Splatt's Biker Civics 101 archive can be found at
http://www.bikernation.net/bikercivics.htm
Biker Civics 101, by splatt
Take My Rights, Please
Henny Youngman found fame as a comedian with that quick one liner, "Take my
wife – Please!" And in today's climate of diminishing rights and political
power-grabs, it seems all we ever hear about anymore is the loss of more and
more of our freedoms. I lie awake at night (yes, with my helmet on) and
wonder to myself, "Why?" All it takes is a ride around the block to see why I
predict that California's motorcyclists will be the FIRST riders in the
country to be banned from the roadways. Look how foolish and arrogant the
majority of our riders act on the streets. I can't tell you how many times
I've wanted to chase down a rider and rip 'em a new sphincter for acting the
fool and placing MY "right" to ride, in jeopardy.
"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."
~Benjamin Franklin
Technically speaking, we don't have any real "right" to ride a motorcycle.
Motorcycles aren't mentioned in the Constitution or any of the Amendments.
Riding on a public highway is a "privilege", regulated by the state through
your driver's license. If you don't think so, just go riding without one.
Yeah, you'll get away with it for a while, but eventually you're gonna get
caught, if you don't succumb to severe paranoia, first.
"It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the
consequences of dodging our responsibilities." ~Josiah Charles Stamp
You don't really own your bike the way you think you do, either. The
benevolent state merely allows you to ride if you agree to abide by their
terms and conditions. You pay $200 bucks for a yearly registration sticker
that actually costs the state, maybe 25 cents. But try riding around without
that sticker and see how long it takes to get your bike impounded. My county
has gone high-tech, installing a $25,000 camera on squad cars that scans
license plates in traffic. It works for Amber Alerts, stolen vehicles, expired
tags and can even nail drivers with conditional licenses. The good old days
are gone. Break the rules, and the fun is done. Problem is, they keep making
more and more laws. So many, in fact, that I often joke about the day they
paint the last dotted lines solid, and we'll only be allowed to make right
turns around our own neighborhood. Right turn, right turn, and right back home
again, where it's safe.
"When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer
take responsibility for themselves." ~George Pataki
I've long said that we wouldn't need anymore new laws if we'd only enforce the
laws that are already on the books. And maybe strike down a few others. To
minimize the damage that lawmakers wreak upon society, I'd like to formally
propose that congress and state legislatures become non-paid volunteers,
meeting for only two weeks each year, in the middle of summer, with no air
conditioning. That's how they did it at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in
1776 and that experiment worked out just fine. Apparently, lawmakers think
better and work faster without air conditioning - suffering negates the need
for extemporaneous nonsense. Unlike California 's Senator Carole Migden, do
you honestly think Ben Franklin was playin' grab-ass with Adams and Jefferson
in that sweltering heat? No, they just wanted to finish up with their business
of creating a new nation and get back to farming hemp. (There's relatively no
THC in hemp, so don't even go there)
"First we make our habits, then our habits make us."
~Charles C. Noble
Maybe you remember the first time your Mom trusted you to walk down to the
corner store to pick up some Prince Albert® in a can and glycerin
suppositories for your Dad. This is my shining example of a new found liberty,
tempered with responsibility. Mom gave you some money, and trusted you to go
straight to the store and come right back home. If you flubbed it up, you
didn't get another chance til you were ten. If you went over to little Eunice
Eichel's house and popped the heads off all her Barbie® dolls, the phone was
already ringing at your house before your black and white Chuckie Taylors hit
the front porch. You tasted the freedom for one sweet moment, and then you had
to go and screw the pooch on the way home. Literally. That's my analogy of
what's happening within the motorcycle community of California.
"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be
clean." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Irresponsible behavior from California 's motorcycle riders will one day, ruin
the privilege to ride for all of us. For all the fine upstanding motorcycle
riders that are popping wheelies all over the freeway, take note; horsepower
bans are in your immediate future and quite possibly - tiered licensing, as
well. For all you M1 license holders that have violated proper lanesplitting
etiquette - riding dangerously - or even worse, squeezing between cars just to
get a car-length ahead at a red light, take note; a ban on lanesplitting was
seriously discussed at the Capitol, just last year, and it's gonna continue to
be an issue for us as long as our foolish behavior continues to attract public
scrutiny. For all you really cool, Chrome-O-Sexual™ bad-asses that
incessantly rev your pipes to compensate for not being able to afford that
bottle of Viagra® after foolishly financing your fabulous new lifestyle,
please take note; the noise ordinance they just passed in that other western
state is easily transferable to the Golden State. Just ask the riders in
Orange County . I HAVE loud pipes, and I'd like to KEEP 'em. Don't be a
schmuck and ruin it for the rest of us, sphincter-boy.
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."
~Abraham Lincoln
Can someone please tell me why our Motorcycle Rights Organizations should
waste the time, money and effort fighting the gub-ment on behalf of a bunch of
morons who are the ones messin' things up for the rest of us, and at the same
time, totally unwilling to help US fight? It's the very idiots that are making
all the noise, popping all the wheelies and abusing the lanesplitting
privilege that will NEVER show up at the state capitol to help fight to keep
motorcycles legal. So maybe it's time we start leaning on 'em? You and me
start drawing attention to their childish antics, which threaten OUR rights.
Shame and humiliation used to work in the old days, but in the participant
ribbon society we live in today…..the egotistical "it's all about me"
generation rarely responds to logic. Thus, the legislature kills what it
fears.
"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the
one who dropped it." ~Lou Holtz
Without the nourishment of personal responsibility, liberty has no other
option but to wither and die. Especially, if a NannyCrat™ has those brazen
motorcycle riders in the cross hairs - looking to score brownie points with
the general public by making society a "safer" place. As it was when you took
that first walk to the corner store, accepting personal responsibility for
your own actions is a positive step towards becoming a grown up. It's time for
motorcyclists in CA to grow up. Tear this article out, make copies, carry it
with you, and have the huevos to tape it to the mirror of the next idiot you
see riding his/her bike like a moron, RUINING the "right" to ride - for the
rest of us. The self imposed, "police-ourselves" revolution must begin
NOW….before the police and the legislators step up and do it for us. I believe
the NannyCrats™ are hearing those desperate cries from the irresponsible
riders of California; "Take my rights, PLEASE."