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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."
OMG !!! ...what a jackass.
- Marching Band: It's not just for breakfast anymore
that the UN would be coordinated enough with all of its corruption and ineffectiveness (especially if you listen to guys like Maes) to execute such a nefarious plot.
No matter how way out these whack-jobs are, there are people who believe them and will vote for them.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
It's like the Dances With Smurfs episode of South Park where butters says to Cartman, "Like what you have to say, like how the President never does anything and how she's changing everything!". Pretty much just like that. I think its a form of cognitive dissonance or something.
Also brought to you by the Folks Who Is Convinced That Mr. Obama is one of them Muzlams
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
In case you care, he's a Republican. I wonder how closely he follows the party line? Or maybe party is irrelevant on /.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Bless their pointy little heads.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
It seems that there is no lower bound in politics.
"It's all part of this population control mentality that we as humans are the disease," Strauch said.
Yes, from the point of the view of the planet and every other living thing, we are the disease. There's somewhere around 6+ billion people, happily eating, consuming, polluting, and destroying to our hearts' content. Installing higher efficiency light bulbs or buying Prius' or switching to riding a bike aren't going to avert a collapse in our global ecology/economy. We have to stop destroying our food and ecosystems on which we rely and undo the damage we've done. In short, stop charging to our children's credit cards, start paying them off, then start saving. Switching to riding a bike is like spending just a little less on their credit cards. We have to do so much more.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Judging by history, nearly every single expansion of government power is later used as precedent for yet even more expansion of government power. Every year we are subject to more laws, more spending, and increasingly larger attacks on our freedom (from our own government that is, not the enemy du jour). It's obvious that if expanding the business of government isn't the #1 priority, it's damn near close.
There's a reason why the US government of today dwarfs the US government of only 50, let alone 100 years ago, both in revenue and power over the people -- and it's not because the elite at the top don't know exactly how to expand their business.
Therefore, the only way to be free is to be stupid and waste resources.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
"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.
Use people's fears and suck them in.
I don't find the politicians as disgusting as the morons who buy into the rhetoric; which unfortunately, they have enough sway to set the tone of politics in this country.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
mccarthyism was an era of fear of "secret communists" everywhere, and joe mccarthy successfully inserted himself as demagogue in chief of the wave of fear and hysteria sweeping the land in the time of sputnik and soviets with an atom bomb. strangely, it was also an era when 3D movies were all the rage... spin that observation into your own paranoid schizophrenic conspiracy theory
one of the up and coming tea party types will be the next joe mccarthy. they will use this sort of paranoid schizophrenic break with reality to describe "secret muslims" (that's what obama is, ya know), "secret socialists", "secret fascists", etc. taken on their own, theses hysterical creative inventions are like a farcical hollywood movie. but so many actually and truly believe this crap
there's just a certain panicky low iq kind of human, in the usa and other countries, who is apparently about as gullible as a toddler in a carnival haunted house ride, and for whatever reason, they only believe the most fantastical fearful propaganda they encounter. i guess reality is too mundane and boring? i don't know what to do about these people, they have these coordinated waves of fear throughout history, and i don't know if there is an effective way to defuse their delusional problems before they damage our societies
its the same as the salem witch trials: she dresses funny, and floats, so she's a witch, so kill her before she hurts us. in the era of joe mccarthy, it was fluoridated water (fluoridated water was not to strengthen teeth, but to turn you into a communist). later there were "chemtrails": jet airplanes contrails were seeding the atmosphere with mind control chemicals. people really and truly believed and believe this nonsense. its alternatively hilarious and frightening. it tells you the mentality of how lynch mobs form, its a sad phenomenon of human sociology
and this manipulated fearmongered hysteria is the mentality that is sweeping the land right now. sad
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It doesn't matter if his point is legitimate, or if he clearly makes the statement that he wants time to study what the mayor has signed onto. He's a republican and he doesn't like bikes. This has nothing to do with an environmental initiative that is being spearheaded without review. Remember if you want bills to be read by congress before they are voted on then you are a racist who doesn't like the children or the poor. It's funny who people who opposed the Patriot Act for all the right reasons turn a blind eye to this new wave of legislation that is going through without checks or balances of any kind, and without even the time for everyone to know what it's all about. Remember Ted Stevens said the Internet is made of tubes, not that he did anything good or bad. Move along folks, nothing to see here other than a Republican who doesn't like bikes.
That's the whole point about programs for the greater good, though-- it need not turn a profit because it's FOR THE GREATER GOOD. Yeah, sometimes small businesses get wiped out. If that's your most important criteria, you will never make a change for the better, because it will always have some bad.
People complain all the time that Amtrak doesn't make a profit, but... nobody seems to notice or care that our roads don't either.
need citation!, I know of no study where the cause of lower count is from seat... there are a couple where lower count is theorized to be caused by excess heat from physical exertion of bicycling.
I understand that bike seats are uncomfortable, but I had no idea it was on purpose.
RTFA, that's not in it anywhere.
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
And this is why there should be mandatory drug testing for political candidates. If I have to have a drug screening to get a job, they should too.
It seems like the crazy theories are getting more traction (at least, they're getting more people talking about them as if they were real).
I blame the media - Glenn Beck, FOX, CNN. It's apparently cheaper to yammer on about random stuff than to pay real journalists to gather real news. And it seems to get better ratings. Of course, this increase in ratings means that the old line news organizations see they are losing out and feel the need to climb onto the bandwagon. And, of course, we all enjoy a bit of gossip and a good conspiracy theory.
It's all fun and games until a majority of people in your town start thinking of the National Enquirer as a reliable source of news. Seriously, people, some of this stuff is from WAY out in left field. {joke alert} Even I'm starting to believe Obama's "long form" (because the "short form" and a legal affadavit from the Hawaiian secretary of state aren't good enough) birth certificate is being hidden at the UN to keep us from learning the truth!
So...how do we reverse this and encourage more critical thinking? I fear for our democracy if this silliness continues much longer.
Yea, the guy's talking nonsense - trying to link his opponent to the UN through some international tree hugger organization. But I don't read Slashdot to find articles about Tea Partiers that were scraped from an AOL website founded by a former NY Times editor. Sheesh.
Worst case scenario on the over consumption is that we all go back to using animals for labor and transportation (granted with a less beautiful earth after all the strip mining and mountain destroying). Who says we need to have our current energy based society for ever?
The bicycles used in these rental programs have a unique look and would be quickly spotted if somebody tried to sell them.
Can/does theft and vandalism occur? Sure. A loss rate is built into the cost of operations. If someone is looking to make money, however, they'd be much better off by either stealing conventional bikes or simply using the fake credit card directly. If somebody can easily get fake credit cards and drivers licenses then they can find far more lucrative crime options than trying to sell easily traceable rental bikes.
In other words, he's using the Sarah Palin playbook that both Sharron Angle and Rand Paul bought: Say something completely stupid and/or insane in the presence of national media or bloggers, and later blame them for publishing the stupid/insane thing you said.
I can't imagine why the idiot right-wing candidates would adopt this strategy, considering that Palin was a major factor in her party's loss in 2008. Oh, wait...
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
I swear, all these government-conspiracy/takeover/whatever folks must never have been to the DMV in their lives...
Is it the same government I see, the one that is completely incapable of winning wars, balancing budgets, reforming social security, reforming health care, building proper infrastructure, saving the economy, upholding its own constitution, or of doing even the most basic paperwork properly, that is also supposedly the executor of countless nefarious schemes for total domination that, despite constituting the most perfect and massive conspiracy in the history of the world, leave no trace whatsoever of their existence?
Unless the DMV is just a cover operation run badly ON PURPOSE to convince everyone how incompetent they are!!!
Oh man.
They're good.
... the MSNBC lefty spin vortex ... the NPR Intelligensia Superiore Ruling Class network ... the ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN all-Obama-pats-on-the-back-all-the-time networks ...
Thank you for demonstrating so thoroughly what GPP was talking about.
So there's no leftward lean to traditional MSM outlets?
"An academic study cited frequently showing a liberal media bias in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the broadcast networks. The survey found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were well to the left of the general public on a variety of topics, including such hot-button social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. Then they compared journalists' attitudes to their coverage of controversial issues such as the safety of nuclear power, school busing to promote racial integration, and the energy crisis of the 1970s.
The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes, and the predominance of political liberals in newsrooms therefore pushed news coverage in a liberal direction. They presented this tilt as a mostly unconscious process of like-minded individuals projecting their shared assumptions onto their interpretations of reality."
You know why Fox exists? Why it has dominating ratings? Because there was such a vacuum in the TV media when it came to anything but left-leaning views that a huge chunk of the public absolutely distrusted what they saw on TV, and a great deal of what they read in papers. And that distrust was warranted considering what we now know... Dan Rather's firing over the faked memos, the New York Times getting pulitzers for guys that basically worked for Joseph Stalin... it's said that nature abhors a vacuum. That's why Fox is so successful. Not because people are suckers, or because of any right-wing conspiracy. If a large part of the public likes beef, but all you'll sell them is chicken, they're going to go elsewhere.
Guys like you seem to think that if you could ban Fox... and Limbaugh and talk radio for that matter.... then suddenly, the scales would fall from people's eyes, and they'd suddenly become liberal. That's part of your problem right there. Fox exists because more Americans are conservative than liberal. The tail isn't wagging the dog here. Ban Fox today, and that same huge portion of American voters aren't going to just submit and watch left-leaning outlets. They're going to go elsewhere and make their own. Blaming Fox for American's conservative views is kind of silly. Fox simply exists because there's a market for them. A large and profitable one.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel