal, Harriet Tubman and her criminal gangs used the Underground Railroad to sell it. When alcohol was illegal during the early 20th century, the criminals sold alcohol. In the Soviet Union, the criminals sold bibles and books by Milton Friedman. Criminalization of a product in high demand gives violent thugs a monopoly over it. Case in point, the WSJ article mentions how a criminal organization named “Zeta” not only sells pirated CD’s, but sells them under their own label and with their originally designed logo.
Another point is the exorbitant price of drugs, such as a relatively easy to produce crop like cannabis, is inherently raised when the production process involves evading authorities. Criminalization of a product that has a very high demand from voluntary consumers will not allow the market to work. Imagine if drugs were legalized and Wal-Mart started selling pot in the produce section. It would be 68 cents a pound! Violent thugs can have their way with an ineffective government like that of Mexico, but when up against the Rollback kings? They wouldn’t stand a chance.
There is another serious issue with the war on drugs, be it north or south of the Rio Grande. When we lock people up in large numbers for engaging in a process where all parties involved were participating voluntarilly, we seriously distort and handicap the justice system. First of all, the war on drugs might as well be called the war on the poor. Human beings love to run away from their problems and get high. The poor use crack, the rich just doctor shop for prescription medicine to abuse, such as painkillers. Think Rush Limbaugh (whose show, for the record, I enjoy a great deal).
More important however, is the strain on the corrections system. Here in central Florida, we had a gruesome story that made national headlines about an evil piece of shit named John Evander Couey who did things to an innocent little girl that I won’t describe. He had been arrested 24 times in his pathetic excuse for a life, for everything from breaking into homes, to whipping his thing out, to fondling children. But the thing about this scumbag is that he behaved exceptionally well once he got into prison, and was able to be paroled and released early many, many times. In 2005, his freedom cost Jessica Lunsford her life.
Why was this moster who isn’t worth the dingles on my berries released into the general public? Was it because the state who gave a name to its electric chair (Old Sparky) was too generous? Or was it because said state could not afford to throw away the key ten years ago because its jails and prisons were full of drug users?
Whether it be running healthcare, funding art, or controlling drugs, any time the government focuses on something besides preventing the use of force, its fundamental duties suffer.
Can Mexico use libertarianism to create a legal drug market and foster a safe and productive nation? It will be needed, I think. However, they can’t do it alone. Without the U.S. in tow, such efforts would probably do more harm than good, as corporate drug producers in Mexico would probably force the American DEA to take action, and Mexico can’t afford to alienate the U.S. in such fashion. But if one thing is certain, it is that criminalization of drugs only leads to empowering violence on behalf of criminals and the state, and letting real monsters go free.
