ANOTHER SOURCE OF CIVIL SOCIETY

A Rio de Janeiro Slum Credits Shadowy Vigilantes for Safety (Miriam Jordan, Wall Street Journal, 5/6/2003)

For Maria de Lourdes Luna, home is a one-room hut shared with five relatives. The stench of sewage fills the alleys, and refuse gushes past the shanties from an open ditch after a hard rain.

Yet for her and many others, the slum of Rio das Pedras is an urban utopia -- one of the few Brazilian shantytowns, or favelas, not tormented by drugs and drug-related violence. Children fly kites and play ball free from fear of ricocheting bullets. People sleep with doors unlocked and windows ajar. Even petty crime is rare.

"There's no better place to live. This is paradise," says Ms. Luna, a 43-year-old housekeeper. "We can put up with anything -- rats, floods, trash -- as long as we're spared drugs."

Behind that tranquility and order, however, is a dark secret: Residents believe that a shadowy organization of civilian vigilantes, comprised of off-duty and retired policemen as well as ordinary citizens, keeps the peace by meting out extrajudicial killings to drug dealers and other lawbreakers....

People who live in Rio das Pedras are coy about talking openly of the informal "policia." But they condone the principle of selective violence against troublemakers for the sake of preserving community peace. "It's better to have this than violence against honest folks and innocent children," says Maria Jose, Ms. Luna's sister, a mother of four who has lived in the favela for 11 years. "The only people who die in Rio das Pedras are people who deserve to die."

As this example illustrates, the best way to establish civil order in the developing world is to export the Second Amendment. I recommend that Jay Garner immediately institute a right to keep and bear arms in Iraq. That'll stop the looting. Posted by Paul Jaminet at May 6, 2003 11:03 AM