[talmand]

Corrupt governments. Consider this...

You are a middle level government employee that has certain responsibilities. You are sitting alone at a restaurant enjoying your lunch. A nicely dressed man sits at your table with a briefcase. He places the briefcase facing you and opens it to show $100,000 in cash. He then tells you that you can either take the money and ignore certain activities or they'll kill you and your entire family. He then places photos of your spouse and children with addresses/times of their whereabouts. He then leaves.

What do you do?

Sometimes the corrupt government thing isn't as black and white as you may think.

[sigma2015]

The decision is of course that you would comply ... but that's at the end of the day b/c police fails to protect their citizens in Mexico ... even worse, they directly cooperate with the cartels to an extent that they become hardly distinguishable. Think about the dozens of students mass murdered few months ago.

[Nadya]

The power of enforcement is given to those with power. The cartels hold more power (in dispensable cash, manpower, and weapons). They bribe whoever needs to be bribed to look the other way. Those who can't be bribed are threatened and everyone can be threatened. The brave and honest people get turned into examples... and with enough examples, there are no more brave and honest people left.

There are parts of the U.S that operate in the same manner. We have "bad cops" who use their position to help drug traffickers smuggle weapons and drugs. It's no different... you just hear it less in the media.

[talmand]

Police that don't protect citizens. Consider this...

You are a cop in a city overrun by a major drug cartel. You are sitting alone at a restaurant enjoying your lunch. A nicely dressed man sits at your table with a briefcase. He places the briefcase facing you and opens it to show $100,000 in cash. He then tells you that you can either take the money and ignore certain activities or they'll kill you and your entire family. He then places photos of your spouse and children with addresses/times of their whereabouts. He then leaves.

What do you do?

And so on, and so on, and so on.