Comment by mattlondon
6 hours ago
I think in these situations your absolute best bet is fawning compliance. Ask precisely how high they want you to jump.
Perhaps your friendly smiling Yes-Sir-No-Sir-3-bags-Full-Sir act might just be enough to let you get on your way without anything else happening apart from a stamp in your passport.
Even the slightest hint of defiance or surliness from you to a border guard/policeman/etc - potentially at the end of a long shift, tired, angry, pissed-off or whatever - and you're straight away hugely more likely to have a bad day.
Finding strategies to "beat the system" will, I think, just be a shortcut to some other punishment/crime/taken-out-of-sight-and-given-a-proper-kicking-oh-they-resisted-and-went-for-my-gun/etc as this person found out the hard way by trying to be difficult.
I genuinely don't think there is a "get out of jail free card" or magic incantation you can say to get out of these situations apart from just smiling and being polite and not being a dick - if you get into a "who can be more annoying" competition, then the border guards/police will always win since they hold all the cards and will happily ruin your day/holiday/meetings etc by detaining you (its their job to do this after all)
There have been cases very recently in the US where the authority figures down dealing with the public are evidently in a very defensive, aggressive "us-vs-them" mindset, with an itchy trigger-finger to go with it. Don't be the person on the receiving end of a cop seeing-red because you're being a jerk.
The house always wins.
This comment irritates me. On one hand, I agree with it. On the other: how is it not just a version of “if you have nothing to hide”?
At some point, you should fight for what you consider basic human rights. Where you draw the line and how you fight is up to you.
It sounds like your attitude is to comply with whatever the authorities want.
It seems like a completely innocent person is the best one to push back on authoritarian overreach.
Am I misunderstanding something here?
No, you're not.
And idk how people don't understand how "politeness" gets weaponized.
This video is an example
https://youtu.be/amSIcL3V5C4?is=hmlOx2t7dHg5j-lJ
Here, the only way this guy could've had a "good attitude" is if he had let the lady do whatever she wants with his service dog. This behavior is very common in situations where people feel entitled to something, but know the counterparty has the absolute right to refuse to cooperate. No matter how politely that information is conveyed, it's "rude" because they're being denied something they want.
The police don't like my attitude when I firmly say "no, sorry, I won't be unlocking my phone. I will only do what I am legally required to do."
People have a hard time understanding this because they are under the impression that they know how to be polite because they do what they think is polite. They are unaware that politeness is subjective and slippery and that people can and do use it to manipulate others into doing things they're uncomfortable with.
[Am in agreement with being conflicted about this advice]
In a normal functioning society with law enforcement that is actually accountable to it's citizens, yes - polite pushback will likely have no horrible consequences.
In a country that is either already in the depths of fascism/authoritarianism - or rapidly heading there, fighting for rights is seen as a "red flag".
See also: "On Tyranny" (Timothy Snyder) and "Do Not Obey in Advance".
It’s weird how few people understand that just being courteous/polite eases most encounters considerably.
Absolutely astonishing seeing people try the “I’m going to be as annoying as humanly possible” to the guy with the gun with the “my YouTube lawyer says I can” defense. You don’t want to have to defend your civil rights in court.
This goes doubly when at immigration where you basically don’t have rights.
This guidance also applies to: bank tellers, call takers, baristas, waiters, other people standing in line with you, the bus driver, your mom, the neighbors upstairs, the raccoon across the street, …
Politeness is the correct behavior on most walks of social life, but on this case it's a bit like the "turn the other cheek" approach, but in this case, it's turn the other butt-cheek because you're being effed in the A.
Also, you do have rights, but don't seem to really care a lot about them since, in the face of unlawful and oppressive demands by overreaching authorities, your suggestion is to be courteous with the oppressors for some reason.
"Land of the free, home of the brave"
> I genuinely don't think there is a "get out of jail free card" ...
Being rich and politically connected would probably do it.
It's best to do that for things they have the right to do. Trying to resist being questioned or having your stuff searched is a fool's errand. They'll make it happen one way or another.
But I'd never unlock my phone for US immigration. That's my whole life on there, and they don't have the right to compel me to unlock it. Even there, be polite. You can say "no" politely.
Where this guy went wrong was actively wiping his phone. That's no good. What you do is put your phone in its most secure state (generally powering it off) before you reach the immigration desk, and then if they seize it, you have to trust its security to keep them from getting into it.
They can just ask you to unlock it for them.
They can ask, yes. And I can refuse. They can’t detain me more than temporarily, and they can’t prevent me from entering the country.
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"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever"
I will ask this here again:
At what point did the German people find it morally acceptable to start killing Nazis?
At what point will the US stop accepting the boot and act to remove the tyranny stamping on our collective face?
Did they ever?
If it helps, the nazis themselves probably asked this very question before they started killing ... whatever the contemporary term for nazis was back than.
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> At what point did the German people find it morally acceptable to start killing Nazis?
Late 1960s at the very earliest, and it's only been a tiny minority.
It wasn't until over a decade after the war that most Germans started to accept and internalize that the Nazis were bad guys.
There's also another war where the Germans think they're the good guys because it hasn't been a decade yet.