If justice existed, what would the world look like?
This concept that we, as humans, have constructed has no basis in reality. Looking to the natural world as a guide, what happens when the tiger eats the antelope. The antelope dies, the tiger gets full and beyond that there is nothing that happens. The tiger is not punished for the act of murdering the antelope, and how could he be? The antelope don’t get together and try to figure out a way to ensure that the tiger pays for the herd’s loss. It’s just not something that happens.
We as humans desperately need some sort of balance to maintain our sanity. The idea of justice is nothing more than a mechanism that allows us to make sense of our world. It’s an equation, a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. But can a tooth every make right for a tooth taken maliciously? And once that tooth is taken, can it ever be restored?
Death is the question. Is there any way a person can repay for taking the life of another? No, there is not. And if we create a system that attempts to do so, we then become the thing we are trying to stop. When the system murders a murderer, they have punished that person, that person’s family and created the same loss that they were trying to repay.
Let’s say that justice did exist. Let’s say that it is a natural mechanism that nature has to keep things “right.” What would the world look like?
I ride my bike for various reasons.
For one, I believe that bicycles are the only form of transportation that is sustainable. Bananas go in, poop comes out. No one is hurt. Our skies aren’t darkened and puppies can breath freely. I wrote something about this, this tyranny of the automobile and how it affects all of us.
For two, I’m a bit of an addict. I have my vices and some of them can affect my health greatly. One of those is sodipop. I love my soda and try as I might I have not been able to completely eliminate it from my life. I mean if it didn’t taste so damn good. So, yea, I ride my bike for exercise. It keeps me healthy, it keeps my Buddha belly from getting too big and it really just makes me feel good. I like to be tired when the day is done.
And most importantly it is my angry fist, my middle finger. If you’ve been here, to the Alliance before, you’re probably aware that I’m not a big fan of the “system” or its many institutions. Riding my bike, as a form of transportation, is the biggest “Fuck You!” that I can shout in our current landscape. It’s saying, I don’t need your cars. I won’t live in your suburbs. I won’t participate in this mess you’ve created. The bicycle is the solution, or at least a start to the solution, of everything that is wrong with this world. I am the nail that sticks up.
For those of you who have been Mooseknucklers from the beginning may remember the newsletters that we sent out once a month. Being head scribe of the Alliance at that time, I penned these and reserved a paragraph at the bottom for what was on my mind. The Alliance had only been together for a short time when a bike commuter was hit and killed on 700 East. I don’t remember names or circumstances, but the local fish rubber massacred the story. The cycling community, from all over the state flew into action. Within hours of the story going live, the reporter showed up at the shop and, being almost in tears, wanted to get the other side of the story, the cyclist’s point of view. Something that she had utterly failed to do the first time.
All of these things were bouncing around in my head and I wrote out one of our newsletters. Of course my thoughts came pouring out in my little section at the bottom. I have no idea where those words are stored, I’m sure I could find them if I put forth some effort, but the gist of what I was feeling was the fact that I felt that if I continued with my angry fist in the air, my end would be found on the hood of a car.
And then Bob Bayne called me macabre…
Statistics and eight years of commuting have proven that hopefully I was wrong. I still ride my bike to work and I still take every intersection with caution, every time a car passes I recoil. Why? Because the equation is horribly skewed in the car’s favor. As cyclists, we are the antelope and in most cases the tiger is never punished. The cyclist is never the winner when they are put up against a two thousand pound pollution spewing coffin.
All of these thoughts, memories, ideas are in my head because of the recent tragedy. A cyclist, who I did not know, was killed a couple of days ago. The details of the accident haven’t been leaked, beside that the motorist was driving into the sun and couldn’t see. And I wonder, if he couldn’t see what the hell was he doing driving?
The Alliance offers its condolences to the family and the cycling community that knew Braydon. There will be a memorial ride tomorrow morning. Meet at 7:15 AM at the River Road Exit on the Southern Parkway, ride leaves at 7:30. We encourage all cyclists to be there. We are all a community and face the same dangers every time we enter the roadway.
I would assume that everyone who rides a bike has already seen this video, but every time their is a tragedy within our community it begs the question, if justice existed what would the world look like?
P. L. and R.