It is not every day that I get to demonstrate my principles in a concrete way to strangers. However, yesterday I had the opportunity.
I was driving down a busy road and a guy roughly my age, perhaps a bit younger, rear-ended me. I stopped at an intersection and received the shock of the collision. Luckily, it was relatively minor and I was not hurt.
I signaled the guy to pull over in a nearby parking lot so we could assess the damage and figure out how to handle the situation. The first thing the guy said is "I am sorry, do you want to call the police."
Never Call the Police
I said, "No. That is unnecessary."
But the guy was strangely insistent on calling the cops. He even admitted that he was on his phone when he hit me. He was overly apologetic. It was like he wanted to be punished. I didn't think it was a big deal, and my demeanor was calming for him.
I told him if we call the cops and you admit you were using your phone when you hit me they will give you a ticket. I don't think it is a good idea to call the cops. Let's just contact our insurance providers and have them work it out. As long as you fix my car, I am happy. Cops are not necessary. We can resolve this problem without authority.
He smiled real big, but looked apprehensive. I got the impression he believed he had no choice, and that he had to call the law. I reassured him that it is no big deal. We managed to get everything settled with the insurance company, and they have accepted liability with no need for filing a police report.
Moral of the Story
Never call the cops unless absolutely necessary, and even then, I would not recommend it. Police have a way of escalating simple problems and coercing people in the process. Sometimes, they even murder innocent people when they come out to "help." So instead of making that fateful phone call, act like dignified human beings and work cooperatively to solve the problem. Authority often makes things worse.
Sterlin Luxan is a visionary thinker, cryptocurrency junkie, connoisseur of psychology, an MDMA high priest, and the Mr. Rogers of Anarchism. He writes for bitcoin.com, runs a consultancy business in the crypto space, and is a public speaker. He created the doctrine of relational anarchism and contributes to many causes in the thriving liberty ecosystem.
This reminds me of Frank Furedi's work - his basic point is that as people become less empowered, they seek institutionalised solutions to their disagreements rather than sorting it out between themselves - another example might be getting the council involved if your neighbour is noisy rather than fronting up to him - of course all this does is increase the tension between the two parties.
As you say, if the particular institution you get involved is the police, then all you're doing is empowering them to escalate the situation into something more 'formal'.
This blog is quite simple in a way but actually one of my favorites I have read from you.
You are obviously a very intelligent intellectual not only questioning but discussing facets of consciousness as a human existence.
I very much appreciate this but the real life practical action of how you handled your self and the possibility you shared with this man is far more powerful than any psychological musings, discussions, advise, ideals etc.
This is honest, responsible living in action according to conscious principles.
Very great to read. I hope to meet up with you one day.
Best Regards~*~
Thanks a million, Quinn. That means a lot, brother. Let me know if you ever need anything. Hopefully, we can meet one day.
I am pleased this means a lot to you. My intention was such and am grateful the exchange is being had.
As I said this posts speaks volumes to someone like me, because I have seen so many smart people wax philosophical and still live "normal" lives. I have seen so many people talk the talk and sometimes even purposefully DO things to try and make other people think thats who they are, yet I can see/perceive in peoples actions "why" they actually do what they do.
I can tell that you were not doing this just to prove a point or write a post people would praise you for. You did it because this is who you are. You have actually integrated concepts into your embodied being.
I would like to meet you one day and I am sure it will happen because honestly most people are quite disgusting to my perception.
Respect and Blessings~*~
This was a diplomatic way of sloving matters.
It is not really a wise decision to call cops if the two of you can agree on how to solve the issue at hand.
There are times though when some people seem just so scared that they feel comfortable when the law is involved.
I conclude the man you mean careless .. it's been a human character sometimes does not admit his mistakes .. but I want to mensuport your behavior very wise .. thanks for sharing with us in steemit,, keep spirit @sterlinluxan
Yep 100% agreed:
Yes, you are correct cops make the situation more difficult.
That's why when I have trouble I call the Crips.
Here in Canada, I wouldn't have involved insurance either. Just have him pay for the repairs if they were minor.
That way insurance premiums don't increase.
Car insurance is the biggest scam on the planet. It's an absolute racket.
I couldn't agree more.
That could go wrong of course. Even if you exchange details he could later deny it, or say you backed into him or something. Someone should create binding ad-hoc contracts for payment of property repair contingent on repair by a mutually trusted third party.
That said I was once backed into by a guy who ignored my honking and went faster than my efforts to back away from him when I realised he wasn't stopping. The thing is my front end was already damage from a long ago accident that was never fixed. His collision basically did nothing but scrape some rust off old wounds. On surveying the damage he pulled out his wallet offered me $200 which I took and we parted company. No insurance, not even exchange of details.
However the acceptance of "pay to play badly" can also go badly wrong for other reasons. Look at some of these serial sexual offenders who are coming to light now who have used pay offs and settlements to bury a life of predatory and criminal behaviour. Because people kept taking their money or bowing to their "power" and not reporting things they were able to keep it up (no pun intended) un-checked and many more victims had to deal with their shit (and let's be honest, they are just the tip of the iceberg).
You could say the same thing about bad drivers - some like your cellphone user may take this as a warming shot, get the message and improve their shit, at least for a while. Others are serial bad drivers who should just not be let behind the wheel of a car. They pay ridiculous insurance rates or just pay out of pocket and may one day badly hurt or kill someone. If there is no official report of these things there is no way to track serial bad drivers and really insurance companies don't have much of an interest in it either. The higher the rates the more money they make. The more accidents the more money they make. And they same goes for the auto repair industry.
Personally I can't wait to see ubiquitous self driving cars and then we can kiss this entire sorry part of our history goodbye. No more rent seeking insurance and repair industries, cars will last so much longer, tens of thousands not killed each year in the US alone, hundreds of thousands not hospitalised, no wasting law enforcement on policing traffic (seriously, what a waste), etc. etc. etc.
This is exactly what we did, when someone hit a thing on our vehicle, he wanted to pay us cash for that reason We looked at prices to repair the thing (honest prices) and the person payed us. We happy the person happy.
Edit; Oh and of course we did not call the cops either.
A beautiful example of self-governance in action. Thank you so much for sharing this hope for humanity!
Good story)
Hello @sterlinluxan! I've seen some of your videos on youtube and heard your voice in a podcast or two. Glad to see you are on Steemit. Definitely will be following to see what else you have to say!
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I also think that we should take help of law only when we do not have other option.
All they can do is attack and threaten. That's it.
When you call them, you're hoping they'll attack and threaten the other guy; but you don't employ them any more than he does.
very intelligent post, and should be noted by people.
A question.
If everything happened, as you explained, but the guy didn't have car insurance?
How would you have proceeded with this situation?
Hi @sterlinluxan!You're right! I guess you have a point in there. If the problem can be solve without the police then it's better. Sometimes, police will just escalate the problem and involve other people. Although, having a policemen near you most of the time gives you the feeling of security ^_^. I guess it really depends on circumstances.
Excellent stuff, Sterlin. Thank you for your service! :) Glad to see you posting on here again. Resteeming.
I agree to a point, though in some states every accident is "report-able" and you must call. Here in PA we have non-reportable accidents, like the one you had. But when I lived in Louisiana I had the cops hunt me down because I bumped a car in a parking lot (a TINY chip was taken out of the paint). I left my info and left the scene. They told me that I left the scene of an accident and could have been charged. O.o ??
I did call the cops last week. My neighbor stole my car. Technically an "unauthorized use" --she was to borrow it for two hours, and instead took it for two days and went on a bender. I never thought I'd see the car again, so I went full throttle to get it back, to include filing a criminal complaint. She's sitting in jail now. My feelings are all over the map on the whole situation but... she got trashed while she had it and could have killed someone. I don't want her to go to jail, I'm hoping she just get probation and rehab.
Great story. That's success right there. The other driver naturally assumed calling the authorities was needed, and of course lives in fear of this as we all do.
Showing people that we are all the same, fearing this force called "The State", and that we can cooperate without the power of the State.
New follower here.
Never call the cops unless you want to make a bad situation worse
This story is showing that any common problem can be solved by participants without government intervention. The example is it that we can have a dialogue and cooperate with each other. Maybe in the future we can get a world where people finally find out that they can have an agreement with everyone if they just will discuss it and will not try to take every pie to their mouth.