S. D. writes: Salvadoran gangs might wreak havoc with in Anglo countries, but the Iberian ruling class of Central America keep them under their thumb.
This is absolutely not the case at all. Neither Anglo countries nor their own Hispanic societies can control these maniacs at all, and the Hispanics are actually worse at controlling them then we are. The street gangs and crime in general are completely out of control in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, in part due to the aftermath of the wars. We have much better control over these gangs up here than they do down there.
It just goes to show you that when you have an insanely out of control crime situation, there is only so much you can do about it. The states down there are throwing everything they have at the crime problem (I assume), and the crime rages on nonetheless. When crime reaches a certain level, there is not a whole lot you can do. You can put bad guys in prison. You can execute bad guys, you can simply assassinate criminals on the streets. Which is what the police down there often do, as the death squads formerly used against the Left are now attacking the criminals.
Yes, you can arrest criminals (until your jails fill up), imprison criminals (until your prisons fill up and turn into criminal manufacturing facilities), execute criminals after they are convicted and even assassinate criminals with roving gangs of cop assassins. Sure, you eliminate a lot of criminals that way, but crooks are like mushrooms in these places: they just keep springing up new ones.
I would add that crime has raged in all of these countries through all sorts of governments for maybe 20 years now.
In Honduras it raged on during the Left government the same as it did during the Right government. Now Honduras has an out and out Death Squad Dictatorship courtesy of Hitlery Clinton and crime rages on nonetheless. Even military dictatorships can’t stop the crime!
In El Salvador it is raging right along during the new Left government the same as did under the Right governments.
Also the Right governments in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras involved a number of changing political parties, but all of the parties and administrations were powerless to stop the crime.
Sure they can try to stop it after it happens, but can they stop it before it happens (prevention)? Not really.
I am so sick and tired of the despicable Venezuela haters accusing Chavez of causing Venezuela’s wild crime rate and blaming him for it. Venezuela has the exact same problem that Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador had during decades of Right governments, and they weren’t able to stop it either in those places.
Apparently the Venezuela critics who insist that it is Hugo Chavez’ personal fault that Venezuela has such a bad crime problem are all degreed criminologists.
You will never hear more garbage and crap in a political debate with your typical moronic American than when you try to discuss what causes crime. Everyone’s got their own theory! Isn’t that amazing? We have 170 million Emil Durkheims right here in the United States! Gadzooks Batman!
I would like to tell all of these Junior Einsteins that since they know what causes crime, that they all need to head to the nearest university and look up the Criminology professors and tell them this stunning news. The Criminology professors would be overjoyed to hear what really causes crime!
Do you know why? Because criminologists have been studying crime for a century now and still do not have the fainest idea what causes crime or what makes crime rates go up or down. Sure, they have all sorts of theories and charts, and they publish books all the time, but really it’s just another Dismal Social Science, and it’s a notorious black hole of theory just like the ridiculous original dismal science.
I would like to tell all of these idiot Venezuela critics who insist that Hugo Chavez himself somehow miraculously caused a massive crime rate in Venezuela (How? By massively bettering the lives of the poor? That’s sure to make the crime rate skyrocket.) to take their stupid theory that it is governments that cause crime and that crime rates go up due to bad governments and go down due to good governments to the closest Criminology professor to inform him of the shocking news.They are in for a surprise because the professor will probably laugh right in their faces.
The truth is that national governments have very little if anything to do with crime, either causing it in the first place or making it go up or down. This is because crime largely occurs outside of politics and the only thing governments can do is politics. But crime is a sociological phenomenon (sort of like drinking, gambling, promiscuity or drug use) that has little if anything to do with politics. Sociological phenomena like those listed above occur for their own reasons that are 100% to do with society and sociological phenomena and ~0% to do with national governments and politics.
