US, the Most Corrupted Country

GekiDan said:

The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, states that the United States was the primary source of violence, drugs and especially every country's poison, corruption.

What do you think? Do you agree?

More info on this link:
http://abunakhli.wordpress.com/2009...tes-is-the-most-corrupt-country-in-the-world/

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I'm not sure what he's saying - do you mean in all of history? If so then I'd have to strongly disagree as corruption, violence and drugs have been around far longer than the United States.

If in the last century then I'm not sure I know enough to comment. I can say they would be somewhat of a source of all that, but whether a primary source or not, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure about that. We do have a lot of violence and drugs, but we're a big country with a lot of pressure on us.

The other problem is how exactly one describes corruption. Some view our old foreign policy as quite corrupt, whereas others see it as a good compromise in a difficult world.

i also don't think Mexico has any right to say much about us though. The corruption in their police force is terrible and a major impediment to their war against the cartels. The pot's calling the kettle black.

GekiDan said:

The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, states that the United States was the primary source of violence, drugs and especially every country's poison, corruption.

What do you think? Do you agree?

More info on this link:
http://abunakhli.wordpress.com/2009...tes-is-the-most-corrupt-country-in-the-world/

Click to expand...

I am going to have to fundamentally disagree here. Calderon really has no room to talk. Drug lords run his country. While the demand in the United States may accost for some of the corruption, it is how Calderon's poorly run government that is ultimately to blame.

• Mexican border security is terrible, may as well as be nonexistant
• Half of the Mexican government works for the drug lords
• The army and police are too afraid to actively combat the drug lords and as a result have poor public opinion for their own government.
• Mexico's economy is in shambles

Calderon said that the United States supplies and uses the largest amount of drugs in the world. He also pointed out that the security forces of various countries have given lives trying to prevent the illegal transfer of drugs to this country.

Calderon said that the United States supplies and uses the largest amount of drugs in the world. He also pointed out that the security forces of various countries have given lives trying to prevent the illegal transfer of drugs to this country.

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The United States is by no means the greatest supplier, (unless of course you count Afghanistan as a U.S. territory). I am not even sure if we lay claim as the biggest users.

As for security forces giving their lives, the United States isn't casualty free. We have lost countless ATF agents and other personnel training Mexican armies amongst others on the anti narcotics trade.

Let's also not forget the United States supplies more money and more resources than any other for combating drugs.


As for us being the most corrupt country in the world, go to any African or Middle Eastern country. They put us to shame. Their policeman will let anything slide for the right amount and government officials will give any information away for cash.

I get so tired of people blaming the US for everything. Calderon is president of a country where you can bribe someone to sit with you while you take your written exam for your driver's license and tell you all the answers, then mark that you passed the driving portion, which you never took, and voila, you are a licensed driver. The corruption extends to the most basic levels of society. And Mexico isn't really that bad. Try Africa.

One thing that is fair is that the demand for drugs is high in the US, and people tend to take recreational use of, say, cocaine rather lightly. But Mexico bears the brunt of enforcement and the violence associated with it the drug trade. Every someone in the US does a line, some of the most amoral people on earth, the drug traffickers here, make money.

curious said:

I get so tired of people blaming the US for everything.

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I find that the people who are the most critical of the US are the citizens of the US themselves and particularly their media, more so than the people from the rest of the world. Check up on the Internet for example and you will find so many Websites that really "hate" Bush or the Republicans, or discussion forums that pick apart everything that the United States is responsible for, and most of them originate from the United States. In fact, I sometimes feel quite defensive of the United States, when its own citizens pull it to pieces as some of them do it brutally. People from the world who use the Internet a lot also take their opinions about the United States from the Web. They also quote from media reports that originate from the US media.

I have a great admiration for the United States and its people. I particularly am in awe of the fact that it has managed to govern 50 enormous states peacefully for a couple of centuries whereas Europe has just started to get its act together. I also admire its drive for capitalism and am therefore quite apprehensive of what Obama is trying to do with socialism, etc.

In conclusion I think people outside the United States have a much higher opinion of the country than the citizens of the United States about itself and if citizens of the United States would like to have a more positive image outside the country, they should fix their own self-image first.

I've spent a lot of time with people from other countries over the past 20 years. I've lived outside the US, and now that I'm retired I stretch my pension by traveling in less expensive countries and staying in inexpensive guest houses and hostels.

My experience has been that people feel perfectly free to tell Americans all the things that are wrong with the US, but get very offended if I criticize their country. Frequently they know nothing about their subject anyway.

One guy complained because Shell Oil was so dominant in one of the Central American countries, and that it was because the Americans were forcing our businesses on him. He didn't know that Shell is Dutch (formerly known as Royal Dutch Shell).

Anyway, I get tired of it.

You are right, though, that with power comes scrutiny and criticism.

In addition, the US leads in participation on the Internet, the press, media, arts, etc, to the extent that people are actually following all the events in the United States even more than they do events in their own countries. Possibly with the media making all affairs in the US domestic affairs internationally, people outside the United States may discuss issues that are domestic ones in the United States with authority, without realizing that it is really non of their affair. For example the Bail-Outs of Big Banks in the US are followed in nitti gritty detail in all countries of the world. One can therefore expect a US traveller in the UK to hear more detail about the financial crisis than even he had known as the people in the UK that he is discussing the issue with may have studied it more or obtained information from different sources in the United States. If the discussion is critical, then of course it would be irritating, but this is probably the consequences of involving all of the world in domestic issues of the US through news reporting, Internet and Media.

As the world stands now, countries are more like territories in cooperation. It seems that Europe and the US are becoming one nation... and the decisions made by these countries on the global scale isn't just one country but all of them. SO when placing blame on a countries global actions, one can't JUST blame the US. The US tends to be the guy in the mob that gets the job done. No one else seems to want to get its hands dirty and take the fall.

As far as being corrupt, I think all modern nations are. No longer is the will of the people the primary goal of the government, but self-empowerment. The individual politician is more important than the person they supposedly represent. They care out there own agendas and suffer little consequences. And I believe that government has always been that way... there was really no ideal perfect saint government... just the beautiful fog of days past.

That's what I think anyway.

I think the US and Europe may be getting farther apart politically while getting more entwined economically. The EU is messing up a chance to act in unison and become more of an economic force by doing so, because each country is setting policy separately.

One thing Europeans don't seem to understand as they scream the stimulous approach is wrong is that we don't have the kinds of safety nets here that they do. A Swiss person who becomes unemployed gets 80% of his or her salary for up to two years, or until they find another job. An American is lucky to get enough in unemployment to cover the cost of COBRA medical care for a family, and it only lasts six months. We don't have time to let things work out.

curious said:

I think the US and Europe may be getting farther apart politically while getting more entwined economically.

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Agreed. For the very reason that the countries within the EU have resisted unification for centuries and centuries and are still political divided in language and culture like never before. Think there is also a tinge still of countries of Europe feeling superior to the United States in culture and language, which of course is silly, especially when you visit those countries. Probably true that the average age of people in Europe is much older than in the United States, very soon they are going to have populations that are going down, which in essence will mean less taxable income, less productivity, less everything, and a radically different way of doing things than before. CHANGE!!!!! Perhaps the result of that may be more open for political unification in the end. Who knows, we will probably not be around to see it happening by that time.

I found this list in about.com. The first number is the annual rate of decline, and the second is how much smaller the population will be in about 40 years. Rather amazing, isn't it? According to a New York Times article, the replacement birthrate is generally agreed to be 2.1 children per woman, and the rate in southern and eastern Europe is below 1.3. At that rate, population halves every 45 years.

population decrease by 2050
Russia: -0.6%; -22%
Belarus -0.6%; -12%
Bulgaria -0.5%; -34%
Latvia -0.5%; -23%
Lithuania -0.4%; -15%
Hungary -0.3%; -11%
Romania -0.2%; -29%
Estonia -0.2%; -23%
Moldova -0.2%; -21%
Croatia -0.2%; -14%
Germany -0.2%; -9%
Czech Republic -0.1%; -8%
Japan 0%; -21%
Poland 0%; -17%
Slovakia 0%; -12%
Austria 0%; 8% increase
Italy 0%; -5%
Slovenia 0%; -5%
Greece 0%; -4%

The United States went through a period thinking it was the chosen country. That no bad thing could happen to it, that it was blessed by God and without reproach. That, of course, is jingoism, and not even remotely close to the facts, if one pays any attention to history.

Like all countries, America (the USA in this case) has its good points and bad. But to blaming the US for Mexico's problems is much like a fat guy blaming a cook for making good food. It denies their own responsibility.

We do make a large drug market and if they legalized drugs, much of the underworld's huge money making activities would soon dry up. But then so would all those great law enforcement jobs.

So, bottom line, blaming anyone but yourself (whether your an individual or a nation) is simply playing a child's game.

Sparks said:

blaming the US for Mexico's problems is much like a fat guy blaming a cook for making good food. It denies their own responsibility.

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I don't think anybody outside the United States blamed the United States. Think the United States seems to be an expert at blaming itself for many things. Think in the instance where Hillary Clinton was saying the United States was responsible, it was more for effect and cooperation with the Mexican Government.

We are responsible for a lot of their drug trade though. If our people weren't buying it in vast quantities, then they'd lose a very valuable revenue stream.

It always takes two to tango though.

The Parakeet said:

We are responsible for a lot of their drug trade though. If our people weren't buying it in vast quantities, then they'd lose a very valuable revenue stream.

It always takes two to tango though.

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True, just bad luck for the Mexicans that they are en route to the United States from the drug cartelles in South and Latin America. They have so many issues to deal with, this on top of it has to be heavy on their security system.

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