Motorcycle Gang Trouble in Eureka Springs

The Morning News is reporting that members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang ambushed and beat with baseball bats at least four members of the Banditos motorcycle gang after an event in Eureka Springs. There are two very different things I want to say about this, and I shall begin with the least important...

The Banditos have traditionally been a southwestern gang, but changing demographics have likely resulted in an expanded territory for this group. For that matter, the Hell's Angels have traditionally been concentrated in the West. That makes it a little interesting that the members arrested for the attack were from the Northeast, which has traditionally been the turf of an outfit called the Pagans. Still, as the largest gang in the country, they have a national reach.

Let me now move to the more important part of this story. To do it, we will have to do more than describe a series of events, we shall have to put them together and discover what the sum of it means. Now let's compare the increased incidents of lawlessness in Eureka Springs with Fayetteville's "Bikes, Blues & BBQ's". It is a much bigger event than the one in Eureka, but they have much less trouble. Why? Here is what Events Coordinator Nelson Driver says about it, "The 1 percenters, the bad boys of the club world, don't like coming to a family-friendly event where they're tripping over baby strollers," Driver said. "We've had people call to say they'd bring their buddies down if we'd drop the family orientation, and my reply has been that they should stick to Sturgis." Sturgis, S.D., hosts a motorcycle rally each August that is one of the top such events in the nation."

Did you get that? The family friendly atmosphere keeps the worst of them away. It makes it an unappealing place for the evil element. Eureka Springs is trying as hard as it can to repel the family element as evidenced by their not-so-subtle recognition of homosexual unions. Of course, they would reject that assertion saying that they just want to recognize "all families", but you shall know them by their fruits. The wildest and meanest bikers in the country avoid the Fayetteville function because the atmosphere reminds them of what real family life is like. The atmosphere in Eureka Springs apparently does not. Families and children throughout human history have had a civilizing effect on young men (and women). Those who consciously reject the idea of being civilized reject that environment.

Eureka Springs has chosen the path of moral relativism, but where does it lead? Those of us with goodwill for the city would ask her to consider well if she really wants to travel to that parched and barren land. We have visited and loved that city in the places of our memories, but our futures are separate ones as we seek virtuous paths of light and life.