Disciplinary Perspective as a Concerned

Disciplinary Perspective As a concerned resident of Mayfield District 23B, which is -- as you all know - a subdivision of the larger Mayfield-Lewiston metropolitan area and as an unashamedly proud and intrepid member of the less rigidly circumscribed Beaver county community -- Go Beavers! -- I feel that is my solemn duty to help this unofficial panel of equally concerned residents and equally active community members properly, if not adequately, address the precipitous rise in near fatal and/or potentially fatal bicycle accidents occurring in our neighborhoods, on our street corners, on campuses, etc.

We have an obligation to stop the injustice, to eliminate the threat, to save our children, our friends, our neighbors, innocents, from becoming the victims of maundering motorists, victims of loosely defined and irregularly enforced bicycling regulations, victims of substandard community action and vigilance, or victims of systemic apathy. In short, we have to show this community that we care about safety; we care! And our children are our future.

The way to show people we care is to pass comprehensive legislative reform that directly addresses the pitfalls of the current status quo of Beaver County bicycle safety and works towards shoring up the increasingly fraught relationship between bicyclists and motorists (many believe that these "accidents" may not be "accidents," but targeted strikes against feckless ingrates). In addition to the legislative reform we need complementary enforcement measures that ensure compliance and ultimately mitigate the potential for accidents. I have, at the behest of Dr.

Paul Crowley, an interim quality engineer at the Clark Country Water Reclamation plant, devised a three-tier program, consisting of three distinct disciplinary perspectives, that will go a long way to solving our bicycling problems. And I am here to humbly submit my plan for review. Tier 1: Policy Corrections and Amendments Although more are definitely needed, the following statues related to bicycle safety should be ratified by local and state municipalities ASAP: -Mandatory helmets for both bicyclists and motorists, it's only fair. -3 MPH speed limits for high-trafficked bicycle zones.

-Children under the age of 15 are prohibited from riding bicycles -Bicycles should always be walked across an intersection. Tier 2: Corporeal Punishment In a longwinded and rather insipid interview on Charlie Rose, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the key to effective foreign policy was striking the right balance between "carrots and sticks" (D. Rumsfeld, Interview, June 20, 2011). Well, I believe in a literal application of this unofficial political doctrine.

That is, I believe we should give free pre-peeled carrots to those who act responsibly while driving or riding a bike as well as to those who adhere to the new bicycle safety regulations and restrictions. Carrots would be a form of positive reinforcement and would incentivize compliance. On the other hand, those who opt to break the new laws would be swiftly punished. The punishment would be in the vein of the Singapore method, i.e. wonks on a violator's hindquarters with a brine-soaked rattan cane.

One could assume this disciplinary perspective would be maximally effective as Singapore boosts one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Tier 3: Pre-emptive Force One of the core tenets of the Bush doctrine is "anticipatory self-defense" or pre-emptive force. The idea is that in order to prevent a terrorist attack it is necessary to strike at the enemy before he/she/it can organize, coordinate, and/or execute an attack on the U.S. (Beres, 2005).

In order to prevent future accidents, it's necessary to adopt the disciplinary perspective of pre-emption. In short, we need to be proactive. We need to go after future violators. Now, unfortunately we don't have oracles vis a vis Minority Report, but what we can do is train an elite force of community watchdogs who will monitor bike paths and areas heavily trafficked by both bicyclists to look for non-compliance or non-optimal behavior. Punishment for non-optimal behavior will be meted out accordingly (rattan cane, non-soaked).

Discussion I strongly believe that these three disciplinary perspectives could be integrated to produce a society not unlike the one Winston Smith lived in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. And that's really the point of this satirical examination of disciplinary perspectives, to show how the integration of certain philosophies or disciplinary perspectives -- totalitarianism, mass surveillance, militarism -- can lead to the full usurpation of one's basic human rights. As far as solving the problems related to bicycle.