| sultan |
12-10-2003 04:58 PM |
Quote:
By Fred Reed
Toogood Reports
Monday, December 8, 2003
I am sad to report that Mexico is the most criminal of countries. Let me
illustrate.
Suppose that you were subject to, say, horrendous sinus infections or
earaches. In America, by law you would have to get an appointment with a
doctor, $75, thank you - when he had time, how about day after tomorrow,
whereupon he would give you a prescription for amoxicillin, fifteen bucks
and a trip to a pharmacy. If this happened on a Friday, you would either
slit your wrists by Saturday evening to avoid the torture, or go to an
emergency room, however distant, where they would charge you a fortune and
give you a prescription for... amoxicillin.
In Mexico, upon recognizing the familiar symptoms, you would go to the
nearest farmacia and buy the amoxicillin. The agony would be nipped in the
bud (presuming that agony has buds). The doctor would not get $75, which is
against all principles of medicine. The pharmacist would not lose his
license, as he would in the United States.
See? Criminality is legal in Mexico. Thatīs how bad things are.
Another grave crime here is horse abuse. Often you see a Mexican father
clopping through town on an unregistered horse - yes: the horror - with his
kid of five seated behind him. A large list of crimes leaps instantly to
the North American mind. The kid is not in a governmentally sanctioned
horse seat. He is not wearing a helmet. The father is not wearing a helmet.
The horse is not wearing a helmet. The horse is not wearing a diaper. The
horse does not have a parade permit. The horse doesn't have turn signals.
The father does not have a document showing that he went to a
governmentally approved school and therefore knows how to operate a horse,
which he has been doing since he was six years old.
In Mexico, if you want to ride a horse, you get one, or borrow one. If you
don't know how to ride it, you have someone to show you. Why any of this
might interest the government is unclear to everybody, including the
government.
You see. Here is the dark underside of Mexico. People do most things
without supervision, as if they were adults.
This curious state of affairs, which might be called "freedom," has strange
effects on gringos. Shortly after I moved here, I began to hear little
voices. This worried me until I realized that I was next door to a grade
school. Daily at noon a swarm of children erupted into the street, the
girls chattering and running every which way, the boys shouting and
roughhousing and playing what sounded like cowboys and Injuns.
In the United States, half of the boys would be forced to take drugs to
make them inert. If they played anything involving guns, they would be
suspended and forced to undergo psychiatric counseling, which would in all
likelihood leave them in a state of murderous psychopathy. Wrestling would
be violence, with the same results.
Here you see the extent to which, narcotically, Mexico lags the great
powers. The Soviets drugged inconvenient adults into passivity. America
drugs its little boys into passivity. Mexico doesn't drug anyone.
In fiesta season, which just ended, everybody and his grand aunt Chuleta
puts up a taco stand or booze stall on the plaza. Yes: In front of God and
everybody. These do not have permits. They are just there. If you want a
cuba libre, you give the nice lady twenty pesos and she hands it to you.
Thatīs all. There is in this a simplicity that the North American instantly
recognizes as dangerous. Where are the controls? Where are the rules? Why
isn't somebody watching these people? Heaven knows what might happen. They
could be terrorists.
If you chose to wander around the plaza, drink in hand, and listen to the
band, no one would care in the least, in part because they would be doing
the same thing. If you didnīt finish your drink, and walked home with it,
no one would pay the least attention.
In America this would be Drinking in Public. It would merit a night in jail
followed by three months of compulsory Alcohol School. This would
accomplish nothing of worth, but would put money in the pockets of
controlling and vaguely hostile therapists, and let unhappy bureaucrats get
even with people they suspect of enjoying themselves.
Mexicans seem to regard laws as interesting concepts that might merit
thought at some later date. There is much to be said for this. The
governmental attitude seems to be that if a thing doesnīt need regulating,
then donīt regulate it. Life is much easier that way.
If a law doesnīt make sense in a particular instance, a Mexican will ignore
it. Where I live it is common to see a driver go the wrong way on a one-way
street to avoid a lengthy circumnavigation. Since speeds are about five
miles an hour, it isn't dangerous. The police donīt patrol because there
isn't enough crime (in my town: the big cities are as bad as ours) to
justify it. It works. Everybody is happy, which isn't a crime in Mexico.
I could go on. In Mexico, legally or not, people ride in the backs of
pickup trucks if the mood strikes them. This is no doubt statistically more
dangerous than being wrapped in a Kevlar crash-box with an oxygen system
and automatic transfusion machine. They figure it is their business.
Here is an explanation of Mexican criminality. The United States realizes
that a citizen must be protected whether he wants to be or not -
controlled, regulated, and intimidated in every aspect of everything he
does, for his own good. He must not be permitted to ride a bicycle without
a helmet, smoke if he chooses, or go to a bar where smoking is permitted.
He cannot be trusted to run his life.
Have you ever wondered how much good the endless surveillance, preaching,
and rules really do? In some states your car wonīt pass inspection if there
is a crack in the windshield. There are - I donīt doubt? - studies
measuring the carnage and economic wreckage concomitant to driving with a
cracked windshield. Presumably whole hospitals groan at the seams (if
thatīs quite English) with the maimed and halt.
Or might it be that the rules are just stupid, the product of meddlesome
bureaucrats and frightened petty officials with too much time on their
hands? Maybe it would be better if they just got off our backs?
Nah.
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