Civil disobedience at Colorado bicycle tour - NOT!

Henry David Thoreau on Wikipedia

Last month an anonymous (what else?) flier appeared in mailboxes along the route of the Sunrise Century in Boulder, Colorado. The flier urged area motorists to drive slowly and 'break down unexpectedly' in an effort to disrupt the charity ride. This was touted as "civil disobedience" aimed at protesting Colorado's new three-feet passing law which somehow undermined motorists rights.

Yes, motorists rights. Hmmmm. In all the reading I've done about cycling, including those sections of the motor vehicle code, there's little mention of an individual right unless it's coupled with a duty. That means while each of us have a right to use the public way, we also have a duty or an obligation to do so without endangering others. To the schoolyard bullies amongst us, that duty is conveniently ignored in preference to the 'right' to shove others out of the way.

Civil disobedience presupposes that those engaging in the deliberate violation of a law are doing so as a means of highlighting the injustice of that law. They stand in defiance and expect or sometimes even demand to be arrested for their actions. Obviously, that didn't happen in Colorado. No, our anonymous 'civil disobedience' protester wasn't about to spend any time in custody. He was merely trying to get others to do his mischief while he stayed safely unknown.

He's just another anonymous dick, not unlike the bumper crop of blooming idiots in the comments section of the Daily Camera article. I'll give them some credit, however, for the creative use of spelling and language, a kind of free-form approach that's refreshingly devoid of logic or critical thinking.

Oh, I did an Examiner post on this too, absent the sarcasm.