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It's really not, and I say this having had plenty of interactions with law enforcement - even one where I was questioned as a suspect. To use simpler words: the police and I are on the same team. I'm not being dominated by showing a baseline of respect and cooperation, that's just how you interact with teammates. The police are not perfect, neither are doctors; the fact that some doctors cause errors or are power tripping dickheads doesn't mean that I shouldn't be on the hospital's side if I'm in a car accident.
Anti-social people who bicker with the police over their attempts to enforce the law are not on my team. It is easy to see that worlds where I side with the anti-social against the police are worlds that are generally criminal. I do not like crime. I do not want to live in these worlds.
No, you are not. The police certainly don't think so.
But of course we are. A given officer in a given interaction may or may not think so - it's rational for them to be suspicious - but we absolutely are.
It's very simple. I do not like crime. I do not like low level anti-social behavior. I want the rules to be enforced. The police are the social / political organization responsible for preventing and responding to crime. We are on the same team.
The only way you get to be on the same team as the police is to be a cop, or close family of a cop. Or sometimes, a member of a few of the other related professions such as EMTs. Other than that, the cops view you as outgroup, probably a criminal, and definitely someone to fuck with. If they're questioning you they they think you're guilty, and if you don't answer their questions in a way that confirms that they think you're getting away with something. You may be the enemy of what you think is their real enemy (criminals), but you are not their friend, and they are not even your ally.
Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean about being on the same team. I do not mean that I expect that the police will give me a Junior Detective sticker, maybe let me turn on the lights and sirens or cuff a perp. I do not mean or expect that they would treat me any differently than anyone else they’re interacting with.
I mean that we have the same desired end state. They want to catch criminals and deter crime. I want criminals caught and crime deterred. Thus, I act respectfully towards them because they are engaged in a project worthy of respect and worlds where police are treated respectfully are - on the whole - superior to the alternative. It’s instrumentally useful to be polite, sure, but it’s also the correct action and has nothing to do with dominance games or submission.
You should see yourself on the police’s team too, even considering the reality that there are many substandard police interactions.
You have some goals in common. Probably not others. That doesn't make you on the same team. They'd be happy to throw you in jail in service of that end state, or just because they felt like throwing someone in jail that day and your number came up.
Never. I mentioned above I was once arrested for mouthing off to a cop. If I had been convicted, I'd be dead today; a middle class guy has no way of living with a felony conviction. That's enough to remind me I'll never be on their team.
(The cop, though fired for unrelated reasons from the particular job he was doing when he arrested me, went on to have a long and illustrious career ending up as the chief, then went into semi-retirement as a school resource officer until he was arrested and convicted for child porn and let off with a 364-day sentence because judges apparently ARE on the same team as bad cops, and that sentence let him keep his pension)
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Driving a commercial vehicle with proper registration and wearing a blue-collar uniform also gets you out of stuff.
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