This is an article from the  "Baja Brokers" website:

AMERICANS LIVING IN BAJA SAY THEY FEEL SAFER HERE THAN THEY DID IN THE UNITED STATES, HOW CAN THIS BE, WHEN THE MEDIA TELLS US EVERY DAY TO BE AFRAID AND STAY AWAY FROM MEXICO?

In the United States the media really know how to sell things, and one of their favorites is fear, and they sell it well. For decades it was fear of the evil Communist, lurking in the shadows behind the iron curtain, and then Gorbachev brought down the Berlin wall, the American government was desperate for a new enemy, and the War on Drugs was invented to fill demand. It was a wonderful war, one with no end, a war against the people that would create great union prison jobs in every state in the Union. The Narco’s (Drug Dealers) had become the new Stalin, threatening the very survival of the country, something had to be done, we had to save the children. So the Americans sent a brigade of CIA agents, FBI operatives, DEA killer squads and private mercenaries to Colombia to clean things up, while Oliver North used this opportunity to smuggle tons of Cocaine into the U.S. to support CIA campaigns in Iran and Nicaragua. Along the line a lot of innocent Colombian people were killed and the entire country became a killing zone. As an American I must admit, my government is uniquely qualified when it comes to destroying other people’s countries, and bringing the wrath of God down on their heads. It’s what we do, and we are damn good at it.

With time the Narco business moved to Mexico, and the violence moved with it.

Everyone in the educated world knows that the war on drugs is an absolute and complete fucking mess! (Excuse my French) It is yet another great example of the U.S. Government waging war against the people like no one else can. More human beings are murdered every year in drug violence in Chicago, than the G7 nations combined, and yet the War wages on.

Mexico has become the new front line of that war thanks to the policies that come out of Washington, and the U.S. media, in their never ending drive for ratings, know all too well what sells today. “If it bleeds it leads” is a common saying in press rooms around the country, where sensationalized news is the status quo. 60 minutes re-runs the same old “kidnapping in San Miguel” story every 4 months, and has since it first aired 4 years ago.

Drug violence in Mexico is exactly like drug violence in San Diego, gang bangers killing other gang bangers, an act that many here believe is not such a bad thing. Some even consider it a good start. If you are a drug dealer in San Diego, Seattle or Kansas City, there is a pretty good chance that you should have life insurance, and lots of it. Drug related violence was invented in the U.S. where is happens every day. Turn on your TV on any given Sunday in any given city in America, and you will hear a long list of murders, assaults, and robberies that happened in the previous week. And occasionally there will be news of a school shooting like the one in Oakland yesterday! We don’t have school shootings in Mexico by the way.

What is the point of all of this? It's real simple, gun violence in Mexico is less common than it is in the United States of Wonderful. And the violence that is here is caused by the U.S. Government and its war on drugs.

Here in Mexico, when a bike gets stolen in Rosarito, it makes the evening news. Recently there was a gun bust in Tijuana, a man and his wife were caught with a broken 1942 revolver and a double barrel shotgun! They had 3 shotgun shells, but no bullets for the pistola; it was the lead story on a Saturday night. The cops paraded the poor people in front of the cameras and announced another case closed, a case that would never have made the news in the U.S., because the double homicide and the school shooting that day in the American city would have been the lead stories.

Americans hear of a shooting in Juarez and they immediately think all of Mexico is dangerous. It would be like hearing of a shooting in Compton and thinking all of the U.S. is a dangerous place to be. Ask any of the 50,000 Americans living in Baja and they will tell you they feel safer living in Mexico than they did in the U.S. Walk the streets of Rosarito at 11 pm at night and you will NEVER see a gang banger looking for a mark. All you will find are dozens of well dressed teenagers playing in the streets like we did in the U.S. decades ago. Get lost in Ensenada with no money and see how many people offer to help you, people who make less in a year than you do in a month. Get drunk in Tijuana and then go looking to buy drugs in the allies of the red zone and you will get mugged. Some would say you had it coming for being stupid. Any time you hear of an American getting mugged in TJ, it was someone doing something stupid, and as we all know, there is no shortage of stupid Americans who want to buy drugs.

Mexico is an awesome place, and the people are warmer and kinder than any up north, they love Americans and open their hearts and homes for them all the time. I could fill a dozen pages writing about the people I have met here in the last two years. It saddens me when I walk the streets in town and see all of the closed shops and stores, or businesses that remain open in spite of the fact that they only get one customer per day. These are good people, and their lives are being destroyed by the U.S. on many levels, culturally and economically. They deserve better.

There is an interesting thing going on here in Rosarito that makes me wonder. We get more Canadians here every month, than we get people from San Diego in a year, which is just 20 minutes away. They are buying up everything. Why will the Canadians come by the bus load while the Americans are too afraid to leave their living rooms? Is it that the media has brainwashed them with a never ending supply of stranger danger, or is it something else? Perhaps the Canadians simply have bigger balls!

Whatever the reason, Americans are really missing out on a better life, a life without fear, a life full of friends, promise and new beginnings. A life that you will never know, until you turn the TV off, and leave your comfort zone.