Protests Punching Down at the Vuelta

How to be more effective by not being a jerk

(Source: Piqsels)

Did your mama ever teach you that two wrongs don’t make a right? Almost certainly. But some mamas didn’t teach their children well, or some children didn’t listen to their mamas.

Like with all ethical principles, there are exceptions to the rule that two wrongs don’t make a right. Some great wrongs can only be countered by civil disobedience, by what Søren Kierkegaard called the temporary suspension of the ethical or what American Black defenders of civil rights call good trouble. What they all mean is that sometimes you need to break bad laws to stop a great injustice.

However, the ethical good of civil disobedience doesn’t give us free license to break any laws or social norms simply because we feel like it. Countering injustice requires intelligent discernment about what action to take and, very importantly, at whom to take action. Those who neglect or refuse to think first before action are acting like idiots or are just plain jerks.

The Jerko a Vuelta

The Vuelta a España is the last of the three annual Grand Tours of cycling, after the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Cycling is arguably the most challenging sport in the world, and it remains largely ignored in the US. That’s a shame.