Officer Friendly: Incident XXIV

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Dave Ridley has some decent advice about how to deal with cops if you have to. It never is good to provoke the folks with guns and a presumed monopoly on local or 'state' power. This is especially true at the outset of a special family trip. Fifteen years ago I didn't back down when the trooper told me I had a suspended license and shouldn't be driving to a Red Sox game. Fortunately my 'client' (the reason I considered it work) flashed his license and volunteered to drive after realizing we might miss the game if I didn't back down quick. Officer Friendly.gif

A couple weeks ago, I backed down because I didn't want to disappoint my wife and son as we set out for a game this summer. I always slow down when I enter East Chatham because I too, live in such a small hamlet just over the hills. In fact, the trooper who passed just before this one, didn't have cause to stop me in the village proper as we passed. Apparently the one who sits right at the sign that changes it to 55 did, as I naturally increased my speed leaving the village down the straight away. As we were pulling into the house right there, he flew past and had to turn around at the Cottage Diner. It was enough time to shuffle everyone inside before the incident continued. While I'm no Dave Ridley, my limits of respect and caution are honed enough to know the limits of my rights and his presumed authority over me. I was none too happy about being told to get back in the car and he knew it.

I know I'm getting old when Officer Friendly is younger than my little brother. When he asked whether I had a license I responded in the affirmative and asked if he would like to see it, he was humorless. After going back to the car I found it, but not the insurance and registration. It's a brand new car and he got real testy when I suggested the registration could be found on the windshield.

The real problem came when he asked me to get back into the car. At that point all my nerves became geared around his authority to force me back into a vehicle on private property. When asked why, he blatantly insisted that I should do so because he told me to. As I reluctantly weighed my options between meaningful resistance or assertion of my own personal sovereignty against the disappointment of my son and wife if I ended up in quick custody, I complied with nothing but evil on my countenance for having to do so under what Kent McManigal might consider counterfeit conditions or laws. He started getting real prickly, demanding to know if there was a problem. How do you share your whole ethos in such an exchange ? It's not fair because he has the gun. But politely indicating that he has a job to do and should do it was enough.

Fortunately our friend at the house came out with a kid on her hip and approached his cruiser in a congenial fashion as I brooded like a trapped dog of the state. Any ticket would be irrelevant in my estimation at this point. I'd fight it or pay it. I had succumbed to the raw power of authority based on convenience, like all the other sheep in their purvey.

As he explained he wasn't going to give me a ticket, I despondently said OK. He asserted that there was a drastic problem of speeding in the area and that I should ask the homeowner about it. He asked if there was a problem again, because he felt there might be. I simply stated that was his assessment or opinion and he was welcome to pursue it has he saw fit or was within the confines of his authority, otherwise I had no comment. As he started to go back to his car, I snidely asked if leaving mine was alright now.

Later after my wife had assumed the wheel as I read about Earthquakes and Volcanoes to my son, I remembered that I had Crispin Sartwell's Against the State - an introduction to anarchist political theory, in the car. Having finished it already, I should have given it to him as an explanation of my discontent for the moment and incident. It might have set him off to bring more punitive demands against my being, but he might have also accepted it and actually read it. While I'm on a second passing of it in order to give it proper review, I could have surrendered it without much economic pain. Between my Cuban sandwich and Coke on the street later that day, the twelve dollars would have been a well spent opportunity cost.

So that's my challenge now. Got a bad situation with the government that simple talking or discussion won't solve because of a disproportionate level of power on one side (the State vs. You) ? Send them a complimentary copy of Professor Crispy's book to assuage your philosophical self assurance in the matter. School board doesn't believe in anything but collectivist assertion and prattling ? Send them a copy and ask them to refute it if they will. In the end it won't amount to much or probably change anything. But unless we resist on some meaningful (and peaceful) manner, we are all just vassals of those who pull the levers of the State.

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