Given the number of times I’ve seen cops on police forums and r/protectandserve use terms like “bikefags”, I think it’s just the typical cop disgust of anything they perceive to be weak or effeminate.
Comment on Programmer tries to explain binary search to the police
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 11 months agoI have heard that very often. I wonder if bikes are harder to track down than other property for some reason.
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 11 months ago
As a gay cyclist I know I’m doing something right by pissing off cops without doing anything wrong
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 11 months ago
Thank you for you service o7
merc@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Yeah, I don’t get that. Bicycling requires strength and endurance. It exposes you to the elements. Why is sitting in a cushy car something some people think as being more macho? Is it that you’re in control of a heavier and more powerful machine?
pimento64@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Bicycling requires strength and endurance.
So does cleaning a house, but that’s “women’s work”.
Is it that you’re in control of a heavier and more powerful machine?
That’s it. You didn’t get it at first because made the mistake of associating manliness with things like patience, strength, hard work, endurance both of toil and hardship; all things that do make up ideals of manliness to normal people. But you need to approach it from the perspective of a wastrel, a weak, foolish, and lazy person who demands the respect and deference of being manly without putting in the hard work—something he has avoided all his life. He might praise hard work in abstract, but he has no discipline for it and doesn’t respect those who actually do it, he just considers them beneath him. To such a person, the defining aspect of manliness and machismo is mastery, mastery over others and their wills, and since mastery through work is a waste of time to him, he turns to shortcuts.
From there, it’s not hard to see where the thought process goes. Since strength is to him based on control and mastery, he picks something that gives him more command over the road in a direct and in-your-face way. The man who drives a lifted Ram 2500 can confront you by running you the fuck over. By contrast, in his opinion, cyclists are entitled jackasses in miniscule booty shorts who can only confront you on the road by screaming “CRITICAL MASS! FUCKING CAGER!” and throwing sparkplugs at your windows. The difference in power dynamic is proof enough to our friend of who the “real man” is.
To take the mentality to its conclusion, the easiest way to gain mastery in general is through authority, and the easiest way to get that, even easier than joining a gang, is by becoming a cop.
Localhorst86@feddit.de 11 months ago
smaller, therefore easier to hide. Not registered with a central authority like, for example, cars.
Zron@lemmy.world 11 months ago
There’s plenty of cases where they don’t look for cars either.
Or the cops themselves just straight up steal the car themselves.
My wife’s car was ordered to be towed by, according to the impound lot, the police.
Neat thing was that there was no ticket with the car, no police station within 3 miles had a record of a ticket for her or the car, and the area she had parked had no signs that suggested it was illegal to park where she did, nor does the city have any ordinance about overnight parking.
Best we can figure, is a cop or the tow company that works with the city, just decided to tow a car for funsies and the 500 bucks it took to get it out of impound.
The police and every organization associated with them are corrupt to the core.
tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Reading that I almost had a thought like it must have been a mix-up or something, but no, US police will murder people with less thought, so that type of fuckery is completely expected.
snowe@programming.dev 11 months ago
There is bike registration. bikeindex.org
It’s helped track down bike trafficking gangs sending bikes to Mexico. The police just don’t care at all
tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Love bikeindex, I actually got my stolen bike back thanks to that site. It was literally two years later but still, the police wouldn’t have even made a report probably in the city I was at, with bike theft so ubiquitous.
Redex68@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’m pretty sure any petty theft is very hard to track down. Not just bikes, if someone broke into your house and stole some minor things it’s almost certainly not gonna get found. Bikes are the same, it’s very easy to resell them and repaint, and nobory registers bikes.
Rediphile@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Because even if they look for it and find it, whoever is riding just says it theirs and there is literally nothing the police can do unless it was caught on video or there is a meaningful identifying feature like a serial number or something else specific and unique.
Seeing a sketchy guy with a black and red bike with the same bike rack you had isn’t enough to prove anything.
If an officer approached me riding my bike around and asked me to prove it’s mine, I couldn’t either despite not being a thief.
Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
They only care about property loss when it involves rich people.
SlikPikker@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
Which proves that cops really DO actually do their jobs.
Because protecting the property of the rich is the exact core purpose of policing.
Coasting0942@reddthat.com 11 months ago
Technically it’s maintaining social order. So get back to work menials or be reported to the Enforcers for organized discontent.
ICastFist@programming.dev 11 months ago
Maintaining social order, especially in the form of violent repression against demonstrations, indirectly protects the rich’s properties, so all in a day’s work.