Exactly. Blaming it in the system or NYPD is a knee jerk reaction to put the blame away from the bikers who did the "brake check" (which the police will tell you is not safe), and away from the bikers that swarmed the SUV when the collision happened, and the bikers that assaulted the vehicle in a manner leading to the run-over biker, and then the bikers who took it on themselves to chase and assault and batter the driver in front of his family. There were multiple points where bikers acting within the law could have prevented this, but no, they acted like a pack of miscreants. Whether they were pissed or not, it was the bikers who were the aggressors. No SUV driver is going to attack a bike pack. Think for a second. The system "issues" you are vaguely waving do not give free passes for hooliganism nor vigilantism.

First, I want to say that I too am horrified that this has happened, and I don't believe anyone deserves what happened to him, and I hope he'll recover.

That said, blaming the police for trying to stop an illegal street racing event seems a bit odd to me. If you want to have bike races, you keep to deserted roads, or you get city council permission. You can't say that the police acted wrongly in preventing the race when the race in itself is a careless, illegal action. No matter what spin you put on it, it was the bikers who caused the problem.

The biker group was deterred from going in Time Square by the police, a part of the system. What is the incentive to operate within the system's laws when the system purposely slighted you.

Also, I disagree with your statement that blaming the police is the "knee jerk" reaction. The "knee jerk" is by calling this group of motorcyclists a biker gang with negative connotations rather than an organized group of members with similar interests involved, similar to us. The story has been sensationalized and the purpose of the article is to make us feel like justice was served when the biker, supposed villain, got what was coming to him.

I think it's pretty shallow not to look deeper and just blindly trust the system in which you exist in.

But the only reason they were deterred from going there was that they would disrupt traffic in an illegal way if they were allowed to what they wanted to do. The police were doing their job. And if these bikers were just friendly hobbyists, why were they carrying knives in the first place?

that still doesn't make him deserving of being handicapped for the rest of his life

nothing does

Yes, technically, it's true that if there's no reason for someone to make an action then they won't make it. But assigning blame to the police here for an incident that was entirely within the bikers' control to have avoided, prevented, or simply not engaged in sounds like just a three-party version of victim-blaming to me.

If you get someone really angry, and they punch the person beside them in anger, then sure, you might be slightly at fault for making them angry (but only if you did it with either the intent of making them angry and/or the knowledge that it would do so). But the vast, vast majority of the fault must lie on the person who did the punching.

"The whole incident could have been avoided if dinner was just on the table at the proper time. If his dinner was on the table when he got home, Mr. Smith would have had no reason to beat his wife."

So what? The Matrix has you? Are you Morpheus, Neo, or Trinity?

According to what I've read, the helmet cam video shows the brake checker staring at the SUV driver, then surging ahead to whip in front of the SUV and then do the brake check. If true, and the police did arrest this guy for traffic violations, did the not the biker incite the incident? The collision happens. Then the bikers force the SUV driver to stop and start whacking the car according to police, prompting the part where the biker gets hit and run over. Again, personal decisions by bikers escalated what should have been a call to traffic enforcement to sort it out. Group rioting has no place in civil society unless the govt. is involved in a hostile crackdown, which is not what happened here. Why are you condoning this and trying to give them a free pass? There are liberties, protected by personal responsibilities IF AND ONLY IF you remain in that system giving those rights and liberties. Pissed off is no justification for what happened.if you don't act responsibly within the law, you don't deserve rights. You can't have one without the other.

It is not about spinning it. It is about how if the NYPD did not bar them from Times Square, they would not have been on the highway, and this incident would not have happened. This is a simple causal relationship.

According to what rstnme said, it is just a gathering of people in public spaces and you have the right to assembly. You can contest whether or not you think it moral or ethical to require people to have permits to assemble.

If the system is purposely trying to harm you, why would you go through the system's rules?


This is not an argument. People are legally allowed to possess weapons. If your argument is that they should follow the rules and regulations of the system why are you saying what they are doing is morally wrong when they are acting within the rules of the system?

Would the biker group gathering in Times Square caused traffic problems? Are the negative connotations attached to biker groups a reason why they wanted to keep them out of Times Square, a known tourist destination?

This situation is more complex than "bikers bad".

Do you even have the slightest idea of what you're saying?

Even if the police did purposefully do this just to piss the bikers off, that gives them ZERO right to go out and attack someone and act like dbags and be a public safety threat on the high way.

If you make somebody angry and they attack you, which they are legally allowed to because you provoked them, then it is your fault for provoking them. This what the law states. You are allowed to protect yourself in self-defense when being threatened. Why is there no blame assigned to the person committing the initial action?

Your analogy here misconstrues the argument. You are talking about a one to one relationship. I'm talking about what factors cause Mr. Smith to be disposed to violence against his wife.

No, I have no idea what I'm talking about and my opinions on the subject have no basis in reality.

Why? Who assigns rights for actions? If you do not believe something in society to be just, what recourse do you have to change it?

It's even worse than the analogies you provided.

It's as if the delivery man delivered the food 10 minutes late. It's trivial, and it might theoretically have been done on purpose to just be a jerk, but there is really no reason to believe so. And then the husband beats his wife because the food was late.

Blaming the police here make absolutely zero sense. By this line of reasoning, if I trip because a roommate left something on the ground, I have the right to go out and viciously beat someone? And that would be my roommates fault? And I shouldn't be held responsible? That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense and is an out right ridiculous notion.

You are looking at how x affects y. I'm looking at how the letters exist within the alphabet.

No that's not what you're doing at all.

You're blending some ridiculous claim that the system is out to get us, with some butterfly flaps its wings, hurricane in the tropics garbage. Your original post was absolutely about how the system slighted the bikers, and how blame shouldn't be directed at them. Maybe you want to backtrack now, but blaming the police for the bikers actions is asinine.

So you are allowed to harm others in self-defense? Like if a guy swung in front of you and stepped on his brakes, it would not be illegal to hit him? And if a group of bikers started slashing you tires, would that be considered enough provocation to say, hit one of them with your car?

And for the record, "making someone angry" =/= "threatening someone".

No you're actually not.

So how did the police blocking them off threaten the bikers and make them fear for their safety? (Which is the actual law)
So how did the police (theoretically) threatening the bikers make the bikers self defense transfer over to the man with his family?


You could make a case about if Mr. Smith was brought up in an abusive household etc. that it was indirectly his father/mothers fault.

However what you're saying isn't a conditioning that caused Mr. Smith to beat his wife. What you're saying is how one of his coworkers stepped on his foot pissed him off, so he beat his wife.

Who cares? Bikers are subhuman anyway.

Watch for motorcycles? I certainly do.

What I'm doing is presenting a logical argument which you don't have to agree with. What you're doing is not presenting a counter argument other than "you're dumb".

I'll listen to a real argument against what I'm saying but if you're going to be a child about it I'm going to disregard what you're saying.

Yes, you are legally allowed to harm others in self-defense but you are not understanding the scenario properly or my intentions. I don't care about this situation based on an individual level. I am looking at it from societal context.

I'm not getting into is moral to harm other people, I'm saying that it could be prevented if we found problems within society rather than blaming the individual who is affected by society.

What is agency?

a town in Iowa.