If there were no implicit threat of violence, I (and most other people I think) would never stop for a cop in the first place, let alone utter a word to one.
A wide variety of government authorities occasionally walk around and talk to citizens - zone officials, fire fighters, etc. People talk to them without them carrying any threat of immediate violence (they carry the threat of later legal action sometimes but that's different).
You might be right about the cops depending on how you mean it. Now, American police may well have created some much distrust in public no one would willing speak to them, everyone would prefer some other level of authority. If you mean effective policing in general requires the constant threat of violence, I'd disagree with you there.
If people thought the reward for talking to a firefighter was a hundred dollar fine, they wouldn't be so willing to casually chat with firefighters either.
This is exactly why in the U.S. when there are evacuations for things like hurricanes, most towns and cities sometimes send firefighters to knock on doors and notify people. They used to send cops, but too many people simply wouldn't come to the door.
It depends on the situation. I have been approached by cops twice--and had no problem with talking to them.
The first case involved a detective investigating an accusation by someone we knew against someone else we knew. There was no suggestion we were anything but observers, no reason not to talk.
The second time was out at a trailhead, I had just finished a hike. They were working with search & rescue extracting someone who broke a bone. They correctly deduced where I had been and came over and asked about the snow conditions high on the mountain. In hindsight I was a little annoyed at how they asked it as I responded a bit too literally--addressing the snow conditions but forgetting the three trees that had fallen across the trail, one of which would have been a substantial obstacle to a stretcher evacuation.
In a working system you stop because someone needs something who provides a valuable service to society. And, we are all part of what makes that system work. That said, the USA does not seem to be there yet.
> In a working system you stop because someone needs something who provides a valuable service to society. And, we are all part of what makes that system work. That said, the USA does not seem to be there yet.
Personally speaking, I don't think the American ideology will ever lend itself to this idea. Our country was born out of revolution and inherent distrust for government. What you're describing seems to align itself more to a world where citizens have a cooperative relationship with government. Both attitudes have ups and downs, strengths and weaknesses, and potential vulnerabilities in my mind.
Australia was originally settled (by white people) by criminals and their prison guards, by your analysis we should be a bunch of people who never talk to the police. However this is not the case, most people will happily give the police assistance if they are asked. Whilst dobbing people in directly is not something that is in the culture, generally we don't fear the police.
Could be something to do with the fact that the police don't generally draw their weapons unless faced with violence.
Of course there are areas where policing is more direct and there are groups that have been historically given a hard time by the law, but these are comparatively small.
To my recollection the Australian government was formed because the colonies voted to unite in 1901. American government was formed to fight the British.
That is a warped view of history IMO :), America was born out of the idea that we can make a better place for everyone, one where everyone counts and has a chance to build the life they want (historically a big one was to practice their religion without discrimination as well). It wasn't born out of revolution, it was born from people escaping British society in order to live a better life. And, regardless that was a long time ago, we've reinvented it since then, it is a land of immigrants who want to build a better life for themselves.
I believe American Culture is one that supports each other and society, we have just lost our way and we are in a bit of a battle for the soul of America. It is being hijacked by super individualist who forget they are part of something bigger and that they have a responsibility to society as much as society should respect the individual.
If you have a bike accident people will stop to help. If your car breaks down, people will stop and help. If you have a medical emergency, people will stop and help. If you need directions people will help. The media likes to show fear and we think that is the norm, when in fact the vast norm is that we are always going to help our fellow humans. Cops are still human, despite really bad training that causes them to fear everything and everyone. If a cop asks you to stop and the only thing that makes you stop is the threat of violence I would seriously rethink who I am and my values.
> If a cop asks you to stop and the only thing that makes you stop is the threat of violence I would seriously rethink who I am and my values.
People who deliberately speed don't accept speeding tickets out of civic duty. If you accidentally went five over and are embarrassed by your mistake and want to make it right by eagerly paying the fine, good for you I guess. But if you are instead deliberately doing double the speed limit because you think it's fun and don't care about the law, you are clearly not the sort of person who is inclined to willingly accept the ticket because it's the right thing to do. If you were that sort of person, you would not have been racing your car on public streets in the first place.
There is not a country on this planet in which nobody ever chooses to willingly break the law and flagrantly act in antisocial ways. And there is not a country in this world which will not eventually resort to violence when all else fails to convince a criminal to stop committing his crime. You might be thinking that if the cops don't have guns, then what they do isn't violent. But if you think that, you're obviously wrong. Unarmed well trained police will still wrestle you to the ground when all else fails. Unarmed police officers won't shoot you for refusing to comply, but they sure as shit will manhandle you to the ground and wrestle you into handcuffs. That is violence, and the implicit threat of that violence is used to convince people to go along with them peacefully in a dignified fashion.
That's when our first/temporary government was formed, and it's purpose was the fight the British.
> I believe American Culture is one that supports each other and society, we have just lost our way and we are in a bit of a battle for the soul of America. It is being hijacked by super individualist who forget they are part of something bigger and that they have a responsibility to society as much as society should respect the individual.
We are a nation that celebrates political individualism, which is where the term "liberalism" (little L) comes from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism Individualism is not at competition with the characteristics you described, but it does put freedom squarely on the individual for better or for worse. The counter to this, which you might favor in the moment but regret in the long-run, is collectivism.
If I choose to drive 80mph in a 60mph zone, I am also going to choose not to voluntarily stop to receive a fine for it. I don't believe the average European is any different. The implicit threat of violence in Europe might be more tenuous, indirect or vague, but it is still there. Normal people don't voluntarily fine themselves if they have another choice.
A common assumption is that when dealing with the Police in the US the problem isn't that they will operate within the law and apply it as intended to punish you but rather that they will not operate within the law which almost invariably end with someone getting needlessly harmed.
So the issue isn't that you're speeding, the Police stops you and writes a $50 ticket. You voluntarily speed and voluntarily stop for the fine because you voluntarily try to avoid a bigger punishment under that system. The problem is that you're speeding, the Police stops you, overreact, pretend they saw something dangerous (smelled marijuana, something looked like a gun, you were acting suspiciously, had the wrong skin complexion, etc.), you get pulled out, roughed up, hurt, or killed.
Even if I were to assume that all police officers are perfectly honest and reasonable, virtually anybody who is choosing to break the law would also choose to not voluntarily subject themselves to the consequences. Nobody chooses to speed down the highway then calls the local cops to confess and accept the fine. And if police sirens were nothing more than polite requests to pull over, not demands backed by implicit threats of violence, virtually nobody who is choosing to break the law would heed those requests voluntarily.
But policing requires the trust of the public. How often, what percentage of interactions go not by the book, before people are worried that it will happen to them? Look at 9/11, so many people terrified of "terrorists" from a desert on the other side of the world while ignoring the local ones who had a pretty strong spree in the 90s.
Trust is earned, not given. Police and supporters can cry all they want about how rare it is for a police officer to shoot you with no reason or warning and get away with it, but the fact that it can happen more than once is enough to destroy any faith in policing for plenty of people
> A common assumption is that when dealing with the Police in the US the problem isn't that they will operate within the law and apply it as intended to punish you but rather that they will not operate within the law which almost invariably end with someone getting needlessly harmed.
I read a lot of nonsense about the US on Hacker news everyday to the point that it doesn't really bother me that much anymore (I assume it's just temporary ignorance that enough real life experience and context will clear up), but this does bother me for some reason. It's one thing to misrepresent the scale of something or not understand the nuance of something, it's another thing to literally make things up.
> If I choose to drive 80mph in a 60mph zone, I am also going to choose not to voluntarily stop to receive a fine for it
What nonsense is that? It's only the fear that the police officer will beat you that will cause you to stop. Not that you might wake up tomorrow to a towed car, a summons nailed to your door and a jail term?
> Not that you might wake up tomorrow to a towed car, a summons nailed to your door and a jail term?
Both enforced through the implicit threat of violence... What happens if I ignore a court summons? Eventually the cops will find me and wrestle me into handcuffs. And if I try to resist the tow truck driver taking my car, guess what they'll do? They'll call the cops. Or they'll put a lien against my property, which if I refuse to pay, will eventually culminate in me being wrestled out of the building.
And how exactly do you think people are kept in jails? If there were no implicit threat of violence, I'd just walk out of a jail. In many jails this would be possible, but when you do they'll send men to wrestle you into handcuffs and bring you to a jail with stronger security. And of course, they'd never have gotten me into the first jail at all, if not for their threats of violence.
> If there were no implicit threat of violence, I (and most other people I think) would never stop for a cop in the first place
I think this is outlandish. Most people are law-abiding and happily comply with the law and government authority without any threat of violence. I don't think I've ever had it factor into my decision-making.
> Most people are law-abiding and happily comply with the law and government authority without any threat of violence.
Most poeple have never had a practical opportunity to decide whether or not they will choose to comply with the law or government authority without any threat of violence, because the threat of violence is always present if they fail to comply.
This obviously does not mean that people would never comply if the threat of violence were removed. Much of the time the law aligns with what people would choose to do anyway, so compliance comes naturally. The interesting case are those where natural inclination is at odds with the law (or with the orders of a government official), and in those cases I think you might be overestimating the average person's willingness to comply without being forced.
You have taken a theoretical question - the definition of sovereign government and the monopoly on violence - and applied it to reality. It's Alice In Wonderland stuff. That's not how real people function, including (almost certainly) you.
> You have taken a theoretical question - the definition of sovereign government and the monopoly on violence - and applied it to reality. It's Alice In Wonderland stuff.
I'm not seeing an issue here. Theory which one cannot apply to reality is rather pointless; wouldn't you agree?
> That's not how real people function, including (almost certainly) you.
Which part are you objecting to, exactly? That (a) people tend to follow the law when it aligns with what they would have chosen to do anyway, or that (b) they tend not to constrain themselves to following the law when the law doesn't align with their own moral standards and no one is plausibly threatening them with violent repercussions should they fail to comply?
Why does there have to be an implicit threat of violence? If you didn't stop, the cops could take your license plate, find where you live, and send you a ticket for a much bigger crime. Cops don't have to use violence to solve all their problems.
If you continue your scenario, so that the subject refuses compliance even further -- does not pay the fine, ignores court summons -- physical coercion crops up when they are arrested, and perhaps later sent to prison. This may not be "violence" as you meant it, but it is one aspect of what people mean when they say "state monopoly on violence".
If you don't stop, cops will happily chase you in violation of department policy, endangering innocent bystanders[1], then shoot you when you are running away. If you happen to get away the next step is sending a paramilitary team to your house to shoot your dog and throw a flashbang in your baby's crib.
>Cops don't have to use violence to solve all their problems.
They don't have to, but its usually the first resort. There's literally thousands of hours of videos online of cops knowingly making illegal 'requests' on video and threatening arrest for noncompliance.
[1] I had to ride my motorcycle over a curb because a police SUV somehow thought he could outrun a race bike and came flying around a blind stop sign in my neighborhood at a fast enough speed to hit the opposite lane. Policy in my city is no pursuit.
Fake plate or stolen car and you probably can't prove who was driving anyway. That's why camera tickets are generally just fines to the registered owner, no points to the actual driver.
You might be right about the cops depending on how you mean it. Now, American police may well have created some much distrust in public no one would willing speak to them, everyone would prefer some other level of authority. If you mean effective policing in general requires the constant threat of violence, I'd disagree with you there.