"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine. Pretty similar to Thomas Jefferson's "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." Certainly, the right to bear arms and protect your property were the crude beginnings of this vigilance - after all it was more than 200 years ago - but this most basic of requirements was by no means the end of their lofty ideals.
I thought of their fine words as I watched a TV news item just now in which a reporter drove his car several times through the security gates of various Sao Paulo residences. His point was that he could have been anyone but since the car looked posh enough he went unchallenged. With crime on the increase, his intention is to do some kind of public service so that security people up their game. One could never imagine viewing such a stunt on UK television; the equivalent would probably be a reporter smuggling a potential weapon onto a plane or breaking into Buckingham Palace.
You have to be careful with eternal vigilance that it doesn't morph into Groundhog Day, ie you are stuck at first base. The "price" of liberty for those who have it in Brazil is, like everything else here, simply too high. And when it's too high, it's not really liberty but at all but a self-imposed prison.
Another news item today concerned the more overt Brazilian prisons, notoriously awful and overpopulated. It seems that a panic measure, dressed up as legal reform, will now see many more prisoners out on bail while awaiting trial. That's great for all the innocents unnecessarily locked up, but what about all the drug barons and Mafiosi whose lawyers will no doubt find every which way to exploit this new get out of jail card ?
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