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Bicycles As a Gateway To Government Control
somaTh writes "Dan Maes, a candidate for governor of Colorado, thinks he's found an international conspiracy that starts with bike sharing. The article describes his current complaints with the incumbent's policies. 'The bike program in it of itself, if that's all it is, I wouldn't be opposed to it,' Maes told 9NEWS. 'What I am opposed to is if it's part of a bigger program that the mayor has signed on to as part of a UN program. That I would be opposed to.' He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control. I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose."
One correction - The incumbent in this election for governor is Bill Ritter who is not running for re-election. Maes Democratic opponent is John Hickenlooper who is currently the mayor of Denver
Nope, his handlers have reigned him in and told him he sounded like a wingnut conspiracy theorist. Just a few days after his comments he had this to say when asked by the news station: "I haven't even had the time to visit the terms of the agreement that Mayor Hickenlooper has signed off on. I am gonna beg a little patience from the media, so I can study the details of this program and then make a much more informed commentary about it."
In other words, "I made a ridiculous accusation without even so much as reading the law I was talking about. Please, please, please ignore what I said earlier while I stall for time until this whole thing blows over."
I mean... WTF?
I read the article and reread and reread it, and I cannot even begin to see how, from *ANY* perspective that I can conceive of some other even modestly intelligent person having, that one could come to the conclusions that he did.
Most conspiracy theories I've heard of have at least a shred of something to at least build the conspiracy on, but I just can't find any evidence of it in that article.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Reality check. The government has been involved in transportation for as long as there have been public roads.
I don't know the details of this program. I have definite preferences for how I'd like to see something like this structured, and depending on the details I might or might not support it.
But to claim its a new expansion of government power just doesn't make sense. State and local governments in major cities always have their hands in public transportation in one way or another; it's true for bus, light rail, subway, etc.; so what's so special about bikes?
Besides that, it would be quite a jump to extrapolate from "any old minor expansion of the government's function" to "restriction of personal liberties" and "population control". Can you propose a theory as to how this program contributes, even as a "tip of the wedge", to the surrendering of personal liberty to the government?
Yes, one of the 14 theses about Ur-Fascism, or the fundamental traits of Fascism.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
He goes on to argue that the bicycle program is only a gateway into bigger policies including, but not limited to, forced abortions and population control.
Someone else said that, not Crazy Maes. I don't think the summary summarizes the story very well ...
The story itself doesn't summarize things well. The person it's quoting is Nate Strauch, but we're never told that he's the spokesperson for Maes's campaign.
===== will post for karma
At last a challenger to onetime New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson as the craziest governor ever. Amongst numerous bizarre actions and ideas, Thomson wanted to arm the New Hampshire National Guard with nuclear weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meldrim_Thomson,_Jr.
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/apr/20/local/me-53359
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
if everybody on the planet each got a knife made out of recycled glass and used it carefully to murder a neighbour, then the whole problem would be halved over night.
If everybody went next door to murder a neighbor, no one would be next door to be a victim.
You assume one occupant per house, or one destination per household. If the average household has 2 people in it, and they went to different houses, then everyone would be in their neighbor's living room having a knife fight with their neighbor's neighbor, while their neighbors and their neighbors' neighbors' neighbors fought in their neighbors' neighbors' living rooms.
neighbor
Why does the summary not mention that this guy, who believes bicycles are part of an evil globalist plot, is a Tea Party-backed Republican?
Am I wrong in thinking that's kind of an important detail to leave out?
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's a comfort and protection thing. It's the same reason people wear shoes, or gloves if they're doing something that may otherwise wear/cut the hands. When you think of someone who rides 30 miles daily (not an outlandish number AT ALL if you're into it), the number of times you cycle your legs is certainly enough to chafe if you're just wearing boxers and shorts, for example. Of course, some may wear them to prove they're serious about cycling, or because they WANT people to look at their labia, but that's just people being silly geese.
well, as a girl with muscular thighs, I wear em to keep my regular shorts from getting holes worn right through the crotch.
Most bike seats are (ironically) designed for male hips/legs. The horn tends to be in exactly the wrong place for female riders and will constantly rub against our pants.
girls bike shorts are a) designed to take this wear and will often have extra material in that area, and b) are tighter to the skin so wear less.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
They are significantly (!) more comfortable, and protect against damaging skin abrasion that is common when loose fabric gets bunched between thighs and the saddle where it rubs thousands of times in a day's ride. Think of bleeding blisters on your inner thighs, with sweat dripping on them.
As for revealing crotch parts, actual cycling shorts have a thick pad through the crotch area which makes it highly unlikely that any anatomical bits are actually emphasized other than in the mind of the viewer. (With male riders the padded package may be farther away than it appears, though...) Spandex workout shorts without the pad are not the same thing at all, and can be quite... um... form-fitting.
With that said, I am not now in the svelte form I once was, and in the interest of preserving the sanity and eyesight of my neighbors, I have desisted the wearing of such in favor of baggy cycling shorts. Of course, I've also switched to a mountain bike, and ride primarily off the roads.
WALSTIB!
Because technologically advanced countries, with their higher standards of living & higher literacy & education standards are NOT the countries contributing the lion's share of population growth, by and large. In fact, I remember reading that some European countries actually have declining populations, when you factor out immigration from other countries as an increase to their populations.
Your assertion that it's "always been the case until now" is not borne out by the facts. A population's growth will tend to stabilize or even decline as education and living standards for that population increase - we've seen this case play out repeatedly in industrialized countries.
Of course there's a practical limit to growth - and we are well short of it. The earth's land masses have a surface area of ~150 million km square - 1.5x10^14 square meters; with 7 billion people on earth, that translates to roughly 20,000 square meters per person, or 47 people per square kilometer. I think you'll find that population densities in quite-livable cities regularly exceed that - New York's density is roughly 11,000 / km2. Even if the average population density on earth doubled to 100 per square kilometer, we still would be nowhere near having a world that is one giant city with no natural open spaces.
If we fit everybody in the world into a city with the population density of NYC, it'd be a city of about 637,000 sq. km. This is smaller than the size of Texas, which is about 696,000 sq. km. So, at the density of NYC, everybody on earth could fit into an area the size of Texas. Leaving the rest of the North America, and all the other 6 continents... completely uninhabited by humans.