El Condor Pasa

It's not hard crossing streets here like it is in many megalopolises where there is no sense of over-regulating every citizen out of his hard-earned money to finance social justice in the name of safety. (Whoops.)

Here, like in most other cities where you live your own life as well as you can and the gods against us all but the rich, (Damn!) one walks across the street and doesn't get hit by cars. It's life. One does not require police to regulate traffic. People do that. One drives as one can and must and one does not slam into pedistrians and they in turn do not stupidly walk into oncoming vehicles, and all but the trial lawyers are pretty well served. (OK....)

Not everything here in Lima is Libertarian City. It's not perfect. The government does not post traffic cops at every corner to impoverish the people as they cross the street. Instead, governments are just as greedy and corrupt as in America but in less "sharing and caring" ways, the p.r. routines not being so slick. The government in many countries just plain steals without the "social justice" bullshit that makes people think they're getting a good deal out of it. So, the point is that politicians here are as bad as anywhere, and they are a pack of vultures.

I don't have a camera to do justice to this, but I was crossing the street toward the Congress building and beyond, minding my own business, I noticed a couple of groups of riot police in an armoured car with serious looking attachments and some nifty looking logos (pictures to come when the sun comes out) and I got there without being hit or ticketed for a mass of money, like a hundred other people crossing against the light with me. I started to cut through the Congressional building plaza when I noticed a flock of condors settled on towering flood light posts. Yes, it is the perfect metaphor for politicians everywhere, but this is the first time I've ever actually seen it. Vultures all over the building and looming above.

Yeah, you want to be a hammer rather than a nail, but in the end it's all the same.  You cross the street and the vultures are waiting. El Condor Pasa.