Rio’s drug war - The Big Picture - Boston.com

I love Brazil. These photos of the current unrest in Rio are another reminder that I’m not cut out to live in such a violent city. Rio is the most naturally beautiful city I’ve ever visited. I was lucky to live there for a short three months, but the psychological cost of living there—daily stories of stabbings, shootings, grenades being thrown into restaurants—made it easy to retreat to San Diego. Still, I love it and I miss it. I miss a lot of the people there.

The photos also remind me of some thoughts I’ve had on Brazil’s flag: the sanctification of ”order and progress” (the words on Brazil’s flag) come at a high cost in terms of individual liberties and—based on these pictures—human life.

I don’t like policy makers who focus on order (security!) and progress (the economy!) at the expense of liberty or justice. I believe order and progress are the wrong goals to reach for—that more people benefit from governments that pursue liberty and justice for citizens with the understanding that order and progress will follow. Also, phenomena like WikiLeaks make the pursuit of order sound quaint. 

It also explains why I sometimes felt like Brazil was a fascist state (to see what I’m talking about, read the 2010 Human Rights Watch report on Brazil).  

FWIW, if you’re interested in Brazil, order, and progress, watch Manda Bala. The director describes it as a “non-fiction RoboCop depicting a very real broken and violent society.” Blew my mind.

FWIW II, I’ve seen dead people on the beach in both Rio and San Diego, but the guy in Rio was murdered and the San Diegan had a heart attack while surfing.