Thomas More
Thomas More is an American expat who has taken the road less traveled, and to quote the poet Robert Frost, "that has made all the difference". He shares his impressions and thoughts of interest with other men making their way through the Western world.
What exactly are our rights when dealing with the police? I have to be honest here and say I as well as many others are highly suspicious of their nature. I want to first mention that as a law abiding citizen I am not anti-cop. I think Fred Reed sums it up best in his cop columns:
You may not like cops. Few do. They can be arrogant, impatient, rude. They can weary of a demanding, complaining public. Most are good people. A few are not. They are what we’ve got. They are out there, 24/7, with the psychopaths, the crash victims with the cartilage white where the flesh is gone, the week-old dead found by the reek, the snot, the blood, the cum, the maggots, the screaming half-crazed fifteen-year-old rape victims, the charred children caught in the fire with their guts exploded, the aged drunk women pissing in their pants in alleys and trying to crawl, the baby’s brains on the windshield. You might get a bit odd too. You might get real damn odd. Think about it.
However there is a problem that has to be addressed, and that is quite simple: as the United States moves from a free society to a neo-sovietized one (yes I know America is already considerably less free today, but relax, it’s going to get even worse), the police essentially cease observing the traditional motto of “to serve and protect the community” and become the mere tin soldiers of the current system.
Unfortunately you will find yourself having to deal with the police sooner or later. Although they hold the upper hand and regardless of how thuggish some may be and what they may say to you in order to manipulate you into giving up your rights, it behooves all of use to know the best way to proceed. Bear in mind that most of the times dealing with the men in blue (some are now the men in black SWAT attire) is NOT a matter or win or lose, but rather a matter of break even or lose.
The videos posted here may not necessarily give us a definitive answer, as interactions with law enforcement is anything but linear. The answers may lie somewhere in the discussion to follow this article. There are many mitigating factors: including the community, situation and the temperament of the officer in question.
How did some police go from decent men who walked our streets i.e. the constable on patrol, to become, to put it politely, over enthusiasts with badges? How did some become the mortal enemy of John Q. Public? One factor I would wager is when they became separate from their beat. That is to say that their patrol commonly is not in the same neighborhood where they live. Back in the day, the cops were locals and judged situations with a certain level of compassion and there were either no arrest quotas, or none like today. The genuine violent piece of shit were dealt with properly (police station walls were painted red for a reason).
By the same token, your typical Friday night drunk and disorderly only rated a slight kick in the pants, just enough to wake the guy up. Often times the cop usually knew him and would say, “Go home Harry before I call your wife,” knowing full well that being yelled at by the ol’ ball and chain would serve as a better deterrent than any amount of lock up could.
Today it is common to have the police posted in areas where they are strangers to the community. When they are not working, many members of the law enforcement insulate themselves from the civilian population. They hang out with other police and personnel and reside in communities whose neighbors are also police. Most disconcerting is the overall attitude they have about people. I have a friend who was a cop, and he told me the police see people in two classes: us and them (i.e. those who work in law enforcement, and those who are the masses to be treated like sheep). Many members of the police tend to have a dislike for people in general which gets exasperated by both the media and having to deal with genuine lowlifes on a daily basis.
Why criminalize men for no reason? There are several factors, one of them being privatized jails. Over-criminalization has an obvious purpose: to increase municipal revenues for city and state and even the federal system. Essentially any man today in the States could be fined or arrested for anything, and in fact I would wager between all the unreasonable laws that exist and the extreme penalities for violating such laws, that it is somewhat impossible for any man in the USA not be in violation of something. This is of course, how things were during the Soviet Union.
To give you an idea of what privatized jails are about, visit these links:
We have the highest per capita jailed citizenry than any other nation in the world. Justice, among many things about the USA, is becoming corrupted. Although the percentage of privatized jails is quite small, given the current trends of America I see the number of non-state owned incarceration services and institutions growing over the next few decades.
So what can one do? The Flex Your rights video touches on the basics: always demonstrate respect even if the police officer is not showing any. Never show aggression, because remember: at the very least the State will try to throw an absurd fine your way for revenue purposes. Worse case scenario a good Rodney King beating and a night in jail could be added in for good measure.
As mentioned earlier, it does depend on the officer and the circumstance. It may be a bit over the top to say that the same training and indoctrination used to make the police callous might have been used when training various personnel in the German extermination facilities, but without a doubt officers today are instructed to become detached from civilization in order to properly fulfill their directives regardless of how unconstitutional the directives may be (increase revenues, arrest quotas).
Knowing the kind of mindset the police have, I have found that it’s best to always remain calm and never show fear while at the same time never showing anger either. Smile. Yes, if done at the right times and not too much, smile like he is an old buddy of yours you have not seen in a while. Don’t overdue it, but smiles can be a powerful interrupt, and when a cop is trying to be a brute, a pattern interrupt is what you need. I’m not saying this is guaranteed to work, but it did work for me one time when I got pulled over. The key here is to break through the default robotic shell that the officer has built up through his police training. The more civil you are the better the outcome in the end, including if your case comes to court.
These are indeed difficult times we are living in for those of us who are fully aware of what freedom is. We are witnessing first hand society becoming more toxic, stupid and tyrannical to men with each passing year. But Sun Tzu said it best when he stated to “Choose your battles wisely”. Dealing with today’s police requires a finesse until a civil war comes to pass or some other major shift that puts this country back to on constitutional terms, where everything across the board becomes sane again, including law enforcement.
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Thomas More
Thomas More is an American expat who has taken the road less traveled, and to quote the poet Robert Frost, "that has made all the difference". He shares his impressions and thoughts of interest with other men making their way through the Western world.
