Agreed Back East ... but in Mexico ... drugs are only part of the problem! Corruption, Extortion, Inequality (which leads to legalized slavery), are all part of the grim picture of Mexico!!!!!!

This corruption has permeated the culture ... and ... it's sad to say ... is daily life .............

If we considered or even asked kids before acting on anything, we'd be much better off. Kids force us to think about the future... they ARE the future.

Quick gains and our rising desire for instant gratification has caused us to think and act only for the short term. We've seen it in business (fiscal quarter focus instead of the long term viability of the company), politics (reactionary instead of visionary), our health (eat for the pleasure of the moment), and our actions (it's all about me).

We need a kids video. We should watch it every day... would make us think about the well being of someone else for a change.

Yeah, cause it couldn't be the war on drugs and the get rich quick hope black market it propagates now could it? It's nothing different than Prohibition when gangs ruled the streets with speak-easy liquor and machine gun violence. When more than a few working poor were tempted to try their hand at brewing moonshine and bathtub gin with more than a few fishermen moonlighting as rum-runners, not to mention the precursor to NASCAR with the rise of the bootlegger running booze in the middle of the night in souped-up jalopies and some(our former president John F . Kennedy's father)making themselves a fortune. Prohibition was repealed because it caused far more problems than it solved and the only reason that this one continues is because more than a few entities have a vested interest in the money that is funneled into the effort from the government not to mention the auction proceeds from seizures. You want to help the children of Mexico and other impoverished nations where there is big money in this? Stop a failed "war" that harms more than it's helped and make the product so ridiculously cheap that it won't even be worth the effort for most people to bother with. Just like alcohol.

Wrong,,the idiots that believe America could make a prohibition law work after every attempt by any government throughout world history has failed at it share the same blame.

No kidding,,look at history,,prohibition laws have never worked,,and they never will.

newscover You might want to think about actually LIVING in Mexico before you utter your grand pronouncements. I do and have lived here for several years. In those years, living in a major city, I have NEVER been the victim of a crime, but my last year in Texas I was the victim of several. Mexico has social security, food stamps and several other kinds of public assistance to help its people and does NOT have politicians trying to take it away to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Those are American troops and American walls on the border, not Mexican. American, you know, the country that claims to be Christian yet HATES it neighbors? So lets see: America starts a "war on drugs", which drives the prices higher in America. On Wall Street currency speculators keep Third World currencies depressed on purpose, keeping those countries poor. American companies go to Mexico so they do not have to pay American workers and they could not do this without Wall Streets help. Cartel members are recruited from the poorest families in Mexico.

Now Newscover, DO THE MATH!!!!!!!

Carlo, actually if some of those corupt American corps would have sent some of those jobs to Mexico instead of all the way around the world to asia, it probably would have been better for Americans and Mexicans alike.

Mexicans would have a way to make aliving other than crime and it would funnel US dollars into Mexico legally through thousands of workers instead of through a few illegal crime organizations, spreading the money around better. The US would benefit because keeping the money closer to home makes it more likely to find it's way back and it would slow the rate of illegal immigration.

Yeah, right!

Cute video...it will be about as effective as a KONY2012 video.

Carlo Caraluzzo ... you twit ... I've lived in Mexico for 25 years!!!!!!!!

Get your head out of your butt!!!!

Prohibition feeds Mexican cartels--drugs are considered contraband, and producing/smuggling contraband is almost always a lucrative business, no matter how great the risks may be. Legalize drugs (at least weed), produce them locally, and tax them properly. All of a sudden cartels can't profit much anymore, and their influence will be reduced.

Carlos Caraluzzo,

YOU have never been the victim of a crime, per se, but alot of other people in Mexico HAVE been a victim. I agree with a number of points you attempt to make about America. The United States has a horrific track record when it comes to "brotherly love." That "give me your tired your poor" and "all men are created equal" has never been truly realized either. Make no mistake, though: there is ALOT of corruption in Mexico! Now, if these kids can see this then we as adults need to wake up!! Johnny's on the spot now, O.K.? In other words, these "kids" have convicted us, hopefully caused us adults to take a look in the mirror, so to speak. This is the ugly world that we adults have set up for these "kids" to live in. They are screaming for us adults to do the right thing which, by the way, may not be the easy, quick or popular thing to do. What can you and I do, Mr. Caraluzzo, to make this world you, I, AND THESE KIDS live in a better place?

It is a well made film. I hope the candidates all take it t heart.

Carlo, Mexico must be wonderful according to your description! All of those great benefits and no crime! I guess those fences you talk about are to keep the Americans from crossing into Mexico to reap all of those great benefits. I guess we hate our neighbor to the south because we are jealous of how great it is there. I guess those dead bodies laying in the desert are Americans trying to illegally enter Mexico. The video was produced for Mexicans by Mexicans. The politicians in Mexico agreed with the depiction of Mexico as portrayed in the video. Do you live in a different Mexico than the one depicted in the video? I'm trying to do the math, but your numbers just don't add up!

It is a well made film. I hope the candidates all take it t heart.

They won't. Just like the video shows they'll shrug and go about their business. What a powerful video and what a sad state of affairs!

That video probably just made the people it is mimiking have a good laugh cause it's true.

Earlier, the candidate of the former governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, Enrique Pena Nieto, wrote in his Twitter account: "I support the message of Discomforting Kids. I hear it all the time on the campaign trail; that 'time is running out.' It's time to renew hope and change Mexico. "

Mexico should be very weary of that whole "hope" and "change" message.....it isn't working very well for us.

back east

All because of low lifes and scum in the US who "need their fix".... Drug users only care about themselves.. don't be fooled by them wanting to legalize drugs... they ARE the reason why so may others are killed. They all have blood on their hands

Part of what you say is true... IF Kiwi fruit was desired as much as drugs are every illegal crossing the US Border would be loaded down with Kiwi Fruits.

DEMAND and SUPPLY ,,,,,,NOT SUPPLY and DEMAND most people get the two mixed up.

You know what came first the chicken or the egg???

The Mexican Government is hopelessly lost , overrun and outgunned with corruption. The Mexican Government needs to stand at their own border where anyone crosses and build a 1 mile buffer zone with a heavy military wall of weapons and police and soldiers.

The argument then is.

WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT ONLY WANT TO WORK FOR A BETTER LIFE?

The answer is:

STOP crossing illegally and use the immigration system we have in place.

BTW WE NEED TO IMMEDIATELY IMPRISON THE TOP 10 EXECUTIVES FROM ANY CORPORATION HIRING ILLEGALS

All because of low lifes and scum in the US who "need their fix".... Drug users only care about themselves.. don't be fooled by them wanting to legalize drugs... they ARE the reason why so may others are killed. They all have blood on their hands.

for the most part, this is nonsense. Guns, corruption, and violence weren't sprinkled into the midst until the "war on drugs" militarized everybody involved in the business of dealing drugs.

People will want drugs, period, end of discussion. No amount of illegality, or "Prohibition" if you will, is going to change that. I thought we learned this in the 1920's. You do know that some of America's most famous criminals such as Al Capone were born out of crime syndicates that bootlegged liquor, right?

Criminalize something the people want, and you get a black market. Militarize the police to go after that black market, and you get the St. Valentine's Day Massacre....

txmom32 ... I hope your little message isn't just another typical lame back hand to Obama ... the GOP are the folks standing in the way of "hope & change"!!!!!

living in the woods said:

Carlo, actually if some of those corupt American corps would have sent some of those jobs to Mexico instead of all the way around the world to asia, it probably would have been better for Americans and Mexicans alike.

Mexicans would have a way to make aliving other than crime and it would funnel US dollars into Mexico legally through thousands of workers instead of through a few illegal crime organizations, spreading the money around better. The US would benefit because keeping the money closer to home makes it more likely to find it's way back and it would slow the rate of illegal immigration.

Northrup Grumman just opened a plant in Mexico.

Ford is opening a factory to produce Ford Fusions.

Mexican companies also own a lot of American brands and manufactures a lot of the things we consume.

Grupo Lala, Mexico's largest dairy company, owns Borden.

Grupo Bimbo, a baked goods company now owns and produces Entenmanns, Boboli pizza crusts, and Thomas's English muffins.

From one article:

Gruma, which claims to be the world's largest maker of tortillas, wraps and corn flour, makes 47% of its sales in the USA and Europe, thanks to the growing popularity of Mexican food.The company has 25 bakeries and flour mills in Texas, California, Indiana and Kentucky. It is a major supplier to restaurants and fast-food chains. The González Barrera family, which controls Gruma, owns one of Mexico's largest banks, Banorte, which bought Texas-based Inter National Bank in 2009.

Here's another:

El Paso-based TECMA is one such company. It runs a huge, 180,000-square-foot factory near the Juarez airport. TECMA runs seven different operations for seven different U.S. companies. One area manufactures customized dashboard covers. Another produces electronic components for modems. Yet another makes plastic mannequins.The company's business also includes "reverse logistics" — refurbishing used products. For instance, the factory will take an old or inoperative credit card reader from Wal-Mart, clean it, replace any worn-out parts, update its software and then send it back to the retailer.TECMA runs a total of 17 plants across Juarez.

The border city, with a population of just over 1 million people, was hard hit by the recent recession. Between 2008 and 2009, Juarez lost nearly 85,000 jobs out of 250,000, or 33 percent.

But the city is rapidly bouncing back, and local officials expect that by the end of this year employment levels will have returned to their 2007 peak. Even with a smaller workforce, exports in 2010 reached an all-time high. The value of trade between Juarez and El Paso jumped a stunning 47 percent from 2009 to 2010. And similar gains are being reported in other border cities, such as Matamoros, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo.

Alan Russell, TECMA's president, says the Mexican border has a huge logistical advantage over China or other industrial hubs in Asia. "We have another operation that ships the same day that the orders are received," he says. The specialized medical products are made that day, sent to the border, go through customs and are shipped via FedEx or UPS for next-day delivery anywhere in the U.S."

But one issue about Juarez that Russell always has to address with potential clients is security — what he calls "the elephant in the room."

Convoys of thousands of Mexican soldiers and federal police racing back and forth across Juarez are an everyday reality. The nervous troops wear full battle gear and clutch assault rifles.

Yet Russell and other business leaders say that for the most part, violence from the drug war hasn't affected the maquiladoras.The factories don't have much cash in them or products that could be easily resold on the black market — for example, air filters for the latest model GM car. The gangs also may be leaving them alone because the maquiladoras are an established and important source of income for much of the population.

She says many companies currently operating in the U.S. could operate far cheaper in Juarez. Wages in the maquiladoras start at about $10 a day. Once products are moved back into El Paso, they can be moved quickly by truck, rail or plane throughout the U.S. and Canada.

And as for the 'illegal immigration' problem--would it surprise you to know that in the wake of all the 'papers, please' laws being enacted by border states, and the economic recovery taking place in Mexico IS encouraging a lot of illegals and undocumenteds to 'self deport? A small but growing percentage of those individuals are trying to sneak back across the border, given the outright prejudice and unfavorable atmosphere here in the us as media frenzy over illegals and undocumenteds feeds into racism and prejudices, and some of the deportation numbers from the current administration are from those who were trying to sneak back over the border, were caught and were deported--which is exactly where they wanted to go anyway.

The downside of all this is that in the fuss over 'catching illegals' many legals are fleeing too. There is a young lady of my acquaintance, her parents are Nepalese government officials who paid for her to come to the US and study medicine ($24,000 a year) However, when she was fingerprinted for hr internship the tech who took her prints did a sloppy job and the system incorrectly identified her as an illegal. She showed ICE all of her student visa paperwork, letters from the college but they determined the papers were forged and it was not until they were fingerprinting her that they found her prints were NOT a match for the person she was mistaken for. However they still continued to hold her until the dean of the college came forward with extra copies of her paperwork and proved that she was a student at his university. Now, instead of learning medicine here and getting her country to buy the medical equipment from us, she is heading to Canada to finish her degree and her country will buy equipment from Canada because she is upset that she was treated like a criminal and they dismissed her paperwork as forgeries without bothering to try and verify they were genuine.

The reason that drugs are not legalized in the US is because the DEA would lose funding. Plain and simple. It keeps money in the cartels pockets. The war on drugs has been lost long ago. And now that states are seeing huge tax money from legal dispensaries, the real truth is coming out. Sooner or later the US government will have to admit they are completely wrong and legalize some drugs. The more it waits, the more death and corruption will exist. We need to stop lobbyists from paying the way for corruption. It is just legal bribery.

The kids of Mexico spoke the truth in the video. Out of the mouths of babes. Mexico will always be a 3rd world country unless they actually take a stand.

@Back East -- Your statement is a gross oversimplification and you know it. Over 1/3 of all Americans have tried an illicit drug at some time in their life, with some studies showing as many as 42% of Americans having tried Marijuana. Nearly 100% of Americans will use a legal drug recreationally at some point in their life (alcohol, cigarettes or abuse of prescription drugs) with 1/3 if Americans polled stating that they developed an alcohol abuse problem at some point in their lives. Your statement tries to paint all Americans who have ever used a drug (legal or otherwise) as hopeless addicts-- that is incredibly disingenuous. The vast majority of Americans who use drugs do not fit the qualification to be considered addicts-- most are dabblers at best. Your tee-totaling attitude is better suited for a 1918 Temperance Protest, not a modern day (honest) discussion about the prevalence, history and consequences of drug consumption.

Comments 1.3 and 1.4 have it right. Prohibition is essentially the worst course of action you can take with respect to a regulatory policy for any commodity, much less drugs (which has high market demand). Consider that Nixon's "War on Drugs" (which he enacted to distract the American public from the abysmal management of the Vietnam War) began with a budget of $15 million dollars. In 2010, Obama's budget for the same effort was $15 Billion dollars-- yet, there has been no marked decrease in the consumption of drugs in America, nor in their availability. In addition to the federal budget, states also put in an additional $20 Billion dollars (combined) on top of that, for a annual expense of $35 Billion Dollars or more-- and for what? The "Drug War" has increased in cost exponentially, yet it has no positive benefit to the American people-- the only effect that it has created is to engender an arms race with the cartels, who keep in lock-step with the preventive efforts against their illicit exports: as American law enforcement militarizes, so do the cartels. This has created a civil war in Mexico as the government battles the hyper-militarized cartels for control. Our policy of prohibition has created a warzone-- and if we are to look at the issue honestly, we'd own up to that fact. There's a reason that every single study ever conducted by the RAND corporation on behalf of the Federal Government on the subject warned that increased militarization would only increase the profit to the cartels for their product, make them more dangerous and recommended that more money be put towards treatment and education programs rather than interdiction efforts. This "war" has waged for over 30 years at a cost of over $1 Trillion dollars-- right now we spend an average of $500/second on it-- and we have literally nothing to show for it other than to throw Central & South America into chaos (but then, maybe that's been the point all along-- think about it).

Your statement also eludes the supply side of the equation. Watch the documentary "Cocaine: History Between the Lines," specifically the latter half, and you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about. In many of the source countries, the cultivation and harvest of Coca is not illegal-- in fact, it is a vital export to their economies. Without this crop, their economies would literally collapse, and at the local level, for many of these farmers, there is no other crop that they can grow in their regions that will turn a profit for them (and it's a meager profit at their level). Their choice: grow coca or starve to death.

@Carlo:

Those are American troops and American walls on the border, not Mexican.

That's because there isn't an ongoing tide of illegal American migrants flooding your country. It's a reaction to a problem. Don't be daft.

American, you know, the country that claims to be Christian yet HATES it neighbors?

America is NOT a Christian country and never was. Maybe you missed that part about the Separation of Church and State? Of not promoting one religion over another? Of freedom to peaceably worship any religion you so choose?

As to the video-- wow. Wake up call, folks. And it's not just drugs, despite Carlo's assertions about how safe it is in Mexico. It's the ongoing culture of corruption, graft, kidnapping, and worse. Drugs (and the Cartels specifically) are a HUGE part of that problem and you have to ask yourself how they became so powerful. Well, let's look at a recent analog in our countries history. How did the mafia become so powerful? Prohibition: bootlegging, gambling and rum-running. Without the ongoing demand for alcohol and their willingness to supply it, they would not have gained the sort of power that they did through the 20's. For an entertaining view of this rise in power, watch the show "Boardwalk Empire."

Bottom line: you cannot legislate morality. Prohibition causes more problems than it "solves." Human beings have been using drugs since the emergence of our race. Beer was invented before bread. Some anthropologists even contend that the rise of human consciousness was catalyzed by early use of hallucinogenic mushrooms-- our race is steeped in the use of chemical substances for all manner of religious, spiritual, recreational and even political use* from the earliest moments of our existence. You can't ignore that. If you do, well, you'll spend billions of dollars every year chasing a goal you cannot achieve.

*the parliament in ancient Athens was required to imbibe a psychoactive concoction prior to assembly-- no one knows what was in it, but it was supposed to make the lawmakers more amiable to compromise.

State and Federal Drug stores, for hard drugs, the same way they did with Liquor. Then let all the convenience stores sell marijuana. People that want to use, will use. It's been around for as long as I can remember, and it ain't going away until a society decides enough is enough. Oxycontin is sold by ton's in America, so maybe making all drugs legal, taxed, it will make the pharmaceutical company's happy. Celebrities will be able to invest in their own company's and get high at the same time.

Just ignore the fact that Alcohol's Prohibition failed, ignore the fact that the DEA and ONDCP are utterly INCAPABLE of fulfilling their orders, to the point of denying facts about cannabis, its BENEFITS, and the fact that much of the violence in Mexico is a direct result of out inability to control 'Controlled Substances.'

Yeah, it's the users, not the ignorant failures of the politicians and their gun-toting flunkies.

Keep telling yourself that, it isn't true, but it obviously makes you feel better.

some lame name,

Thanks for your post. Definite +1. Your post is eloquent and dead on.

Drug users should certainly feel some shame considering the demand for drugs is the cause of it all, but most won't, and even if they do they won't stop doing drugs. The only realistic solution is to legalization with regulation.

To the critics of this film: The truth hurts. Doesn't it?

no prohibition ever works. The first prohibition in the history of this planet didn't work...god told adam and eve that they could eat any fruit except for the fruit on that one tree right there...epic failure. He only had to keep an eye on two people...and he was god!

"This is a Christian nation." - President Harry S. Truman, 1947

"America was born a Christian nation." ~ Woodrow Wilson, 1911

"I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." ~ John McCain, 2007

"The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament." ~ Samuel Adams, 1772

"By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion." ~ Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Justice of the US Supreme Court, 1799

"Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men." ~ Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 1824

"From the day of the Declaration...they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct" ~ John Quincy Adams, 1821

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." ~ John Jay, 1st U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, 1816

"There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation." ~ Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, 1829

wow, what a great video, I hear it was filmed in south Los Angles.

Right, because Mexico is SO SUNSHINY this video was made.

And sure, using the kids to depict fake scenes of kidnapping, bribery, and drug smuggling is FAR WORSE than actually doing those activities.

Well done to the people who made the video. The only people b*tching are the ones the video mocks. Who knows if it will change anything but its nice to see some people actually admit to the problem.

Why not use kids in a video. Nothing else has worked. Maybe this will. Columbia pretty much cleaned up their act. You can now visit Medellín and not worry too much. The Columbians are very proud of how far they've come. Maybe Mexico will get there some day.

freedman1 is a great example of what kind of idiotic bull@!$%# posts show up on newsvine. Get a life dude, no one gives a rats-ass about your bible-thumping nonsense. God is dead in case you didn't get the memo - organized religion is a fraud and serves only man.

WMG...OUTSTANDING post! Thank you!

Really? People are going to collapse the starting comment on this thread because they disagree with it? That's not what the tags are for.

Sorry Big Trouble, I didn't make it clear, this was a response to WMG's statement - "America is NOT a Christian country and never was"

p.s. - exhibiting quotes from some of America's leaders and founders hardly defines thumping of anything.

Freedman:

Good thing the majority saw many problems with this attitude and decided the government should not promote any Religion. I'm so glad they wrote this into the Constitution, otherwise the government would have to set up a commission to recommend the level of Christianity each citizen has attained instead of letting Bill O'Reilly be the arbiter.

Personnally I'm all for the Christian Puritans who banned Christmas celebrations. At least they understood it was a farce, a ploy to encompass the heathon's celebration(drunken orgy) of the winter solstice.

Remember the "Golden Triangle?" The Atlantic trade route that shipped guns from England to Africa, slaves from Africa to America, and cotton from America to England... profit on every leg of the journey. So what is little trade route, (guns from the US to Mexico and drugs from Mexico to the US) to be called? It needs a catchy name.

The scars of the "Golden Triangle" are visible to this day, a "Gone with the Wind" South, a decimated Africa that has yet recovered, and broken down mansions of those that profited from the scheme. The drug trade pictured by these kids has not scared yet, it is an open festering wound. Bravo to the children actors to the video.

No president thus far has been an atheist, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh or an adherent of any other specifically non-Christian religion.

I'm 100% with you on the Christmas thing.

-----------

“I’m a Christian by choice. My family didn’t — frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church.

I “came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me. And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we’re sinful and we’re flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace.

“That’s what I strive to do. That’s what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.” - President Obama, Sept. 29, 2010

Back East

Allow me to explain something to you, you see when drugs are legalized you know what happens? These cartel go out of business. They aren't needed anymore because nobody needs to risk their lives smuggling drugs anymore. You understand?

Are you for legalizing all drugs, Bob? Or just some of them? If some of them would still be illegal (like meth, how could anyone advocate that it should be legalized?), how would you keep the cartels from continuing business in that trade?

Marijuana and many other currently illegal drugs should be legalized. The illegal drug market results in thousands of deaths and virtually world wide corruption of governments and law enforcement, including funding terrorist and illegal weapons purchases. Billions upon billions of dollars are spent each year fighting the market.

Legalizing drugs would introduce a greater degree of control, create an enormous tax revenue source, reduce corruption and take billions of dollars out of the pockets of the despicable drug lords, putting them out of the business.

Highly addictive drugs would necessarily need to remain illegal. The solution to reducing their influence would be long-term prison sentences for users and life imprisonment or even the death penalty for dealers. This would encourage the majority of users to stick with legal drugs.

When alcohol was outlawed in the U.S., the same types of violence and corruption now seen in the illegal drug market ensued. Once it was made legal again, the violence and corruption ceased.

It is simply a matter of trade-offs. Millions of people are currently addicted to these drugs and that will likely not change. And there will be deaths resulting from over-dose and DUI, just as there is now. The primary difference will be the world-wide reduction in violence, illegal drug market funded gangs and government corruption. Governments will have a tax source creating billions of dollars in revenue, instead of wasting it fighting the illegal drug market. Also the billions of dollars produced for the illegal weapons trade and terrorist funding will virtually cease all together. Also, portions of cities, and even entire cities like Ciudad Juarez, will be returned to the citizens so they can live in peace.

The current method is simply not working.

wje37fcsm - So, yes, the "Golden Triangle" had a catchy name. This Mexico-US guns/money/drugs trade... well maybe update the nick-name.... how about "Golden Conveyor belt"?

Start by legalizing marijuana. Making a plant illegal is absurd. I could support a war on poison ivy, that is one plant that has caused a lot of misery. But marijuana?

Attempts to legislate behaviour and/or morality are futile at best, counter productive at worst.

Good point, Back East. Now do not be afraid to prepare us a lecture about all of the rich 'soaking it up'.

freedman1

"No president thus far has been an atheist, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh or an adherent of any other specifically non-Christian religion."

By that logic, the US is a male country because no non-male has ever been president. I guess before Obama it was a white country. And before Buchanan (first unmarried president), it was a married country

@freedman:

I can play too.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. -Thomas Jefferson

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. -Thomas Jefferson

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. -Thomas Jefferson

"You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render Him is doing good to His other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in His government of the world with any particular marks of His displeasure.

"I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, without the smallest conceit of meriting it... I confide that you will not expose me to criticism and censure by publishing any part of this communication to you. I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with subscriptions for building their new places of worship; and, as I never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all." -- Ben Franklin

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies -- Ben Franklin

If belief in the miraculous revelation of the Old Testament and the New is required to make a man religious, then Franklin had no religion at all. It would be an insult to say that he believed in the popular theology of his time, or of ours, for. I find not a line from his pen indicating any such belief. --Theodore Parker (commenting on Franklin's faith, or lack-thereof)

We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated -- John Adams

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. -- John Adams

I could go on... Despite what people (predominantly revisionists) want the founding of our country to have resembled, the fact is that the majority of the founding fathers were deists and regarded religion with a wary eye.

I don't know Me. All I've offered here are some quotes by Presidents, founding fathers, and leaders that counter the claim that America is not a christian country. It seems as if there might be some disagreement with such a claim.

As far as that goes, I suppose Mexico is also a christian country.

I might also point out that the Treaty of Tripoli (1796) put this whole nonsense to rest:

Article XI
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of the Musselmen--and as the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no protect arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Emphasis mine, naturally.

While I like them all, I'd say my favourite is the second one, WMG -

'History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.' -Thomas Jefferson

The Treaty of Tripoli. It was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, receiving ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797 and signed by Adams, taking effect as the law of the land on June 10, 1797.

For three centuries up to the time of the Treaty, the Mediterranean Sea lanes had been preyed on by the North African Muslim states of the Barbary Coast (Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco and Tunis) through privateering (government-sanctioned piracy). Hostages captured by the Barbary pirates were either ransomed or forced into slavery, contributing to the greater Ottoman slave trade (of which the Barbary states were a segment). Life for the captives often was harsh, especially for Christian captives, and many died from their treatment. Some captives "went Turk", that is, converted to Islam, a choice that made life in captivity easier for them.

The official treaty was in Arabic text, and a translated version was ratified by the United States Senate. The United States paid the required money before the treaty was ratified.

The assurances in Article 11 were "intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers." ~ Frank Lambert, Professor of History at Purdue University

alex:

Drug users should certainly feel some shame considering the demand for drugs is the cause of it all, but most won't, and even if they do they won't stop doing drugs. The only realistic solution is to legalization with regulation.

I disagree. Drug demand is NOT the cause "of it all". It is because of the spectacularly failed and costly drug war and drug prohibition we have all of the violence and death and corruption associated with illegal drug trafficking.

hs321:

Highly addictive drugs would necessarily need to remain illegal. The solution to reducing their influence would be long-term prison sentences for users and life imprisonment or even the death penalty for dealers.

As long as you keep any drug illegal you will be giving fuel to the black market and the cartels. I agree with your other ideas but the one above needs more thinking. Getting "tough" doesn't work. Ronnie Raygun had the same idea but that failed miserably.

I guess we hate our neighbor to the south because...

Speak for yourself, hater.

Mexico is one of our staunchest allies and has been for a very long time. They are one of our largest trading partners. They share with us a culture of Christianity, democracy, free market economics, and European roots taking hold in the New World.

God Bless America and God Bless Mexico!