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Regardless of the merits of his claims:
I see this behavior (on bodycam videos) from my clients all the time, and it's always counterproductive. Even if someone is 100% in the right, there is no situation made better by being argumentative and belligerent with the cops. Once cops have shown up, the situation has gone to shit, and being a dickhead doesn't improve things. Passive resistance, petulance, argumentativeness, active resistance, outright assault on the cops... not going to help. It sucks, but being polite and pulling the "yes, sir, no sir" card generally keeps things from getting worse.
It's especially baffling from clients who claim they are in fear of the cops killing them at any second due to their race. What, the cop is going to decide to not kill you because you're so obnoxious? Very logical. It's reinforced every time I see bodycams of bored, time-killing cops doing a traffic stop during daylight where they're trying to give a speeding ticket (and do the usual cop thing of sniffing around for something else). Instead of giving a name, getting a ticket, and going on about their lives, that's the time clients decide the smart thing to do is refuse to give a name (or give an incredibly fake name and DOB), refuse to hand over a driver's license, and get belligerent, thus turning a speeding ticket into PC for arrest and a search of the car.
What's baffling? The cops are trying to make them eat shit (that is, to yield in a monkey dominance game) with all the 'yes sir' and 'no sir' stuff, and in the moment they would rather take the risk of greater consequences than do so "voluntarily". Probably especially culturally relevant to blacks, though I suspect all but the most beaten-down milquetoast PMCs dislike showing their belly that way. Law-n-order conservatives claim to think it's fine, but I think mostly they don't envision themselves on the wrong side of that.
If you want to annoy a powertripping cop, giving him an excuse to do what he really wish he could do is not the way to go. Complying until he realises he's wasting his time and he's not going to get you to snap in a way that gives him licence to treat you as uncooperative and belligerent is a much smarter own.
No, this is cope devised to get people to submit. There is in fact no way to win against a powertripping cop -- the problem is coup-complete. If you yield, he wins. If you resist, he hurts you more and wins anyway.
You're being silly.
It's one thing to break out the civic resistance card for obvious government overreach. It's quite another to suddenly be a principled libertarian when one is getting a speeding ticket or being pulled off a train by the constables. It has all the sincerity of an atheist in a foxhole. It is transparently self-serving and no one is stupid enough to fall for it.
No shit, being arrested sucks. Being ticketed sucks. But, as you can imagine, that's part of the deterrent value. Why would it be pleasant? Do you envision a police force that politely writes letters of warning that can be easily ignored and have no power to detain you?
The modal person saying these things is not a martyr for civil rights against a overpowerful constabulary: they are habitual rowdies grasping at straws, hoping that saying the right words will get them out of crimes they know they committed. It never works, and then they physically attack the dully employed enforcers of the law. See: the entire run of COPS, liveleak, etc.
And yet my view can explain behaviors that your view cannot.
Rather the opposite. It's very easy to say one should only resist for "obvious government overreach" and then whenever one is in a situation where resistance is an option (though not a prudent one), chicken out by saying that one didn't involve enough overreach. Any libertarians resisting speeding tickets or being pulled off a train are living by their principles even when it is harming them.
But we aren't talking about libertarians here, just people who don't want to eat shit. Nobody, as I said, except the most beaten-down milquetoast PMC, likes to eat shit. Most people always do, because they don't want to be literally beaten and/or jailed -- although they'll rarely admit that this is the reason. Some people, for various reasons, have a higher tolerance for pain and social punishment and/or a lower tolerance for shit-eating. Or just a higher time preference. That's all there is to it, really.
Your view explains nothing other than belligerent and argumentative people don't like following rules or laws, which is so stupidly obvious that it is not notable or insightful to observe. Yeah, no shit. So what? I don't like going to my dentist, but that doesn't justify me punching her when I sit down in the chair, or not paying her a hundred bucks for a tooth cleaning.
It is generally accepted that the government, from time to time, can compel you to endure mildly annoying and discomforting situations for the benefit of the society it governs. That is how it has been since ante bellum.
Anyone who wants to pick a fight with dully appointed authority for no good reason is a moron. No, I don't need a strict definition. Gambling your life on the outcome of a speeding ticket or spreading your legs out on two seats on a subway is the province of morons. You are thinking that you are being clever, but you are actually being very stupid, enough that dismissing your opinion without debate is the most productive use of my time.
I see that you are one of those law-n-order conservatives who never expects to find himself on the wrong end of such a situation. I guarantee that if you ever do, you will feel the same visceral aversion to engaging in the appropriate submissive display as Mr. O'Keefe did; perhaps more so because you never expected it. And if you do indeed manage to engage in it, you will feel humiliated and ashamed over your submission, at least until you can concoct yourself some sort of rationalization.
But I would never find myself in such a situation precisely because I never engage in pointless dominance displays. I've been pulled over several times, I've always responded politely and it has neither been humiliating nor escalated. In fact, despite flagrantly speeding I have always gotten away with a warning and never actually received a ticket precisely because of unfailing politeness.
It is only humiliating if you choose to make it humiliating. I say yes sir and no sir to everyone I interact with in commerce, whether it is a cop or a taxi driver. And because I don't have a basketball mentality this doesn't cause me any psychological distress.
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