How far must rules be obeyed?

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

Box Car Racer:

Alright here goes, I didn’t use quotes, but you will know what I am talking about.

1. What if you are skating there and nobody tells you anything even if there are signs. Somebody tells you something, you leave, that simple. There are spots where nobody has told me anything…

It is not the responsibility of the property owner or manager to personally contact every potential skater in the vicinity and personally tell them they may not skate on the premises. That is the purpose of posting signs.
Box Car Racer:

…2. The city would never do anything like that because a lot of people are messed up and you barely touch their drive way and they want to blow you up. There are too many of those people to be outnumbered by skaters
3. Yes, I would be willing to pitch in a few bucks for repairs and paint jobs. They should put a sign up list or something and when you use the spot you pay like 50 cents or something. Damage it, you pay so and so…

Repairs to facilities damaged by skaters around our church and school (figuring in wages for maintenance staff, service fees for professional outside labor, and materials) can run to hundreds of dollars per incident, more if it involves concrete repair or welding. While we appreciate your willingness to pay for what you might damage, frankly we doubt if you can afford to do so and we would prefer that our facilities not be damaged in the first place.
Box Car Racer:

…4. How is that not loving my neighbor? Isn’t that their fault for being greedy with their property? I don’t graffiti things or break benches. They should get after people who do it, not people who want to skate…

Insisting that property be used for its proper use is not being greedy. Just as we can not afford to be forever repairing damages, neither can we afford to have someone investigate every incident and ban only those responsible. Even if we could, this doesn’t address the potential liability if we give permission for some skaters to use our facilities and someone is injured. Our only reasonable course of action is to ban all skateboarding
Box Car Racer:

…5. What if you aren’t damaging the property? What if you’re just jumping stairs? You aren’t de-painting any rails of anything. All you’re hitting is concrete when you land.

Some of the more expensive repairs we have to do involve damaged concrete, and there is still the issue of liability for injuries.

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

Trelow, you’re comparing severely hurting someone to a sport. There is quite a difference between shooting somebody and jumping some stairs. It’s like saying speeding during an emergency is wrong because masturbating during an emergency is wrong. Joseph, people who have enough money to sue somebody for that probably have enough money to make a skatepark in their backyard. What if you just dont sue them. It can be an honor thing. Those without honor can just damage property without skating anyway, even without the honor system. I just dont see why God makes us follow laws that dont conflict with our morals. Let me give you examples:

In Clarendon, Texas it is illegal to dust a public building with a featherduster.

In Houston, Texas it is illegal to sell Limburger cheese on Sunday.

In L.A. it is illegal to beat your wife with a strap wider than 2 inches without her consent.

In San Diego, California it is illegal to keep Christmas lights on past the second day of Febuary and you can get fined $250.

In San Francisco, California it is illegal for ugly people to walk down the street.
check for yourself at ahajokes.com/stupid_laws.html

are you still sure about following the law? After all, not only can it protect anti-catholic actions, but it can be stupid, too. You don’t even have control of YOUR property. No Christmas lights, come on.

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

…

 

[kage_ar]

Bottom line - private property means that it is owned by someone, and they have the right to say what can and can’t be done on that property. No skater, or walker, or flyer or rider has the right to tresspass.

No one here is going to tell you that it is okay to break the law so you can skate. If the law said you could not go to Mass or read the Bible - then someone would support your breaking that law. If your sport has no legal place to practice, then, find a new sport!

 

[kage_ar]

A quick google serch found www.livinit.org - Christian skateboarders. I’ll bet some digging around you could find some Catholic skaters - try www.phatmass.org forums, and see how other Catholics avoid sin yet keep skatin…

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

Thanks, ill check it out. But if theres any skaters here, feel free to help.

 

[pnewton]

Box Car Racer:

. I just dont see why God makes us follow laws that dont conflict with our morals. Let me give you examples:

You do understand the laws you posted come from a joke site, right. That should tell you that they are poor examples of the norms of law.

On private property, owners have the right to enact whatever rules they see fit. If you do not like it, build your own stairs and handrails with your money and knock your lights out.

On public property, rules (also know as laws or statutes) are morally binding. If you think they are ridiculous, then fight to change them. Has any of the skaters in the area sought to work through the system? Even if you are unsuccessful you might discover the reason such laws exist.

For example, many laws are designed to limit liability. Let us say that Billy Skater hits a bad patch of concrete or metal. He flips, cracks his head and is injured or dies. He (or his family) sues because the city did not maintain the location or have proper “No Skateboarding” signs in place. WIn or lose, the city is out the money. That means I, as a citizen, am out my share of money in taxes. All this to pay for a Billy’s hobby, because Billy is too cheap to build his own place to skate.

The skaters in our town pushed or city and they built a park for them. It is still surrounded by rules to reduce liability.

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

Box Car Racer:

…people who have enough money to sue somebody for that probably have enough money to make a skatepark in their backyard. What if you just dont sue them. It can be an honor thing…

Please let me know if you can find an insurance company that would be willing to consider insuring for damage and liability under circumstances with skateboarders purposedly operating under such an honor system (at or below the same premium with equal or greater coverage) as for damage and liability insurance under circumstances in which a no-skating policy is actively enforced. I’d be interested in seeing such a policy.

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

ok, here goes:

1. so you don’t have to follow obviously dumb laws like no walking backwards at night, right?(kind of like a separate question)
2. back to trespassing and Billy, i dont see how that relates to it. how can you trespass on the sidewalk? second of all, the dude wasnt careful. if he was going too fast, he knew the risks, if he was going slow, how did he die in the first place? the government can just say they didnt know because that obstacle in the sidewalk was recently made or something and get out of it. if you find a case of someone dying on the sidewalk and the U.S. getting sued, tell me.
3. name a pro who has never gotten arrested or cited. nobody. not even pros. trespassing is just essential to skating. check with any skater at a school (not a poser) and you’ll see what i mean. they’ve all got something on them, even me. One day some cops took down our ID and put us against the wall and talked to us for like 15 minutes. it started at a spot with no no trespassing signs. a guy had previously told us not to skate in the office area where the benches and good floor and stuff are, so we kept to the side walk right outside. another day the brother of the owner came outside and told us to leave but we got mad because we had just gotten kicked out of another spot. so i told him that we were kinda bummed because we get kicked out of spots but he didnt care and he called the cops. also, people think all skaters are the same. a lady at one spot said she told us three times or it was the third time, dont remember exactly, not to skate there, but it was the first time she told me, and my friend who was with me had never even skated there before. the cops even asked us if we had weed and i asked him whats with the stereotype and he got all mad and told me to cooperate. back to pros, buy a skateboard magazine or video. what do you see? schools, banks(where they keep money), etc. i guarantee it. ANY video whatsoever that skaters are talking about. ANY issue of transworld skateboarding. You’ll even find articles of people doing community service for it, school people coming out when a guy is gonna do a trick, letters of cease and desist, etc. I’ll quote something for you from transworld: " The lady at the volunteer office nailed it when she remarked, “So you basically get paid to break the law.” Well, technically…yeah." if the government cares so much to protect people, why dont people sue all the skaters in the world out there in stead of the sidewalk?
4. I went to that website of Christian skaters and asked how they get good without trespassing via email to the website guy. Still no answer. Thanks anyway for the link, though.
5. to wrap this post up i want to thank you guys, especially people like Joseph for always answering my posts even when you get tired of it, but i really need to work this out.

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

…

 

[Elliott]

We should strive to obey the law. We should try to live at peace with all men. Sometimes this is not possible, but we should try. Certainly if the laws go against God’s law then we are not bound by them.

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

where in the cathecism does it say anything about this?

 

[Elliott]

Box Car Racer:

where in the cathecism does it say anything about this?

The Bible mentions striving to live in peace. As far as not obeying laws that contradict God’s law, do we need to find that in the catechism for it to be true. It is logical. Also, The NT teaches that it is better to obey God than man.

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

well thats kinda my point if you’re just there doing your own thing and someone tells you to go away and you do how is that disrupting the peace? also, if the damaged concrete you guys were talking aboutearlier is stairs or ledges thats probably from axle stalls or 50-50s from which one could refrain and stick to jumping and flip tricks or boardslides

 

[BJRumph]

Box:

Has it occurred to you to look at the principle behind your questions? Anyone here can continuously respond to an endless list of laws, and defend why you are required, under Christian principle, to obey them.

This has been your expressed Principle: It should be OK to ingore other people’s rules, to the point of causing them harm (material, financial, or personal), for the sake of advancing my own skills, because their rules keep me from advancing in my recreational sport, or something else that I find personally amusing, as long as I ignore or do not intend the damage that is caused to others.

Do you think that this is a correct, Christian, principle?

Your intention and “honor” does not repair or prevent the damage from occuring; it just informs you, should you care to listen, that what you are doing is wrong. So, instead of a simple ethical question, you are now under moral forces as well, ie Sin.

And, if the property owners have to tell you to go away, when they have already expressed their will through signs; even if you go quietly, you have already disrupted their peace. You have forced them to take additional and secondary actions to enforce a peaceful and preemptive effort to create and maintain their peace. You have broken their peace by forcing them to enforce it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you have apparently focused so much on others’ “selfishness”, that you are failing to consider your own.

One poster identified reasons for constructing and maintaining personal property, such as a business’s or churchs’ staircase as being for the common good; but you have not demonstrated how your improved skills will give the common good a benefit that outweighs the good of the stairs; or how your improved skills will even provide you with a greater benefit than the stairs provide yourself and others.

Also, that one law is arbitrary, or even morally evil, does not invalidate any of the others; only the one that is wrong. As you obviously do not live in all of those cities that you cited, then the questionable nature of those laws does not have any bearing on the anti-Box Car Racer laws in your own community.

Perhaps a little reflection and prayer will show you the truth you need to find the guidance you are seeking, but are refusing to hear here. It is OK, we all are stubborn like that about one thing or another at some point(s) in our lives

 

[Box_Car_Racer]

what about people who’s career is skating? that’s not only amusement anymore it’s making a living. and unless you’re tony hawk you’re probably not going to have enough money to make all the staircases you need. would you rather be remembered as a grumpy person who just tells kids to buzz off or the cool guy who was different and let the kids skate? cuz what u guys r saying is concrete>good innocent memories of hanging out with friends skating. i don’t think i’ll change my mind soon, but hey thanks anyway guys.

 

[BJRumph]

But Box;
these are not just “good innocent memories” if you are breaking the Law/hurting others. You apparently understand what everyone has been saying, you just are choosing to reject the message. That does not denote “innocent” behaviour.

Besides, God has called us to be remembered as being Holy, not cool . Being Cool is about societal acceptance; Jesus has a great many things to say about that, the greatest being his Cross. Holiness is about being outside the world’s values (and therefore what it considers to be “cool”). Sure, those who are holy can be seen as cool, but only to those who are being called away from the world.

 

[CarolAnnSFO]

Box Car Racer:

what about people who’s career is skating? that’s not only amusement anymore it’s making a living. and unless you’re tony hawk you’re probably not going to have enough money to make all the staircases you need.

Still not a good reason for breaking the law, but here’s something you could try. Are there lots of young people where you live who would like a skate park? Under the category of “news articles”, google “skate park”, and you’ll find many news articles about how people your age and younger got skate parks built in their communities. They did it the right way, going through channels, appearing before the planning board, etc. This happened in the town I used to live in, so I know it’s possible. Maybe you could help get something like that started.

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