Some freelance socialist not only stole my bike from in front of my house, but left the lock. The deliberate taunting seems highly unnecessary.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Freelance socialist? What makes a thief a freelance socialist? Is this an inside joke I am missing?
Well, apparently this socialist hadn't heard of unions and hadn't demanded a full-time position with benefits. What a dumb socialist.
On another note, if people are paying, even freelance, for socialists I am for hire.
Haha, people you disagree with are like criminals. Yucks and away and set sale for good humor.
Guys, if I can't make fun of a political philosophy which is now subscribed to by, at a first approximation, no one, then what can I poke fun at?
But yes, I think nationalization of private property without compensation is theft.
Wait, wouldn't a socialist have demanded that the state appropriate your bike for him?
A Heinleinism, I thought. But Google doesn't find many instances of the phrase, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985) seems much too late.
Avram: Wait, wouldn't a socialist have demanded that the state appropriate your bike for him?
The freelancer is thinking, L'État, c'est moi.
The expression "freelance socialist" appears in Heinlein's Time Enough For Love(1973)--it refers to an armed robber who tried to rob Joe and Llita's restaurant..
And yes, of course it's theft. Did you know that Mexico celebrates "Nationalization Of The Petroleum Industry" (Dia de la Expropriacion Petrolera) as a national holiday? Here's what Standard Oil had to say about it:
I bet the Mexican Government also took the drillers' bicycles.
That's right. No one. Hugo Chaves, Evo Morales, Fidel Castro, and Michele Bachelet don't really exist. Cuba doesn't exist. Neither does Brazil. All those "Brazilian" steaks actually come from Iowa.
Also nonexistent: the new Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his party, the "Spanish Socialist Workers' Party". Also, Sweden, Denmark and Finland don't exist- it's all ice n' polar bears wearing tutus up there. In fact, let's face it, nothing outside of the US really exists- it's all a horrible, horrible dream.
My heart bleeds for Standard Oil.
1940. Oil: Mexico's Position
The interesting point here is, your lock was obviously insufficient. If you're going to park it outside for extended periods in the big city, you're going to have get a hella tough lock and probably also disable it (by removing the front wheel, for which purpose you can get quick-release hubs I believe). Then if the thief steals it you at least have a wheel.
That was a little joke.
Actually, plenty of people still consider themselves socialists. For some reason the terms leaves plenty of room for capitalist economies -- see "Scandinavian socialism".
That said, "freelance socialist" would have been a perfectly fine joke in Berkeley in 1968. It's a joke. It's fine.
Freelance socialist is an oxymoron, like libertarian police chief. This person was plainly a devotee of Proudhon, hence taunted you by leaving the lock. Or possibly it's just heavy and the thief is really, really sure that is useless.
Just like 'Conservatives are just a bunch of Nazis' is a perfectly fine joke in 2007, brooksfoe. Why didn't I think of that?
I was just kidding.
Why does he want a lock that doesn't work?
A note that said "Get a better lock" would be taunting.
atheist, I mean "freelance socialist" would have been a perfectly fine joke AMONG SOCIALISTS in Berkeley in 1968. Really, it's fine. Socialists used to be able to kid among themselves about property rights. The inverse version of the joke used to be "Well, okay, property is theft...but so is theft."
Stealing bikes is actually kind of a seminal theme in that whole issue. When the Provos won the city council elections in Amsterdam in, I believe, the '70s, they instituted a "white bikes" program: free government-provided bikes on a take-it-and-leave-it-for-the-next-fella honor system. It lasted maybe a year; all the bikes were stolen. Over the course of the '70s and '80s, however, as the heroin junkie population grew, an equal and opposite reaction occurred: bicycle theft became so universal that no one bothered to buy expensive bikes anymore. The city's bicycle stock became almost exclusively composed of crappy, single-gear rusty beaters. In this, the stupidity of buying an expensive bike that would only get stolen merged with the ingrained Dutch distaste for ostentatious displays of wealth. When your bike was stolen, you could go down to the street market and buy another one (or, often enough, the same one) from a junkie for the price of a fix. In this case, "freelance socialist" becomes an almost accurate epithet.
Eventually, Amsterdam's heroin using population shrank, the economy and property values took off in the '90s, a right-wing populist shift dented the Dutch distaste for showing off your money, and people started buying expensive new bikes again.
On the other hand, the taunt used by Dutch soccer fans in the big games against the German teams in the early '70s was "Give me back my grandfather's bicycle!" Which was more about National Socialism than the regular kind.
Whatever, brooksfoe, maybe people in Amsterdam used that saying as an actual joke. You know damn well McArdle didn't use it that way.
er, not to rub salt in your roadrash, but why exactly was your bike outside? I know not everyone thinks a bike should be in the house, but then I don't think animals should be in the house :shrug: Thing is, bikes are much happier and healthier, if they don't stay out in all kinds of weather, and they hate the night all alone. So, the next one, maybe when you shop for it you should take a look at it's ability to be thrown over the shoulder, see if you have stairwells that are too narrow, and so on. There are hooks and storage systems galore for the inside of your apt. that'll keep it out of the way.
Delta names them after artists
Or Maybe your apt. mgr and you can see a need to go halvsies or something on a storage locker, or maybe more outside:
Bike Storage Locker
Think of it in these terms... this is a way for you to not ever have to buy another bike after the next one is stolen. Thus you save future money by spending it now. Or something... I had 2 stolen successively in school, years ago, even with the large U-lock. They simply cut the mild steel of the rack instead of the lock and took the whole thing. That set a course for me to bring down the number of opportunities to allow people to steal it... and I haven't lost one since...
Don't give up on riding because of this... it's only a minor setback.
"Freelance socialist" = comedy gold.
And -- surprise! -- the socialists are a humorless bunch. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was right on the tip of the tongue, I'm sure.
any chance he was stupid enough to leave fingerprints on the lock?
Chris, that's a much better chance than the chance that the DC police would take the trouble to dust the lock for prints, let alone make a serious effort to try to apprehend a bicycle thief even if Megan could give them his name and address...
He might've been doing you a favor. I believe that some lock companies offer a warranty and if you provide them with a broken lock and a receipt (and likely a police report?) they pay you the worth of the bike.
And why does firefox say "might've" isn't a word? That's slang??
People who think "freelance socialist" is a good joke are the same sort who had to change their underwear after reading The Fountainhead.
any chance he was stupid enough to leave fingerprints on the lock?
Dude, he could have fucking signed it and taken a Polaroid of himself stealing it and the police probably wouldn't do anything. That kind of small crime tends to be ignored by the cops.
brooksfoe, what the hell are you talking about? The Netherlands's free bike program is still in force. I was there just this summer, in fact. Now, they no longer make them all white, but it's the same principle: at any bike depot, you can grab one and ride it to your destination.
You just go up to one you like, break its connector (use a rock or something, some recommend bolt cutters), and ride off, then drop it at the nearest depot when you're done. I saw most of the people there brought there own connectors, but presumably someone will add the connector if you didn't provide one.
There's quite a diversity of high-quality bikes, so I consider it a success. They do have some weird customs for it though, so don't be surprised if you get funny looks when you take one.
Actually, Person, there is at least one white-bikes program still working: at the Krolle-Muller art museum, which is in the middle of a protected pine forest. You can pick up a bike at the parking lot, ride it to the museum and around the nature trails, then leave it at the end of the ride. I think it's just isolated enough that nobody would steal the bikes.
Perhaps it was a freelance tax official?
A friend of mine received a worse taunt, many years ago. Someone stole his bicycle chain and lock, and left the bike.
Actually, I think it was a freelance Libertarian, exercising his right to be free of statist conventions like 'laws' or 'morality'.
You should consider yourself lucky that his spirited commitment to his own desires touched your bike. He was unbound by consideration for the vulgar mediocrity of people who ride bikes and depend on them for transportation. His blessed, spiritual sense of selfishness rebelled against the stifling constraints of society. After he stole your bike, he drew a bike frame in the dust and started a revolution!
All of this commotion about the thief's political ideology misses the obvious clue. Why did he leave the old lock? Couldn't be plainer: the man has a neo-Lockean theory of property.
I have also had my bikelock stolen, with the bike being left behind. Maybe the person with my lock stole your bike. :P