Pope speaks, finds foot in mouth once again.

[Warren Stupidity]

Mexico has registered a rare diplomatic protest with the Vatican over comments by Pope Francis warning that his native Argentina was in danger of “Mexicanisation” by drug gangs.

The comment came in an email the pontiff wrote to an Argentinian friend, Gustavo Vera, who heads an NGO called “Alameda” which is involved in combating organised crime and human trafficking.


“I hope we (in Argentina) can avoid Mexicanisation,” the pope wrote in what was a reference to Mexico’s problems with warring drugs gangs.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/mexico-protests-vatican-pope-drug-comments

[Politicalboi]

1. The Pope has GOP syndrome

Just say what's on your mind, nothing bad will happen till it does. Just ask Rudy.

[edhopper]

2. He probably shouldn't have said that

but Mexico does have an immense problem with corruption from the Drug Cartels.

[okasha]

3. it's not just corruption.

There are places in Mexico where a state of war exists both between gangs and between gangs and the government. The word is unfortunate; the fact is tragic.

[edhopper]

4. Yes

And of course they profit because of our demand for drugs. We have some culpability.

[Fumesucker]

6. No, they profit because of the drug war

When was the last time you saw a shootout between liquor store owners?

[edhopper]

8. That's what I was saying

our demand for illegal drugs.

[Fumesucker]

9. Not even close

It's our politicians, both Democratic and Republican who fuel the drug war and make inevitable the violence of the cartels.

[edhopper]

10. Yes

I am agreeing with you. We have made drugs criminal and the demand for them in the US is what drives the Cartels.

[Fumesucker]

13. That's still the wrong framing..

The demand would be there irrespective of the legal status, it's the illegal status of some drugs that drives the violence.

A black market has no mechanism for settling disputes other than violence, liquor distributors go to court if they have grievances against each other, they don't gun each other down in the street any more like they did when alcohol was illegal.

[edhopper]

14. I agree

You are just reading to much into my short replies.

You are looking for an argument where none exists.

[Fumesucker]

18. When you frame it that way it reinforces the meme that the problem is drugs...

When it's actually a political problem.

It's a really difficult concept to get across to a lot of people and framing the discussion to show what is the actual problem is extremely important.

[edhopper]

20. It's demand for illegal drugs

if the drugs were not illegal, the Cartels would not be able to operate as they do.

I haven't seen the data, but i would think they aren't very active in the Pot trade in Wash. or Colo.

You think I am saying we just have to stop people from using drugs, I am not.

[Fumesucker]

21. Then people immediately think "All we need to do is stop the demand for illegal drugs"

I did drug war debate for a long time and getting people to see the actual political problem is difficult enough without reinforcing what they think they already know, which is exactly what the framing you are using does.

Not trying to beat up on you but that framing is far too easily taken the wrong way because that's what people have been trained to think anyway and it feeds into their existing prejudices.

[edhopper]

23. or

stop making drugs illegal

[Fumesucker]

24. Drugs are illegal because they are bad..

That's what most people think and getting them to change that mindset is damn difficult.

Pot is obviously considerably safer than alcohol to anyone who pays attention to medical literature and it's changing the legal status has been a huge battle that isn't really won yet. I have family members who are intelligent medical professionals and still think pot is far worse than alcohol.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. so why is frank blaming mexicans?

[edhopper]

12. You'll have to ask him.

We shouldn't deny that Mexico is pretty fucked up right now.

I am saying the fault lies in both countries.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. How fucked up by cartels would Mexico be if we hadn't enabled the cartels with our war on drugs?

It would be approximately zero fucked up. The fault is approximately 100% ours. Our misguided stupid destructive draconian drug war, now a totally corrupt government/corporate partnership, is responsible for this mess, not "mexicans".

[Fumesucker]

16. Which implies Frank doesn't have a damn clue about all this..

[edhopper]

17. We will have to disagree here.

[Goblinmonger]

7. "The word is unfortunate"?

That's all you got?

There is some Grade A, Olympic level ethnocentrism at work here. "Mexicanization"? My daughter did a semester abroad in Argentina and very clearly saw this level of bigotry in Argentina. That the Pope feels the same is not surprising since he is from there.

But to not call him out on that and just say he had a bad word choice (while another thread has a lot of traction in this group in which people are losing their shit about something Dawkins didn't even say) is some Grade A, Olympic level hypocrisy. Well done. Just when I didn't think you could top yourself in your contortions to be an apologist for Pope Awesome I.

[trotsky]

19. We get upset about the pope attacking homosexuals, transgendered people, and now an entire nation...

and we're just anti-religious bigots.

Dawkins says children shouldn't be subjected to religious indoctrination in schools, and he's a monster who wants to take children away from their parents and raise them in atheism camps.

Yup. Just another day in the Religion group.

[skepticscott]

22. Yes, it really is amazing

How long the religionistas can go on in a thread, slamming Dawkins for things he didn't even say (based on an OP which deliberately misquoted him), but they are silent as the grave when something like this comes up. Or even worse, they try to defend it or gloss it over.

Any doubt that if an atheist in here used the term "Mexicanization", our friend here and many of her cronies would have a complete meltdown, accusing that person and anyone who didn't "denounce" them of being a "bigoted asshole" (as one of our Mexican residents is prone to do).

[trotsky]

25. Oh Jeebus...

Imagine if Dawkins had used that term.

DU would explode from the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Religion group.

[skepticscott]

26. Yes, look how they lost their shit

when he spoke the truth about the intellectual decline of the Islamic world (over which he expressed regret). Just think what a froth of outrage they could conjure up over something he didn't say.

[Dorian Gray]

27. It's very sad

The Pope should have thought and censored himself before he spoke.

[edhopper]

28. True that

More often than not.

[trotsky]

5. Way to go, popey. n/t