Bill Whitaker: Wacoans to learn plenty about bikers, ballistics and the Bill of Rights...

Waco Tribune ^ | June 14, 2015 | BILL WHITAKER Opinion editor

[don-o]

Four weeks after the deadly Twin Peaks shooting melee that left nine bikers dead, 177 others in jail with million-dollar bonds and way more questions than answers about biker subculture, due process in Waco and conflicting crime narratives, the two sides in all this are only hardening in their positions. In short, a microcosm of the American way.

Some vigorously support local law enforcement. They say the facts that bikers came to Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant well-armed and that search warrants reveal many wore colors of motorcycle gangs associated by the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety with criminal activity, organized and otherwise, justifies the bikers’ incarceration and high bonds.

anip

The Trib may well have to revise its own estimation that the Twin Peaks dustup won’t leave a stigma attached to Waco such as that spawned by the 51-day Branch Davidian siege of 1993, which sparked wild conspiracy theories while leaving Waco with a black eye that had only recently begun to disappear. With legal questions revolving around interpretations of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth amendments — including the right to wear motorcycle gang colors if you so choose — there’s enough constitutional grist in this complicated saga to keep state and federal courts busy for years. And that’s allowing also for a conspiracy theory or two. It’s the American way.

[Finny]

THANK YOU for your civil approach. Please indulge me and understand where I am coming from. I speak from 58 years of personal experience growing up and living among very ... elemental ... folks. I have no tattoos, no motorcycle, and I take great care to dress in a way aimed to create the impression I intend. You are preaching to the choir with all your observations of the stupidity of dressing stupid. But here's the point -- within the laws of America and the laws of my Savior, people are FREE to be who and what they are, the way they are, in any form they desire, as long as they treat others the way they'd treat themselves.

I may not like the way they dress, but it's not my business and certainly is well beyond my ability to control. In this entire world, there's only ONE thing that I control: my actions. In this entire world, there's only ONE thing that you control: your actions.

Disapproving of looks, choices, behaviors, is good for entertainment, but when it comes right down to it, it is all vanity. The ONLY thing that matters is how a person treats other people. If you think that well-dressed people are more intelligent, or more inclined to treat people in a Christian manner than rough-looking ones, then you have had limited experiences, that's all I can say.

I think tattoos are dumb, and my excellent lectures (!!) echoing your own, of paying a price for the appearance you project, has been wasted on more than one young loved one! {^) You should see me on tattoo threads -- IMO, most tattoos are conventional ways of jumping up and down and yelling, "Hey, look at me, I'm unconventional!" Tatoos on most people (exceptions include soldiers/warriors and tattoos done during one's stupid youth) represent lack of originality, lack of independence, and vulnerability to peer pressure, not to mention short-sightedness. I do however love and respect tattoos on warriors because they signify an honor-based bond among men.

But rey, I have fraternized with, lived with, been related to, worked with, and loved MANY people whose "costume" and appearance includes tattoos you would hardly believe, not to mention crazy hair, wild clothes, gnarly outlaw Harleys made "from scratch," etc., would evidently scare you to death.

I know for certain fact that appearances, especially in the past 20 years, are EXTREMELY misleading on all counts, more and more so as pop culture bastardizes and popularizes "thug" fashion. I don't like it, I can't change it, and I know for a certain sure fact that I know a lot of very scary-looking people who are princes and kings.

I KNOW it. It isn't an opinion, it is an experience. It is why I know that only a very small percentage of bikers with tattoos and black leather and club jackets, are what you apparently think they are.