Truly, the only way to stay safe out there:
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I keep thinking this discussion is about victim blaming. We don’t tell a rape victim that they were stupid for wearing that revealing whatever, so we arent going to tolerate calling someone stupid for wearing a vest.
The stupid in this case are the violent thugs and their apologists.
Sorry if this has been stated already, I skimmed a lot of the thugsplaining argument.
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I personally know some members of the HAs and associated clubs. To a man they are blue-collar manual labor guys. Some of the older ones have worked their way up to being small business owners. None of them are doctor or lawyer dilettantes.
(I don’t know about any criminal activity, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.)
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Get them to bring back Fight Night! That was an awesome party.
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Brides Of March?
Nobody is saying the “therefore you are wrong” part. You have the right to wear an SOA vest while driving a Prius. You have the right to get drunk in a miniskirt at a frat party. You have the right to count a stack of hundred dollar bills on a subway platform at two in the morning. You should be able to do those things without fear of being harmed. You having done those things is not an affirmative defense for anyone who causes you harm.
None of that means doing those things is not unwise.
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Thanks, Donald.
I’ll concede that point, but I have to say: that it unwise is not a reflection in anyway on the person doing the thing we think is unwise. It is entirely a reflection on the other parties. In fact, I wish I could use a different word other than unwise, since there is an implicit judgement there I don’t mean, but I can’t think of one.
Absolutely it is! Unicycling along the edge of a cliff is unwise, right? That reflects on the wisdom of the unicyclist. Just because there are other responsible parties involved (unlike the cliff or the unicycle) doesn’t mean the victim wasn’t doing something inadvisable. Humans aren’t wild animals, and they are responsible for their own actions, but holding criminals responsible is not incompatible with the notion that potential targets should do what they can to protect themselves. This isn’t victim blaming, this is victim reduction.
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he does not look like a crook. or do you not use the BB word definition?
[quote=“L_Mariachi, post:175, topic:86897”]
I personally know some members of the HAs and associated clubs. To a man they are blue-collar manual labor guys. Some of the older ones have worked their way up to being small business owners. None of them are doctor or lawyer dilettantes. [/quote]
There seems to exist a broad spectrum when it comes to biker gangs, and even between different HA chapters, from blue collar guys that just enjoy drinking and bikes to hardened criminals that deal in human slavery and blow each other up with rocket launchers, so my statement was too generalizing. Anyone that would beat someone up for wearing the wrong clothes is still a grade A scumbag in my book.
Well then this sentence doesn´t mean a whole lot does it 
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I doubt the poseur shooting this confrontation has any association with an MC, whether the Viagra commercial old guy with an expensive bike type, or the hardened criminal type with a bag of meth in the gas tank, or any of the points between.
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I never met any MC members, all I know about the HAs, apart from news articles back when they and the Banditos used to kill each other in Scandinavia, I know from Hunter S. Thompson´s book. That said, you´re probably right but real MC members (not the Viagra types) also don´t seem averse to kick someone´s ass on occasion without too much of a cause.
Depends what you consider “cause.” Wearing a fraudulent vest might get you a talking to. Wearing indications of “stolen valor” will get you a talking to outside. Only if you’re sufficiently intransigent or confrontational will you get a beating that doesn’t get interrupted by a bouncer.
Americans talk a big game but statistics show that almost 70% of our drunken arguments don’t end up with someone’s brains all over the parking lot.
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I have. I grew up in one of the very few places in the UK with a Hell’s Angels chapter. To a man, they were nasty, racist, violent, wife-beating, drug-dealing motherfuckers. I’m glad I’m nowhere near them any more.
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Too optimistic about the likelihood of being surrounded by decent, law-abiding people?
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Just remember that most women and children are physically harmed by family members/loved ones. Does this mean that it is unwise for women and children to be part of a family? I mean, for victim reduction purposes.
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I wish! I thought it was amusing when someone above mentioned encouraging MCs to run boxing since the EBR did that for like a decade (and taught local kids to box).
They also provided security for Occupy Oakland for a while (and then gave Oakland PD an American flag after protesters stole the one in front of police headquarters).
EBR isn’t a typical “outlaw” MC in the “run drugs and guns up and down the coast” though. They’re mostly working class guys and military vets, is my understanding.
I recommend the book, “Bullies,” which has a reporter meet his childhood bully, the founder of the EBR, to confront him and then he winds up “embedding” with them on and off as a journalist. It turned out that things are a lot more complex with their leader, Trevor, and the club than some people would suspect (and also highlights the casual violence they get into with fists as well).
Trevor is one of the “friends of a friend” I’ve met a few times at BBQs, etc.
He and friends used to have a bar crawl (all men) dressed in wedding dresses. He was mentioning once where they showed up at a biker bar, and bought the entire bar drinks and made friends. It sounded like an awesome time!
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Your arithmetic is sideways. Most women and children who are harmed may be harmed by family members, but it doesn’t follow that women and children without family are likely to experience better outcomes. More people die in car crashes than hang gliding accidents, but hang gliding isn’t safer than driving.
