Colorado Republican: Bike Riding Is A Threat To Our Freedom
Meet Colorado Republican Dan Maes, candidate in the GOP Gubernatorial Primary, and apparently not a fan of bicycles:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”
“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.
Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”
“This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms,” Maes said.
He added: “These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”
Maes said in a later interview that he was referring to Denver’s membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an international association that promotes sustainable development and has attracted the membership of more than 1,200 communities, 600 of which are in the United States.
Denver became a member of the group in 1992, more than a decade before Hickenlooper became mayor. Eric Brown, the mayor’s spokesman, said the city’s contact with ICLEI “is limited.”
Sadly, the most recent primary poll shows Maes with a slight lead over his opponent Scott McInnis, who apparently got caught up in a plagiarism scandal last month. Of course, with Tom Tancredo entering the race as a third-party candidate, the odds of any Republican nominee winning the Colorado Governor’s race have gone down significantly.
The conspiratorial wingnuts are sure feeling emboldened. Tying anything to the UN is a sure sign.
Misleading headline. Check. Statements out of context. Check. If I didn’t know better I would say you’re learning from Breitbart. Except Breitbart did succeed in getting the message across fairly at the end of the day.
Bicycles friendly policies can indeed reduce freedoms. I’ve been cycling for more than 30 years yet I can see through the propaganda and realize what is going on. Bicycle friendly policies include reductions in parking spaces to encourage biking over driving, mandated bike racks paid for by builders and developers, and diversion of road funds into bicycle projects that increase congestion. Not exactly jack booted thugs stealing our liberties but none the less a reduction.
Being opposed to these policies isn’t necessarily being anti bike. These programs limit choice and cost money.
Weak…..
The bike program, championed by Maes’s Democratic rival John Hickenlooper, is immensely popular.
Maes is not. Witness:
“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.
Come to think of it, bicycles are pretty popular in Red China. Coincidence?
Steve….the bike program provides rental bikes in the city. There are no reductions in parking spaces. There are no mandated bike racks paid for builders and developers. There are no diversion of road funds.
There are kiosks where you can rent a bike and roll around downtown.
“These programs limit choice and cost money.”
No, they don’t. They give you an extra choice. Now you can take the bus, take the train, walk, run, or ride a bike!
As for the money ….it comes from grants, donations, and fees. It’s a non-profit 501C NOT sucking up a cent of your tax dollars.
To quote Ricky Roma, “Never open your mouth until you know what the shot is.”
“Come to think of it, bicycles are pretty popular in Red China. Coincidence?”
Worse coincidence: these bikes…are all red. A commie plot for sure!
It’s only a matter of time until the Mexican drug cartels AND the Chinese launch their bicycle attacks. Every bike rack, every bike lane on the roads, every two-wheeled peddler on our highways is an invitation to both the brown and yellow hordes to extinguish our precious freedom and enslave us in a drug saturated nanny state……
Funny that a statement by a Republican makes the new here, but when a Democrat makes the statement Stark did that government can do whatever it wants. That information is not posted here. Why? I do not live in Colorado and do not care one iota what their candidates say but when someone who is running for office on a national level makes a statement like Rep. Stark did, I would have thought an attorney like you Dougie would have taken issue with that. Seems you must agree with Rep. Stark.
Herb,
I am speaking of bicycles policies here in Oregon of which I am familiar with. Read my post again and notice my statement does not specifically refer to the Denver policies. I am speaking in more general terms and showing how unintended consequences come into play. I stand by my post and have yet to see any substantive rebuttal.
You know what really cuts down on our freedoms? Sidewalks!
Do you realize how much more freely we could drive with roads right up to peoples’s fences?
Steve, I don’t know much about Oregon’s bike sharing program, but I seriously doubt it’s as bad as you make it out. I tried to look it up, but all I found were a couple demonstrations last year in Portland but that’s it. In most of what I saw, the prevailing idea was “Let’s see how Denver and Minneapolis runs theirs and see how that works.” Sounds like it’s just an under-funded idea waiting for a Hickenlooper to put it together. (PS. Hickenlooper’s a liberal, true, but he’s also a successful entrepreneur with some vision.)
If you stand by your post, where are the diverted road funds and parking space reductions? We don’t have that. Does Oregon?
The ICLEI is sponsored by the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, a basic rework of the IPCC and the Cop-15 failure. They’re meeting August 10.
What this tells you is the UN is maneuvering, literally bypassing treaty ratification of any accords or treaties, to help make climate change a local norm.
@vidaestrada
Good grief, another conspiracy nutter checks in.