[jdoliner]

Every time something like this comes up I'm reminded of one time I was stopped by a police officer walking down the street. I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around and was greeted by an officer in uniform, I wracked my brain trying to remember what I'd read on the internet about talking to the police and was just about to blurt out "Am I under arrest or am I free to go officer?" When he told me: "You dropped your wallet a ways back son, here you go" and handed it to me. "Thank you officer." I said sheepishly, and went on my way.

Not to say that this isn't great advice that people should follow in general.

[catalogia]

My rule of thumb is to treat cops the way I'd like to be treated if I was in their shoes. Which is to say, with a pleasant but firm demeanor. I don't consent to searches and I don't volunteer much of any information, but I treat them as respectfully as I'd treat any other stranger I encountered. Pleasant smiles, "have a nice day", etc. The same as I'd treat a retail worker.

My brother pulled the "AM I BEING DETAINED" routine with a cop during a traffic stop when he was 17 and it didn't go very well for him. Knowing your rights and being firm about it is important, but on the other hand you don't want to sound like a cop-hating sovereign citizen, since those of people make cops afraid and fear is not an emotion you want to encourage during interactions with the police.

[SamReidHughes]

What an amateur. Your brother should have told the officer his traffic stop was unconstitional, under the 1st amendment, because his driving is a form of self-expression.

[catalogia]

I know right? He didn't even cite maritime law and claim to be 'traveling'!

[solotronics]

Taking a step back and looking at the situation there really should be a way to "opt out" and still physically be in some part of the country. By that I mean opt out of taxes, any and all civil services, and public use things, basically everything that taxes pay for. There might have to be a zone of the country designated for this for "self sufficient community". Thinking about it Amish are already kind of this way already.

I'm not saying you should be exempt from laws but there should be some legal way to opt out of the system, as a safety valve at least.

[TheAdamAndChe]

When large groups of people congeal into one area, power heirarchies naturally emerge(power in this case being defined as the capacity to influence the behavior of others). Government is merely a codification of this power structure into (ideally) a stable system. If such an anarchist haven was made, it would most likely eventually form its own government, defeating the purpose of the anarchist haven in the first place.

[kjs3]

I saw someone do that at a protest and the officer said "I don't see any fringed flags so why don't I take you into custody until the Supreme Court rules". Amazingly, that deescalated the whole thing...apparently scrutiny isn't something Sovereign Citizens are big on.

[wavefunction]

imagine the sovereign citizen that sets a precedent for the rest of them >even though the precedents exist and apply to all of us already

[kjs3]

I imagine the precedent being set is all the contrived prattle the sovereign citizen folks spew (admiralty courts!) being comprehensively dismissed at one time. Be careful what you wish for.

[gus_massa]

The article recommend to start the conversation with

> Good {morning, evening}. How are you officer?

[wavefunction]

You're pretty lucky, I was held at gunpoint for a bit because I was in the vicinity of some reported gunshots many years ago. >we were just smoking weed and drinking tho and lucked out with 1/2 the cops