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If you want to have a discussion about bicyclists and road safety, that's perfectly fine. If you want to pass laws, that's political, of course. But many peopl
by BitwiseFool 5y ago
If you want to have a discussion about bicyclists and road safety, that's perfectly fine. If you want to pass laws, that's political, of course.
But many people - myself included - don't like it when authors drag in disparate references to hot button topics from the national discourse. For example....
>> First, a thesis: Americans driving cars kill Americans riding bikes for the same reason that Americans in pandemics refuse to wear masks, and Americans who love assault rifles get panicky at the mention of gun control, and Blue Lives Matter types freak at any suggestion that cops should try to kill fewer Black people.
For an article about that's supposed to advance the cause of bicyclist safety, it's not only inflammatory, it's also outlandish and hurts the credibility of the author.
- wpietri 5y agoI understand some people don't like it. But I'm not asking what you like. I'm asking why you assert it's unrelated to politics.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoI genuinely do not understand what you mean. I agree that changing road safety laws is political - politicians will have to pass legislation - but I still don't see why the author needs to wrap so much of this debate within the framework of progressive politics by making allusions to gun control and police officers killing African Americans.
- wpietri 5y agoWe both agree you don't see it. The question is why you not seeing it proves the two are unrelated ("orthogonal") and therefore shouldn't be mentioned together. From my reading, he clearly makes the case that they are connected through the balance between freedom to endanger others and freedom from endangerment. So to me you seem to be claiming that what "freedom" means in America is entirely unrelated to politics. When as far as I can tell, that question has been central to American politics from 1776 to the present.