Tue, 29 May 2012
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My theory is that it’s all about socialism and the bike’s role making everyone equal, or in some cases more equal than others.
Why all this carnage in the name of the bicycle? Socialists hate cars for two reasons. First, because they offer too much individual freedom. Why can’t you be happy with where the tram stops and why do you have to block the road? Cars are power – the power to go where you want, when you want, and socialists don’t like anyone to have power except by committee.
The second reason is the clarity cars bring to class differences. In a socialist world, everyone drives a red Peugeot 106 Green Car – no fancy roadsters to show off the spoils of wealth.
I can understand why bikes trump cars in the socialist mind: they are cleaner, less obtrusive, quieter, even “civilised”. That’s why there was a three-year, multi-million euro project to cut down all the century-old trees on Amsterdam’s Overtoom and replace them with…. a bike lane. Bikes trump trees, too.
But what about the pedestrians? Surely a pedestrian, using his sturdy socialist legs with no assistance from the evils of man-made metal and rubber should get a little respect on the road?
Think again. There is nothing but contempt for the pedestrian. The walker is a stupid tourist, slow elderly lady, errant child or self-absorbed jogger.
Ding-ding-WHACK.
Do socialists hate people, too? Not exactly, but the bicycle is a microcosm of what happens when you give the moral high ground, plus a little edge in speed, to one group of people. They use it – sometimes literally – to whack you on the head with it.
Thus cyclists are better than drivers, and more equal than pedestrians. Cyclists rule by virtue of their presumed moral superiority travelling at twenty km/h: might and right.
Why do they do it? Our friend Mr Orwell would say its for the same reason they more than doubled parking rates, delayed the high-speed train to Paris for seven years and – yes —cut down beautiful, useful and wonderful trees: because they can. Thus, two legs when they have two wheels underneath are good, two legs alone are bad.
Trump that.
August 2002
Kevin Lowe is a Canadian expatriate living in Amsterdam.
Subject: Dutch cyclists
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