The 2009 legislative session has come and gone and the helmet law remains mandatory in Nevada. Motorcyclists across the Battle Born State of Nevada united and fought gallantly to regain freedom of choice but loss once again to the spineless legislators who ignore statistics and facts to protect their political security. We live in a changing country, one that wants to take responsibility for your care, actions and decisions. Respecting personal freedoms and personal choice is becoming the political (old school) way of thinking. Citizens need to speak up and express their opinions or our legislators will continue on their merry way, taking our freedoms and increasing your taxes to give you more government promises. This process makes government larger and more powerful and you, the citizen, weaker and more dependent on government amenities. Do you know how you catch a wild pig? If you don’t, ask me, and I will tell you.

ABATE has been successful in gaining recognition, and I believe respect, in our community as a political rights organization. We are involved in local and state politics and know many of our politicians on a first name bases. We have developed working relationships with our state motorcycle rights organizations. Our next step is to become more involved and active in the election process. We may not be able to change the minds of our legislators, but we can change our legislators! And that is what we must do. Legislators that have a history of voting in favor of increasing government’s size over Nevada’s citizen’s personal freedom need to be removed from office and replaced with those who respect and uphold personal rights.

I see an internal problem in ABATE that must be recognized. All of our past ABATE leaders and most aggressive freedom fighters over our 30 year history have burned out and are no longer active. This is a terrible loss of knowledge and strength. I look back at my first legislative hearing and think about how much easier it would have been with help from someone who had prior experience. This is true with most of our efforts. I am seeing it once again, we have members that have given so much but are growing tired. We need these warriors to stay active to mentor our upcoming freedom fighters, these are our elders and they have much wisdom to share. There have always been only a handful of members that do most all the work; I guess it will always be that way. We can not expect the same people to do most the work most of the time. Please, we need members to step forth and ask to become more involved. Let our elders know how much you appreciate them and what they have done.

As a good, responsible citizen you should be involved in politics so to some degree. Because of my ABATE involvement I have become politically active. As president of the organization I know it is my responsibility to be involved, to set an example. It is very unlikely that I would have become a precinct chairman, a county delegate, a member of the Republican Central Committee, a lobbyist, a State MRF Representative if I wasn’t an ABATE member. I have now been asked to run for county commissioner, we’ll see. In the past, becoming politically active felt very uncomfortable, like maybe it was doing something too controversial, maybe something my employer would not approve of. I know now that the most destructive thing you can do for our country is nothing. To be politically involved is our nation’s only salvation. Without the checks and balances from citizen involvement, human greed for wealth and power will inevitably rule us. The shift is happening now as our national debt grows and government usurps power of our financial institutions and industries. I am proud of my ABATE affiliation, and my political involvement. Those that might question my involvement are wrong, they are selling our future because they are doing nothing, their heads are in the sand. Those that I worried about judging me are those that are to be judged. Their lack of involvement is inexcusable, and pathetic.

It’s ok if the helmet issue is not yours, but what issues do you care about? Step forth and get involved, let it be known you have an opinion, a passion. Let it be known you care about our county, state our nation. I promise you, getting involved will make you proud.

The annual May Blessing of the bikes was bigger than ever with about 60 bikes in the park to hear Ozzie Jones’s sermon. The open mike gave time to update everyone with planned summer activities. The POW/MIA Missing in America Project was discussed and became a huge success later in the month. Thank you POW/MIA members, Dorothy Minor and others for all your effort to assure such a successful event.

Our annual ABATE Beatty Run was great as always. We had good participation with eight bikes in Eureka Thursday night for the Keyhole bash. I think it has something to do with being cooped up during winter for 6 months that primes us for the first spring ride. I’m talking about letting your hair down, getting down, on the ground, in the bar, all night, into morning. Just some good old, small town, watermelon crawl is what I’m talking about. The next day, sometime late the next morning we set out for Tonopah. From Tonopah we stopped for a short visit in Gold Point, if you’ve never been to Gold Point, it is a must. I can’t even describe the place; you’ve just got to see it to believe it. After a couple of days in Beatty everyone headed back to Elko but me, and I proceeded west, to spend the next week on a 1,700 mile road trip on the 51 Pan. I am pleased to say without the expected mechanical challenges. The first night I stayed in Lee Vining. The next day I went over Sonora Pass because Yosemite Pass was still closed by winter snow. From Sonora to Mariposa, found old friends there and stayed the night. From Mariposa to Merced, visited my parents graves and then to Dos Palos to spend the remainder of the week with my brother Jody. Jody has a 45 servi car and we trailer it to a bike shop called “45’s forever” in San Jose just for kicks to see what the shop as about. We got some good tips and got it running by the next day. By the end of the week Yosemite pass had opened so I rode back to Lee Vining and spent the night again there. Friday afternoon I met up with Connie at the Run-A-Mucca event. Connie is writing for Thunder Press now and her first assignment was to cover Run-A-Mucca. It was a great trip, I found it both interesting and entertaining how many times another motorcyclist would come up to me at a gas station and tell me my bike was leaking oil. What am I suppose to say? It’s supposed to leak oil, or I’m sorry? I have concluded that the presence of oil and grease is a good thing, certainly nothing you should apologize for.

John Bland - ABATE Northern NV President, MRF State Rep.