Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes warns that bike-sharing is a nefarious international conspiracy

Dan Maes, Republican gubernatorial candidate and current tea party favorite for the nomination, thinks that bike sharing programs are a plot to give cities U.N control. Months ago, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper,  a Democrat who is also running for governor, helped start a large-scale bike-sharing program in Denver. At first, Maes liked it, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was just a nefarious conspiracy. From the Denver Post:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are “converting Denver into a United Nations community.”

“This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed,” Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.

Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor’s efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.”

“This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms,” Maes said.

That’s right. Bike sharing programs are the first step to becoming a United Nations community. Of course, it’s a secret plot, and each step is designed to seem harmless and promising. But, then that incredible language: “that’s exactly the attitude they want you to have.” Who are “they?”

He added: “These aren’t just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to.”

Maes said in a later interview that he was referring to Denver’s membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, an international association that promotes sustainable development and has attracted the membership of more than 1,200 communities, 600 of which are in the United States.

Of course, don’t tell Maes that Denver joined the ICLEI in 1992, more than a decade before Hickenlooper came to office. But, then again, it could have been the same people that went back in time to plant Obama’s birth certificate in Hawaii.

“At first, I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty,” Maes said.

He said he’s worried for Denver because “Mayor Hickenlooper is one of the greatest fans of this program.”

“Some would argue this document that mayors have signed is contradictory to our own Constitution,” Maes said.

And, here were are, back around. The old tea party trope: “contradictory to our own Constitution.” One may think this a new course of crazy-attack, but there is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.