The jailing of the policemen who discovered that President Ivan Duque’s party plotted with narcos to rig the 2018 elections, ended all doubt Colombia has become a mafia state.
It’s not that I have anything against criminals– they are generally a lot more fun than politicians — I just don’t believe it is a good idea to put the state under mafia control.
Governments are bad enough if they are run by law-abiding sociopaths, also known as politicians. Allowing the mafia to run government institutionalizes organized crime.
This leads to absurd situations like honest cops being sent to prison or — to use a personal example — me paying taxes on Thursday, only to find out on Friday that my taxes are being used to spy on journalists.
You can imagine this is frustrating, if not intolerable. I may not be the most handsome guy in Medellin, but if I wanted to get screwed, surely I could get screwed for free.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed by a Government, which we might expect in a country without Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
Thomas Paine
Having paid taxes to the national government, the municipal government, the Chamber of fucking Commerce and the Superintendency for I don’t know what, I believe I am entitled to do my job.
Usually, when people ask me what I do I tell them “I fuck with politicians for money.” Others call it journalism. I suppose this year journalism in my case means fucking with the mafiosi.
Colombia’s mafia may be infamous for being tough guys, but that’s a gross generalization. The tough guys are the ones doing the dirty work, they despise the uppity cowards in politics as much as I do.
Now that I’ve paid my taxes I plan to get my money’s worth.