The South has changed somewhat, this movie came out before Southern rock bands like the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd came along and long hair became fashionable in the South. There is still bigotry there as there is in other places but not as much as before, the South has mellowed but it still has a ways to go.
Drugs were different in those days. There was very little violence in the sub culture. Group such as The Brotherhood of Eternal Love were major players. "We believe in the sacred right of each individual to commune with God in spirit and in truth as it is empirically revealed to him." --BEL Charter, 1966
Better? Not really. I happen to think drug dealers are some of the most arrogant people I have ever met. Next to CEOs.
Ah, so you were thinking that from a stereotypical POV, rather than about the actual guys in the movie. Otherwise it would be no contest between them and the guys with the shotgun. I think we can both agree on that
Besides, your use of the word arrogant seems directly related to how they handled the situation with those guys in the car, and why they were not packing. Not to the fact they were drug smugglers!
They smuggled in Cocaine from Mexico at the beginning of the movie, then bought those choppers with the profit they made and went on a road trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but while they had drugs on them during the trip they weren't actually smuggling it to sell. Did you notice the black containers that contained the cocaine they sold to the guy? Fake motorcycle batteries used to sneak it across the border!
except the price of a candy bar. it was still ten cents when easy rider. it went up to 20 cents when first encounters of the third kind was playing. now its a buck and a half. and it was a nickle for decades before i was born.
And a bottle of Coke...a Cola, was ten cents and you got two cents back when you returned the bottle.
And grass was $10 an ounce. Funny how we've gone from Easy Rider to the cost of things back in the goodle days.