Warning: H*lm*t content

"Bleve" writes:

Gemma_k wrote:

Stackhats went out in, oh, 1980? Modern helmets are light, well
ventilated and comfortable.

You miss the point. It doesn't matter how good a helmet is to wear, or how
safe you feel in one, or how many vents there are or what kind of hairstyle
you have. It's all about the choice of whther you WANT to wear a helmet,
rather than mandating that you do....

Sure, I don't believe that helmets (or seatbelts) should be compulsory,
but if you choose not to wear one, you're an idiot.

History shows that there's rather more idiots in the world than
is ideal. A society that does its best to look after everyone (free
healthcare in particular) has a choice. Either make some level of
safety equipment compulsory - and hopefully reduce the bills we all
have to pay for healthcare through tax, or say "if you don't
wear this/use this etc, then you void your healthcare privs."

Option 1: Compulsory xyz
Option 2: Refuse healthcare

Unfortunately, both your options are unChristian.

The first is unChristian because it involves the use or threat of
violence (nothing can be "compulsory" unless one is ultimately
prepared to use physical violence, such as imprisonment, to make it
so[*]).

The second is unChristian because it involves withholding from a
person what he needs, which is something Christ would never do ("Give
to those who ask.")


It's never an easy choice, it's always a "where do you
draw the line" issue. Such are the joys of living in the real world.


The real world does not have to be unChristian.


David
[*] Though, in reality, even this is not compulsion. Compulsion could
only conceivably occur through the use of what you would have to call
mind-control techniques, such as, for example, the use of drugs and
torture to induce dissociative identity disorder and a programmable
mental state.

Barring the possibility of such techniques, there is no such thing as
compulsion, and when people tell you they "had" to do this or "had" to
do that because it was "compulsory" or the "law", they are either
lying or delusional (or mind controlled), since they are denying their
own free will to choose to do the right thing.

Nearly everything that is called "compulsory" is actually not. What
people mean is that they are giving in to coercion of one type or
another. In fact, what it normally comes down to is that they are not
willing to lose their possessions in order to live according to
ethical principles. This is how possessions (a) cause or encourage
moral corruption; and (b) are deliberately used by governments to
corrupt people by making them passive and obedient through fear of
losing their "stuff".

There is an inverse relationship between spiritual freedom and
accumulated stuff.


--

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

[Luis] Castro told Arab News: "A lieutenant in charge of the [United
States] military police told me, 'My men are like dogs, they are
trained only to attack, please try to understand'."

-- http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GHA304A.html

Terry Collins wrote:
ritcho wrote:

Dr Robinson is a well known anti-helmet law campaigner and does some
pretty good research. However, I'm concerned that her pre-determined
conclusions undermines her work.

Umm, I thought that all scientific work was that; "I believe that this
causes this and now I will go out a find evidence that supports my theory"

Nope, or at least, that's not all of it.

Scientific method works in one of two ways, usually;

Observation of phenomena, hypothesis as to why/how, testing of
hypothesis with core and edge cases.
Hypothesis becomes theory if it passes tests. It's not
really a case of looking for supporting evidence, but failing to
find evidence that disproves the hypthesis.

David Trudgett Wrote:


Unfortunately, both your options are unChristian.

The first is unChristian because it involves the use or threat of
violence (nothing can be "compulsory" unless one is ultimately
prepared to use physical violence, such as imprisonment, to make it
so ).

The second is unChristian because it involves withholding from a
person what he needs, which is something Christ would never do ("Give
to those who ask.")


It's never an easy choice, it's always a "where do you
draw the line" issue. Such are the joys of living in the rea
world.


The real world does not have to be unChristian.




I don't think that an option being 'unChristian' makes it invalid
especially when we're dealing with a society/population which generall
is not... Might be good principles, but i think they're better framed a
'unethical' rather than 'unChristian'...

And while I appreciate your comments re consumerism, I think using the
as an argument against mandatory helmet laws (or any law for tha
matter) is odd and an awfully long bow.

Eddie(Christian - not that there's anything wrong with that..)

--
eddiec

Gemma_k Wrote:
"till!" wrote in messag
..

Gemma_k Wrote

You miss the point....It's all about the choice of whther you WAN
t
wear a helmet
rather than mandating that you do...
Not at all true, I mean there is no mandate that requires you ride
bike

Which is the whole point. A lot of people have been lost to cyclin
becaus
of this mandate, they would prefer not to ride at all because th
system ha
become more onerous. Many more drivers now do not know what it's lik
t
ride a bike. These same drivers see cyclists a lot less on the road
and d
not know what to do when they do see one. The fact the government make
yo
wear a helmet makes cycling look inherently dangerous

For those that do not understand Robinson's research, just think abou
wha
would happen to cycling if, say, fluorescent and reflectorized vest
an
flags were made mandatory at all times for cycling

If people really wanted to save lives and injuries, then why don't the
sto
dicking around with the 1%ers in road safety and look at the entir
healt
system, and then outlaw things like smoking.....
Unfortunately the people who count want to A) be re-elected, B) build
large super fund, or C) both of the above. Saving lives is
non-proveable outcome, within any 4 year period. Doing something tha
supports A) and B) is more important, so minimising negative impact o
majority of voters is their real goal. Case in point is mobile phone
and driving. Ah, I have become so cynical

PS. an interesting anomaly for me is the increase in bike sales (mor
bikes are sold than cars). Is this due to more disposable nature o
bikes, or are we on the brink of seeing a turnaround in number
cycling

--
sinus

sinus Wrote:

PS. an interesting anomaly for me is the increase in bike sales (mor
bikes are sold than cars). Is this due to more disposable nature o
bikes, or are we on the brink of seeing a turnaround in number
cycling

I think it's more that some people think they can buy fitness. Th
same sort of person who buys that ab exerciser off of the infomercial
etc. They've done something for their fitness, they've spent money o
something that will make them fit

Problem is that there's only one way to get fit and that's to work
which is why most bicycles end up in the back of the garden she
rusting away in to nothingness

Now I'm depressed. Excuse me while a buy a Dr. Phil book

--
EuanB

David Trudgett Wrote:


Unfortunately, both your options are unChristian


Whoah. I hardly think it is appropriate to bring religion into this
The discussion is not spiritual, it's about helmets. Same sort o
issues impact us whether Christian, Jew, Moslem, anything else. You d
your brethren no favours by attempting to align them with you
particular point of view

--
sinus

Bleve wrote:
Euan wrote:

At age five I rode head face in to a concrete lamp post (I sneezed,
opened my eyes, saw lamp post and grabbed the front brake with
predictable results.) I required two stitches but other than that,
fine.

At at age 12 I went sailing over the bonnet snip

I wasn't wearing a helmet. I hit my head. I'm here and not a
vegetable.

So you say.:-)

My crash had me land on the back of my head, from 2m, head first.
That's the sort of concussion that can lead to brain damage and
neck injury.

I refute your refute, I can still read to after several cycling
accidents which resulted in a bump on the head. I fully suspect
that if you had not been wearing a helmet in your accident you'd
still be able to read as well.

Not given the nature of the crash and how I landed.

You would need to do it again without the helmet to make any claims about
what would have happened.

It's not actually, it's only recently that humans have been
traveling at an elevated height along concrete surfaces. A fall onto
a natural surface (grass, dirt etc) is usually fine. A fall onto
an unyielding surface is not to kind to our relatively fragile
heads.

As a kid, I did most of my falling off bicycles on brick or cobblrstone
surfaces, and, like Euan, I'm not a vegatable either.

As with all things of this nature, it's a "where do you draw the line"
game. I'm constanly aware of the head-injury disaster area that is
the inside of motor vehicles,

But you want to have the liberty of deciding for yourself whether to wear a
helmet in a car, and, in your daily car travel, you choose not to.

Do helmets make riding safer? No, as they don't reduce the
likleyhood of an accident. Do they make some classes of
accident less likely to cause serious injury? Yes.

Have head injuries to cyclists reduced since the introduction of helmet
compulsion?

Helmets may work in very limited scenarios, they do not make a
significant contribution to cyclist safety that warrants compulsion.

That's your opinion. It's what counts as a significant contribution
that is where the argument lies here. For me, wearing a helmet
made a significant contribution to *my* safety.

So because of this perception of yours, you think it's fair to compel
everyone to wear one? I have a perception people would be safer in cars if
they all wore helmets. I would be happy for the government to compel you to
wear one. :-)

Theo

Hi Eddie,

Thanks for your comments.


eddiec writes:

I don't think that an option being 'unChristian' makes it invalid,

If a person adheres to a religion[*] in which violence against people is
OK (the end justifies the means[**]), and in which it is OK to deny
medical care to those who need it (whether through their own stupidity
or not), then that person should feel free to ignore my comments.

On the other hand, Christians (still quite a few of us) can't ignore
my comments.
[*] And yes, +everyone+ adheres to a religion, even "atheists".

[**] An ethical principle we are all taught as children to abhor, yet
we find it everywhere in society; and most of us find that
unremarkable.


especially when we're dealing with a society/population which generally
is not...

Actually, our whole society is imbued with "Christian" principles at
some level (some would say "contaminated"). Even those who profess no
particular organised religion still hold "religious" beliefs (whether
they realise it or not), and by default, many of those beliefs and
values can be traced to Christianity (in the case of Western society).

Meanwhile, a Christian does not need to apologise for promoting
Christian values, whether to Christians or non-Christians. Of course,
this does not imply the desire to force (impossible anyway) beliefs,
values and practices onto the unwilling (as many "Christians" and
adherents to other "faiths" would want to do). A Muslim or a Christian
theocracy (forcing religious rules onto a whole "nation"), for
example, must be abhorrent to all people who value human dignity and
freedom (which a true Christian does).



Might be good principles, but i think they're better framed as
'unethical' rather than 'unChristian'...

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is ethical and just. That is
the rule of law in which retribution is taken for offences
committed. Christianity is beyond "ethics", and that's why it was and
still is so revolutionary. Even today, most people do not realise that
Christianity is not simply a system of ethics. Although Christians are
"ethical", Christianity cannot be reduced to a system of ethics.

No philosopher has been able to define a system of ethics that is both
(a) universal, and (b) not based on absolute Christian (or other
religious) principles; and that is not from want of trying. Such
attempts at ethical humanism will be forever condemned, in my opinion,
to the hell of moral relativism, which ultimately means that one may
do whatever one wishes, so long as the ends are perceived as "good" or
desirable.

So, ethics, in the sense the scientific humanist understands, is no
protection against the likes of, for example, Hitler's nazism or
Mussolini's fascism, or the secret policies of their present day
followers who are hiding today in plain sight.



And while I appreciate your comments re consumerism, I think using them
as an argument against mandatory helmet laws (or any law for that
matter) is odd and an awfully long bow.

The answer must then be that my comments regarding the properties
of... property... were not intended to be an argument against
mandatory helmet laws. They were, in fact, intended to show a more
general point about how people compromise their own ethical standards
through fear of losing what they think they "own". Bosses, for
instance, just love it when their employees have mortgages to pay,
because it makes them so much easier to control (because the employee
will do things that contradict their ethical values, and rationalise
it by their "need" to look after their family).

What has that got to do with helmet laws? Any law (of the type we are
discussing) is backed by the threat of violent coercion. In our
society, that means the threat to steal one's property, or to
imprison. In other countries[***], state violence extends to torture
and terrorism. We now know that this is the case in the United States,
for instance.

Since most people seem to be somewhat lacking in the fortitude
department, or otherwise overly attached to their possessions and
comfortable way of life, it is apparent that the mere threat to steal
one's possessions is sufficient to keep most people in line, without
having to resort to imprisonment and torture.

Let's have a look at a hypothetical situation in a hypothetical time
and place. (Yes, that means this example is entirely fictitious,
though based on plausible elements.)

Person A (P[a]) has a religious belief about head coverings that rules
out wearing a helmet. He therefore rides his bicycle without a helmet
and is booked several times by the police. He refuses to pay the fines
for several reasons: (1) he will not pay a fine for following his
religious beliefs; (2) his government sent troops to help kill people
overseas who were defending their country from foreign invasion, and
therefore paying a fine voluntarily would be providing material
assistance to a criminal, terrorist organisation; and (3) he will not
pay a fine for refusing to abdicate his personal responsibility for
deciding what is the best thing to do in his own personal circumstances.

As a result, P[a] was taken to court, where a judgement was made that
his car would be taken from him by force, and his driving licence
cancelled (in this place, unbelievably, you might think, people
actually have to have permission to operate a motor vehicle,
regardless of their abilities to do it safely).

There was no practical way that P[a] could get to work without driving
a vehicle, so he lost his job, and lost his house. Luckily, he found
another job within cycling distance, though it barely paid enough to
pay the rent. Unfortunately, he was booked several more times for
riding without a helmet.

The second time before the courts, he was found to have nothing worth
stealing, so he was imprisoned. In prison, he was abused in countless
ways by prisoners and prison officers alike, with no possibility of
redress, because nobody is interested in the plight of a criminal.


Now, Person B (P[b]) on the other hand, also has a religious belief
about head coverings that rules out wearing a helmet. He, however,
does not own a car, and must cycle to work to support a wife and
fifteen children. But wearing or not wearing a helmet is such a
trifling matter, he reasons, especially compared with clothing and
housing a family. So, although he knows that wearing a helmet is wrong
(because his sincere religious beliefs tell him so), he nevertheless
compromises his religious and ethical beliefs and wears a helmet while
cycling. P[b], now a hypocrite because of fear of losing possessions,
continues to live a plentiful life as the shell of a human being.


I hope you enjoyed this fairy tale! :-) I hope the exaggeration
explains what possessions, and the fear of losing them, has to do with
helmet laws (or any other law which purports to take away an
individual's inalienable right to choose for herself what is right
according to her own conscience).



[***] And possibly secretly even in our own.


Eddie(Christian - not that there's anything wrong with that..)c


Well, you know, that Bush guy claims to be Christian, too... ;-)


Catchya.

David


--

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

All these men who were going to murder or to torture the famishing and
defenseless creatures who provide them their sustenance had the air of
men who knew very well that they were doing their duty, and some were
even proud, were "glorying" in what they were doing.

-- Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You"

sinus writes:

David Trudgett Wrote:


Unfortunately, both your options are unChristian.


Whoah. I hardly think it is appropriate to bring religion into this.

Whoah. I don't think it appropriate to exclude religion from
life. Religion *is* life, you know.

Bye for now,

David



--

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

You wu hun cheng
Xian tian di sheng.

-- Laozi, Dao De Jing, Chapter 25

Trans:

"There was something in a state of fusion
Before the heavens and the earth came into existence."

EuanB Wrote:
I disagree. It means they've come to a different conclusion than yo
have. That doesn't make them an idiot.

Who are you to say otherwise? Show me the data that head injuries hav
decreased per kilometer cycled as a result of compulsion and you ma
have a point. Current data points to the opposite trend.


if you think more people wearing helmets hasnt decrease head-injurie
arriving in emergency departments acroos the country i think you hav
lost me (and applying 'convenient ignorance' )

replace 'helmet' with 'safety belt'. what's the difference? they ar
compulsory too after initially not being so.
This helmet debate is done and dusted in Oz. There 'may' have been som
fallout initially, but then there was against new cars that ha
seatbelts installed too when they were intro'd.
just buy that Surly and ride :

--
flyingdutch