Originally Posted by
perico
Wear your helmet stupid, aside from car wrecks (drunk driving), being killed (either in a gang or wrong place wrong time), not wearing a helmet is something like the third biggest killer of people under 35. Stupidity is a preventable disease, although not wearing helmets might cure hipsters of being hipsters and convert them into hospital patients. Not wearing a helmet is just as stupid as not wearing a condom, not wearing your setbelt or jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. And if you dont ride with a helmet, you dont have my respect and you wont have my sympathy.
I guess you dashed this off without really thinking about it. However, I'd encourage you to think
really really hard about what you have written.
Some points to ponder:
- is not wearing a helmet really contributing that much to deaths under 35? You might want to check this one out a bit more. Google is your friend. (Hint - you are way off the mark. Way way off.)
- Is not wearing a helmet really as stupid as not wearing a condom? I have a monogamous relationship with my wife, and we are trying for a baby. Wearing a condom would be really rather stupid for me, don't you think? (Hint - clarity of language is important. Think about your analogies more carefully. Do they really help inform the debate?)
- You wouldn't give your sympathy to someone who wasn't wearing a helmet? If you came across someone who was in a wheelchair because he was hit by a truck whilst riding without a helmet and the truck ran over his legs (but his head was uninjured), you'd not offer him any sympathy; you'd rather say to him 'dude, I don't respect you coz you weren't wearing a helmet so it's your own stupid fault you're in a wheelchair'? (Hint - think about what you write, how vindicive it sounds, and try to have some humanity and humility.)