Breakdown of family threatens chaos

The brutal death of Alex Marron on Christmas Eve in Mexico reminds us again of the violence that has beset that country. The number of homicides in the past five years in Mexico is over 50,000.

In 1929 our nation was shocked by the death of seven men in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Worse massacres have been happening almost daily Mexico. Three tragic ingredients add to this horror: government corruption, the number of absent fathers, and the demand for drugs in the U.S.

There are a plethora of reports that cite the association between government corruption and crime. We have heard reports of towns in Mexico without fathers because of the number of men who have left to find work in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Numerous studies have found a strong correlation between father absence and criminal behavior in offspring. The profitability of drug trafficking due to the high demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. makes the drug trade and its ensuing risks very attractive to men without scruples, and boys who are growing up without the guidance of a father become vulnerable to the recruitment tactics of the gangs that perpetrate the mayhem and murder so prevalent in Mexico today.

The late Sen. Daniel Moynihan said, “From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations about the future -- that community asks for and gets chaos.”

That is the Mexico of today and if we are not careful, it will be the U.S. of tomorrow.

Dan MacKinney

Libertyville