Re: f'ing bad drivers
In the grand narrative of things, the paint damage will turn into an insurance claim. Because the claim will be under comprehensive coverage with minimal deductible, the car owner's will not be affected but there will be an incremental upward effect on the rates of others.
The car owner might not have seen who did it if she was inside, but others outside may have. They would have no idea what instigated it. All they would see is that a rider went and did a ********* thing to a parked car for no apparent reason. How that turns out to be a win for the image of motorcycle riders as a whole is beyond me.
The grand narrative of justice used to be an eye for an eye, in other words, the retributive penalty for a bad act should be proportional to and not be in excess of the actual harm caused by the bad act in question. So here we have a car damaged as penalty for what? A non-collision? Where is the proportionality or justice in that?
I hear you turbo, and you always make good points. There are systemic consequences for acting in your own interest and/or in the moment. But just take a deep breath and "feel" this one. It feels good
I get you in the abstract, but life isn't always abstract. The law, for example, pertaining to justice, is only an effective moderator when it works. Motorcyclists are victimized and almost killed in traffic every day. The cops do NOTHING, or next to nothing, when you attempt to contact them, if not laugh at you. The law is supposed to be punative, not only "just", and involves the resonable expectation of some degree of p
ersonal satisfaction on the part of the victim. So, if you receive no satisfaction from appealing to law and order, is that not itself a breakdown in the system justifying, or at least logically assuming, some degree of vigilantism? And if not, says who? The law in, and of itself, is just text. It's only valuable to the degree it can moderate justice and provide satisfaction to victims. Otherwise it is nothing other than bureaucratic formality. When this happens it is our everyday experience, not abstract models of interpretation that become our priority.
Simply stated, sometimes the world is about whats going on around you, in the moment. We defer to abstract models to interpret our world and guide our actions, but they are not perfect. When they fail, we still have the needs for which we instill those models to begin with (satisfaction, retribution). Hence, we do not want to be victimized in this manner, and we will seek out other means to express this if the authorities in charge dont deliver - or we will accept the role of perpetual victim. I think we are really dealing with a force of human nature and power differential more intrinsic to our experience of everyday life than the abstract concepts we wrap around our experience to interpret the world and guide us in moderating these impulses.
Lets rephrase in more severe terms. If someone killed your child, but got off on a technicality and was released, you have a choice, a) feel like a perpetual victim in a system that failed you, or b) take the law into your own hands and harm that person somehow. You might not because of fear of legal reprocussions, but would you be w
rong to follow option b? Arent you
just breaking the law in this instance? It is tautological to refer a miscarriage of justice back to the very legal system which is itself in question due to it's failure; The very same abstract systemic reasoning, the what-ifs and worse case predictions, the logical inferences etc... The precautionary system that failed to deliver what it promised, at the expense of certain civil liberties to act in the moment, on your own accord.
I'm just saying, to take the "higher ground" and refer to abstract or systemic reasoning when that very same abstract or systemic reasoning is intrinsically fallable due to the impossibility of realistic implematation, is to fail to see the trees through the forest. We are out there being victimized every day by criminally negligent cagers. Sometimes, if not always, it is as logically appropriate as not to react as if there is no law you can turn to, even if we are not in full consideration of the consquences. Life's pretention is the big picture, its reality is multiple little pictures - no less important to consider.
So, ipso facto, its is not always innapropriate to operate outside the law and make a cager eat gravel for a minute - even if it is not wholly justified by some rational system either.
