The police are trained so when a truck starts ramming against a police vehicle without stopping, they make it stop. When the police officer’s life could pretty much be in danger, they’ll kill you. Duh.

BTW: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...

"The shear magnitude of the irrational fear of drugs is dumfounding"

Who says it has anything to do with that at this point?

The police-judicial system have a good thing going, now that real violent crime rates have overall precipitously dropped. Without pulling this sort of shit, if you'll pardon the topical expression, there would have to be layoffs in many police departments and courthouses, and that wouldn't do.

(For more on this theme, about how the police-judicial system (my words of art) need a steady diet of "the clueless", read Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...)

If you believe the thesis presented in Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested... (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...), that in a period of declining overall real crime rates the bulked up police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" else there would be layoffs, then you'd expect these sorts of events to be magnets for police to build up their arrest statistics.

Doing these sorts of events may be less and less practical in the future. I can think of a number of countries where people tend to build walled compounds to among other things keep the "authorities" out, or at least strongly discouraged from "visiting".

Private prisons are a really small part of this as far as I can tell. They e.g. don't touch at all upon the size of police forces and judicial systems, in most places those would have significantly downsized if they'd followed the sharp decrease in crime over the last couple of decades or so.

You might want to check out Arrest Proof Yourself (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...): it presents a thesis that what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" to keep all those people employed. What this topic discusses would just seem to be extending that.

15 is an exaggeration, but yes.

For more details, including a good thesis on what drives this, an explanation for why you can have a dramatic drop in national crime rates without layoffs in what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex, read this book, Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...), and decide if you want to return to this sort of environment.

This was reified for me when I retired to the SW Missouri town I was born and raised in and an officer played a game of chicken with his vehicle and my body. From my time on the East Coast I was an experienced enough pedestrian to see that he would barely miss me and stared him down, but I'm pretty sure this was designed to get the average local to run, "crazy cop trying to kill me!", which would generate a fleeing an officer arrest statistic for him per the book.

The problem is, saying anything may cause you a world of hurt (e.g., obviously since you know so much you were the one who set the bear free) and will bring you absolutely no benefits, whereas saying nothing carefully is safe.

Yes, there is that minor detail of your conscience, but then again, in a society that's so dangerously crazy, that allows the police-judicial complex so much freedom to harm so many innocents, or harmless or most-harmless "clueless" (as used in http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...), just how much duty do you owe to those who are not kin or close friends? Given the possible consequences of using my guns in defense of others, no matter how legitimately or legally, I've had to make this decision ahead of time, and it has to be that limited.

As the government gets ever more predatory, I suspect we're getting an education in why various more "primitive" societies are that way, why family, clan and tribe are so very important in them.

The other excellent resource I've found is the book Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face (http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...), which other HN readers have found to be useful (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1533188).

The Maryland law is different from the law in other states. The article text reads, "A dozen states require all parties to consent before a recording is made if there is a 'reasonable expectation of privacy."" First of all, it's very dubious that a state law enforcement officer would consider himself to have an expectation of privacy while interacting with citizens in public places. Fortunately, most states have a more reasonable body of law (like mine) and allow any party to an interaction to record the interaction without permission of the other parties (which is also the rule of federal law on taping interstate telephone conversations, absent a more restrictive rule of state law). It's outrageous that members of the public can be prosecuted for recording the public activities of law enforcement officers. It is also unusual for such a prosecution to be possible.

After edit: Another HN thread a while back recommended the book Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face

http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...

which I greatly enjoyed reading and which my son is reading this week. There is a lot of good information there about how and why to stay out of trouble with the police.

I'd like to see a comprehensive breakdown of exactly what you should do in real situations when approached by cops.

I just read a very helpful book about that, Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the Police Get in Your Face by R. Dale Carson,

http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...

which was recommended in another thread by another HN participant. Hat tip to him. The book is very interesting and practical. (I am a lawyer and used to be a judicial clerk, but I learned new facts from the book.)

Highly recommended reading in conjunction with this article: http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-A...

E.g. note the item on page two of the Village Voice article on "points".