How could one fix Mexico and Central America?

[oldTireWater]

The way I reason it, you can't fight the cartels. Plata o Plomo is too strong an argument for most individuals to resist. If the government tries to brute force a war, they're likely to have their formations corrupted to the point of ineffectiveness, or worse, and they're still facing a near-peer internal adversary. Mexico would have to openly accept being a narco state, and try to bring the cartel operations into the government fold. If everyone can continue making money, then there might be a shot at reducing the violence. If course this doesn't solve the international issue of being a fucking narco state.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

I agree with everyone saying it needs serious change but Mexico is physically not a shithole. It's beautiful. It has vast tracts of farmland. It has large petroleum/natural gas reserves (although the petroleum has a lot of sulfur and is more expensive to refine). It mines significant precious/semi-precious gems, silver and gold, In short, it's similar to the US in terms of natural resources.

The small but powerful elites profit from this, the Mexican people very little. It is extremely corrupt and the cartels do the bidding of the elites.

But illegal immigration is one way they keep their population under control. Severely curtail it and you will have an opportunity to change Mexico for the better. Sending your best and brightest to the US because their wealthy citizens are hoarding their fortunes is a losing strategy. Severely restricting Mexican immigration is better for Mexico than for the US, to be honest.

Central America, with the exception of Panama, Belize and Costa Rica, are cooked. The remaining countries are just imitations of Mexico but worse. Fix Mexico and you can fix those four countries. Panama I don't know, it seems better off than Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Belize is a member of the British Commonwealth and Costa Rica has been stable and successful to the point its called the Central American Switzerland. So those three maybe not perfect but not shitholes.

 

[DumbDude42]

But illegal immigration is one way they keep their population under control. Severely curtail it and you will have an opportunity to change Mexico for the better.

yeah this is pretty crucial

people only revolt when life sucks and there is no way out, and for mexicans, there is always a way out: north

 

[jje100010001]

These are solutions to issues but not the solution to the problem. The Mexican state faces an existential problem that mere policy will not change. Like myself and @Austrian Conscript 1915 allude to, the people of Mexico need to adjust they way they think about their nation state if there is to be any hope of solving the greater problem. And once the people of Mexico feel pride and are endeared to their nation, many of the other problems will resolve to a great degree over time. You'll never stop all of the problems, that's impossibly utopian, but you can return a modicum of normality and functionality to the state if the people have respect for it and want to protect it.

This may bear out in the Central American nations as well, but I don't know as much about them.

Pride is not an issue- Mexicans love their culture, and there are many who do recognize their country's shortcomings (beyond the dumb Aztlan/La Raza supremacists who want to bring all of it to the US).

I think the underlying issue is the culture ingrained into politics- Spanish colonialism brought with it systems of patronage and 'padre knows best' social systems, which have not been erased in the years post-Independence. This ultimately produces simultaneously top-heavy yet inefficient governments (in some cases non-present), entrenched systems of patronage/corruption, and cartels as a result of weak government presence.

The second major issue is overpopulation, which produces a surplus population (the problems it causes to Mexico and the US are self-explanatory). These two problems are seen in various amounts around Latin America, and these cultures can do a bit better with strongmen in charge, but that only results in issues of corruption and patronage all over again.

Change needs to happen through the political and education system, with external help to help keep the system safe during its cleansing process- which is a daunting task. Honestly, the least painful pathway for the US is for some military agreement that allows them a presence in the country to help stamp out cartels, and strong border control to keep illegal migrants and drug mules out.

 

[Pampered Degenerate]

Simple: just get rid of all the Mexicans and Central Americans.

 

[Mrs Paul]

Stop interferring and supporting dictators? (Right wing or left, who gives a shit, doesn't matter) You'd think we'd have learned our lesson by now. Just stay the fuck out.