Rio de Janeiro and the Old West

Last Days Watchman ^ | Julio Severo

[juliosevero]

Rio and the Old West

How Rio copes with murderers. How the Old West coped with them.

By Julio Severo

Nevertheless the title, the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has nothing to do with the American Old West. Not because there was no violence in the Wild West. There was, but not as much as one sees in Rio in the 21^st century.

Injustice that has been plentiful in Rio was not plentiful in the Wild West. Just like in Rio, all the outlaws in the Old West carried weapons for their crimes. But, very differently from Rio, in the Wild West EVERYBODY carried weapons, so that in order for an outlaw to attack an innocent man, he needed to be quite astute because he could be killed.

Criminals in Rio attack their victims trusting that the State has made its dirty work of disarming the population, guaranteeing in this way total insecurity for victims and total safety for murderers.

In modern Rio, a murderer escapes often unpunished. For the outlaw in the Old West, Rio would be a truly wonderful place, because impunity that reigns in Rio didn’t reign in the Wild West. An American murderer was quickly judged and hung. When he fled, he was pursued by the sheriff and citizens ready to see that the murderer paid with his life for the life that he had destroyed. When a criminal fled to an ignored place, a reward was offered for his head, which meant that anybody that found him or killed would receive a financial reward.

The ethics of personal defense for citizens and capital punishment for murderers was in the Old West sustained in the principles of the Bible. The Protestant (or evangelical) ethics governed largely American society in the 18^th century. The innocent man had the Bible in one hand and a pistol in the other.

In Rio, even though the number of evangelical and Christians is enormous, there is no ethics influencing the laws to give citizens the right of defending themselves or remove from criminals their existence of murderous activities. In Brazil in general and in Rio in particular, in their hands innocent men may only have the Bible, being left in all the murderers’ hands the pistols, rifles, machine guns, etc.

In the Wild West, criminals were faced by the bullets from citizens themselves, who had their rifles ready for ferocious resistance to crime.

In Rio, citizens hide themselves from bullets whenever they are able. When they are not, they are hit, even by stray bullets.

In the Old West, it was enough just one murder for an outlaw — whether he was adult or adolescent — to be hung. There were neither ECA (Statute of the Child and of the Adolescent, a Brazilian legislation complying with the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention) nor advocates for the criminals’ rights.

In Rio, criminals contend for the position of biggest murderer, and adolescent murderers are never sent to jail, having guaranteed their rights by ECA to kill how many citizens they want. With the age of 18, ECA guarantees their release from rehab institutions, with a totally clean record, as if they had never killed a fly in their lifetime. Is any surprise then that in Rio there are many advocates for the criminals’ rights, richly paid with taxpayer money?

In the Old West, an outlaw had to think twice before attacking an innocent man, for him not to end with a bullet in the middle of his forehead.

In Rio, an outlaw doesn’t need to think, because only his victims end with a bullet in the middle of their forehead.

In the Wild West, hanging was a murderer’s sure destiny.

In Rio, death is the murderers’ victims’ destiny, and murderers may opt for hanging, tortures and any other sadism that they want to apply to their victims.

Between the Wild West and Rio, I would prefer the Old West. There at least I would be able to defend myself.

And I am sure that nobody in the Old West would choose Rio, a truly wonderful city for all kinds of crimes.

An American from the Old West in Rio would automatically lose his weapon and his right to defend himself and defend his family, being completely exposed to heavily-armed criminals. If in a case of criminal aggression against his life he in an “unfortunate” act were able to take from the criminal his weapon and execute him, he would automatically be condemned by human rights groups, always ready to punish any action by citizens that are able to dispatch a criminal.

There are also the television networks, which denounce any indelicate attitude against criminals, guaranteeing in this way their safety and “human rights”.

In the Old West, there was equality. Outlaws were armed. But all of citizens also were armed. They were armed criminals against armed citizens.

In Rio, inequality is total. For the outlaws’ huge happiness, only they are armed. They are strongly armed criminals against a strongly unarmed population, where a murderer feels like a fox free in the hen house. That hen house might be called Rio, or even Brazil.

While murderers in Rio torture and kill innocent people, a victim that is able to repay ten percent to the criminal is condemned as a human rights offender. So Rio has become a hell.

If the Old West looked like Rio, it would be a hell for innocent people and a wonderful place for murderers.

However, the Wild West was not like Rio, so that cowboys would say, “Fortunately we are not in Rio!”

For the sake of justice and innocent people, I would say, “What a pity that Rio is not like the Old West!”

Note: That text was reviewed by a friend whose ancestors lived in the Old West. For generations, his family has had weapons. He himself has had an AK-47, but as a Christian, he told me that he would not use it for defending himself, but to defend his family and others. Brazilian citizens are not allowed to own an AK-47 or less powerful weapons. Yet, Brazilian criminals have much more powerful weapons than AK-47!

Portuguese version of this article: O Rio e o Velho Oeste

Source: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

An evangelical Brazil?

The Swiss have the right idea about firearms

'Shooting Back' author: Why guns, church must mix

Homolatry: VIP victims in the pervasive violence in Brazil

[TSgt]

Highly recommended.

It depicts the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro, between the end of the '60s and the beginning of the '80s, with the closure of the film depicting the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is "Fight and you'll never survive... Run and you'll never escape."

[Inyo-Mono]

Heck, there was less violence in the entire era of the Old West (1865-1890) than there is weekly in a typical American city today.

[JerseyHighlander]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861739/
Tropa De Elite
English title: Elite Squad

It’s better to watch the Brasilian version with English subtitles.

Much better movie about the violence in Rio than City of God.

Looking this up I just saw there is a sequel out now... will have to track it down myself:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1555149/
Tropa de Elite 2

[businessprofessor]

Citizen justice extended far beyond the old west. The days of citizen justice extended into the 1920s and even 1930s. Citizens were especially sensitive about bank robbing before the days of FDIC insurance. Bank robbers were often met with citizen justice as they attempted an escape from town. The Great Depression made the bankers into enemies so the public became sympathetic to bank robbers for a few years.

There certainly were ugly sides to citizen justice especially the lynchings. Despite ugly sides, many bad hombres were given swift justice. Law enforcement was not equipped to deal with some of the bad applies so citizens had to protect themselves and their property.

[Skepolitic]

The popular notion of the Wild West is a creation of show business that started with Wild Bill Cody and continues to this day in Hollywood.

There’s quite a bit of historical research that indicates that life was not nearly as violent as Hollywood would have you believe. For example, Dodge City, of Gunsmoke fame, had a grand total of 15 violent deaths from 1876-1885, a murder rate of 1.5 per year. Gunsmoke portrayed a few murders per week during its twenty year run on television.

[Skepolitic]

Oops, the Wild West Show was Buffalo Bill Cody's creation.

[Skepolitic]

Oops, the Wild West Show was Buffalo Bill Cody's creation.

[Ditto]

Heck, there was less violence in the entire era of the Old West (1865-1890) than there is weekly in a typical American city today.

Correct. In general, things were mostly peaceful and law abiding compared to most large cities today.

The isolated incidents have been repeated over and over and exaggerated by Hollywood to the point that people think it was an every day occurrence. And since there was no false security of 911, people understood that it was their duty to protect themselves and their community. See what happened to the James gang in Northfield MN.

One of the things that I always laughed at was the supposed handful of bad guys that could ride in town and terrorize the citizens at will. What a joke that was considering that those old west towns were settled by men who fought either in the Civil War or against the Indians even to get to the west. A few drunk cowboys were not going to terrorize those guys.

[Inyo-Mono]

One of the things that I always laughed at was the supposed handful of bad guys that could ride in town and terrorize the citizens at will. What a joke that was considering that those old west towns were settled by men who fought either in the Civil War or against the Indians even to get to the west. A few drunk cowboys were not going to terrorize those guys.

So true! The term often used in Western movies: "Somebody get a rope!" was quite literally used in the Old West.

[Nepeta]

The Olympics should be interesting.

[dljordan]

I’ve seen that a couple of times, it’s pretty rough.

[Gay State Conservative]

A few years ago I took a day trip tour of a national park very close to Rio.As we were climbing one of the hills of the park we could clearly see,in the distance,one of the big hillside slums (called “favelas”) of Rio itself.The guide told us that those favelas are so violent and dangerous that the Brazilian *Army* doesn’t dare enter them during *daylight* hours.