Maybe not by your measures, but then again, I referenced a country, not a city. http://www.mises.org/story/2701

For you peeps in Tucson, check out this site:
http://www.checkpointusa.org/

While ostensibly about suspicionless roadblocks involving motor vehicles, it is more about abuse of authority in general and the attitude surrounding said abuse. If you follow the original "TOPD Roadblock" thread, it is a great lesson of how the law will work against you if you try to assert your rights. The dood who put the site up is a good friend of mine--he was also one of those instrumental in getting the University of Arizona to stop handing over student info, including SSNs, to credit card companies. There's plento o' good "fight the power" info on his site, and you might try contacting him through the site if you think he might be interested in hearing about any of this.

It's nice that people were able to adapt their ancient tribal family-based justice system to survive their endless civil war, but I'd prefer to live in a nation with civil services, police, a strong military, and a well developed constitution and judiciary. National healthcare would be nice as well.

As for the quarterbacks comment... well I'm all for better hiring standards for all sorts of civil servants, but then you'd have to pay them more, and people in this country are really against taxes.

Problem with your example is that the vast majority of statistics used by the author of this article were healthcare related and have everything to do with international NGO's & GO's (WHO,MSF,MDM,ICRC,USAID,ect.) responding to crises in Somalia and little little whatsoever to do with the success of Somalia's lack of government. Sri Lanka saw improvements in both their healthcare system and in their national economy following the tsunami. This doesn't prove tsunamis are good for a society any more than the majority of statistics cited in the Somalia article prove a lack of government is good for a society. Statistics can be twisted to show almost anything, and the cited article is a good example of such.

<snip>
It's nice that people were able to adapt their ancient tribal family-based justice system to survive their endless civil war, but I'd prefer to live in a nation with civil services, police, a strong military, and a well developed constitution and judiciary.
<snip>

Well, that's just your western cultural predjudices showing in your stated preference. If you read the article, you'll see that they have their own form of civil services and self-police. OK, a strong military would have been nice before western nations started making rules which escalated traditional tribal disagreements into ENDLESS CIVIL WAR, but where's the need for a developed constitution and judiciary if they are taking care of things on a local level?

To bring this back around, our civil services, police, strong military, well-developed constitution and judiciary apparently result in police state tactics like those expressed during the Tucson Tuesday Night Ride. Good on you for living here if that's what you're into.

I don't think the article is championing no government, only showing that it can be not as bad as some would have you think--that there is a natural or cultural order that will form in the absense of strong central gov't, and that it can be a workable solution even in the modern world. I mean, what are you going to do, post some other statistics to show how bad it is over there? The attempted creation of a centralized government by outside forces in the 60s is the cause of most of the unrest today.

The Tuesday Night ride was a nice example of self-policing peacable assembly. It is centralized authority inserting itself without welcome that is the problem.

So, I'm gonna do the ride tonight... screw Hebrew High.

8pm + Flagpole @ Ole Main, correct/

Tribal or not, the country is ruled by a bunch of warlords. I'm not going to defend European colonialism in Africa, but centralized government and a strong military is what allows a society to resist outside influence and survive. Regardless, it's not really my western prejudices that are showing, but the inherent distrust in any sort of tribal or clan organization. One of the things I like about the "Western" idea of law (which is actually taken from the ancient Babylonians) is that it applies to all equally regardless of which family one is from. And before you start, I'm well aware that rich people and expensive lawyers take advantage of the system - I'm just not sure what a good solution would be.

This was a ridiculous overreaction by the local police department, don't make it into a symbol of nation-wide repression. I hope Tuscon locals are able to put enough pressure on the PD to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Most of us in the modern world don't have an ancient tribal justice tradition that never really went away to pick up the slack. And marauding armed bands are a problem even in sunny quiet Somalia without all those nasty cops.

Edited to say that despite all of this beautiful anarchy, Somalia is a dangerous lawless place, and has a crazy pirate problem to boot. There's a US destroyer in its territorial waters right this second in pursuit.

Just an update for those who were interested.. we'll see how it goes tonight.....

From: Tucsonbikelawyer.com
Monday, October 29, 2007

Tucson Police say they will dramatically reduce their presence at the Tuesday Night Community Bike Ride -- for now.
Adam and Nick, two of the organizers of the Tuesday Night Community Bike Ride, met with Captain Tarrant of the Tucson Police Department this morning. The meeting was very graciously facilitated by Councilperson Jose Ibarra, at his office. I was invited to join them, along with several others including my co-worker Elizabeth. She may want to post her own observations here, but as for me, here is what I heard at this meeting.

1. Tarrant said that we can expect only about six bicycle cops at tomorrow's ride, and no motorcycle cops will join the ride. There is some possibility there will be motorcycle cops at the intersections, but they will not ride through the group as they did last week.

2. Tarrant also said the reason for the show of force last week was because the police were responding to complaints by motorists that people were disrupting traffic and other things. The police were uncertain what to expect and so they showed up prepared, as we all noticed, to make a large number of arrests. When they got there, they realized we were actually all very peaceful people out to enjoy a bike ride, not rowdy vandals and lawbreakers.

3. He repeatedly stated that if we would do some "self-regulating" he would like to remove the bike police from the ride entirely, but we will have to show we can actually do that. This means having people who ensure that riders stay in a single lane, let cars pass, and so on. If we can do that I personally believe that Tarrant and the TPD will reduce their presence down to just about nothing.

4. The sticking point is the intersections. We are not permitted to block intersections and they aren't going to do it for us unless we pay them to do it.

5. Juveniles who do not have lights and helmets will be ticketed. This seemed like a pretty high priority with Tarrant. If you bring your kids to this ride, please see they have lights and helmets.

At the end of the meeting we agreed to email Tarrant as soon as possible with the route of the ride, and we agreed to find some people to be "bike marshals" to try to keep the riders together, keep a lane open for traffic, and help things move safely. We came to no agreement about intersections. The agreement to post the route and have the marshals is in response to Tarrant's promise that motorcycle cops would not be riding among us and even the bike cop presence would be dramatically scaled back.

Nick, Adam, and Ian are trying to develop routes as I write this. They are trying to develop routes that cross as few large streets as possible and that travel on the safest roads as possible, but that do not stray too far from downtown.

If you would like to be a bike marshal, please show up a few minutes early at Time Market. Adam and Nick will be distributing reflective tape and will give you some instructions.

Remember folks, the organizers are trying to make this a fun ride for everyone. It is not a critical mass ride. As I have heard them say, there's nothing wrong with critical mass rides, this just isn't one of them.

--Erik Ryberg


Posted by tucsonbikelawyer.com at 10:39 AM 1 comments

Good news! Thanks for the update.

Hmm. Sounds reasonable, but the cynic in me wonders if this isn't some tactic on the part of authorities. 'Cause now, unlike Critical Mass, you will have a responsible contingent (marshals) who the cops can go after and single out, and a plan for the route. I hope everything works out, and none of the now identified organizers end up in jail.

<snip>
This was a ridiculous overreaction by the local police department, don't make it into a symbol of nation-wide repression. I hope Tuscon locals are able to put enough pressure on the PD to make sure it doesn't happen again.
<snip>

It is not just an overreaction by a local police department. It is a symptom of nationwide erosion of personal rights, and another example of a police force slowly moving beyond the law. Check out the other link I posted for clear, documented examples of other abuses of power by those supposedly sworn to protect and uphold the law.

Nationwide erosion of personal rights has nothing to do with the police, and everything to do with our President and lawmakers. For all their heavy-handedness the cops weren't moving beyond the law, they just treated this ride as a protest march. Apparently with some dialogue facilitated by the elected city officials they now understand this is overkill.

I know there are and always will be plenty of abuses of power. That doesn't make the concept of a police force (or government, military,etc) invalid. We crack down and prosecute, and hopefully reduce the number of such problems. There are countries with more disciplined officers, and we have a long way to go. That said, there are places with much, much, much more corrupt and brutal cops as well.

In the end the cops are there to protect us, and they serve at the pleasure of the government we elect. Making sure they behave themselves is up to us. And I for one am very optimistic about the next Tuscon ride, and hope that it goes off smoothly.

Cops are fat.

your mom's a cop

Only when we role play. :)

I'll be hated like I'm a monster for saying this, but hear me out: the police officers on the street do only what they are told by their superiors. It's not their choice to
a) harress cyclists rather than going after murderers and thieves
b) escort a community ride
c) generally, do action X
Most of them are just people like you and me, working for a living and trying to "put food on their families".

Direct your anger where it belongs: their superiors - in the end, politicians. The guys you see on the street are easy targets, peons that will absorb the brunt of the stupidity of their superiors' policies.

So now you've got easily identifiable (and ticketable and arrestable) "bike marshals" and the cops get your route in advance? And in return for this, the cops sort-of-but-not-really temporarily promise not to harass your ride?

Posting reliable statistics instead of misleading statistics comes to mind. Avoiding publishing research articles based on misleading statistics doubly so.

so the ride last night went really well. i was nervous when i was riding up to the meeting area and saw some bikers ride through a 4-way stop (with no cars in sight) and get immediately blasted by two motorcycle cops over their bullhorns "STOP YOUR BICYCLES AT ALL STOP SIGNS!"

luckily though they didn't ticket the riders.

there were cops there no doubt, but all on mountain bike patrol (whom weren't happy AT ALL when i rode by them at critical mass and said, "one is all you need fellas, one gear.".. why don't they ever shift out of that old man gear they always ride in?))

anyways... only had motorcycles blocking major intersections for us... which in some ways was pretty fresh. the bike cops followed us all the way to the footdown comp. at the end of the ride, but didn't stay for too long. I WISH THEY WOULD HAVE PLAYED... some people get owned during "hands off bars".. but playing footdown against legal gangsters with pistols would have sucked anyhow. jocks.

all in all, nobody was harrassed at all as far as i know. and it was a pretty good comeback ride after the nightmare of last week.

so the real ***** went down at some anti-police brutality bike ride on monday in front of the police station where a cop piñata was beaten with maglights and had donuts stuffed inside it. i guess there was some serious chalk graffitti drawn everywhere too that the chief of po-po is SERIOUSLY NOT HAPPY about... but i wasn't there for it, so i don't know the good details.

I disagree...They a lot of times try to do what is easiest...Catching a thieves and murderers is pretty hard b/c most of the time, their crimes are thought out or "premeditated". Whereas a large group of cyclists whom happen to be part of a movement that is seen as odd to society, in which causes some sort of disruption to people's daily routine, is a much easier target to handle...Truthfully, have you ever just been walking down the street and said, "Hey that guy must be the person whom shot so and so." Doubtfully!! But seeing a group of 100+ cyclists whom dress funny, a cop says "Hey, someone in that group is bound to screw up. Lets go monitor their ride and show whose boss in this town." Reality is that it happens...Ideally is, through communication and understanding, we can challenge our differences in positive ways...It appears that some of these cyclists have stepped up to make this a cool ride and it also appears that even some of the cops are attempting to do the same...But I wouldn't always blame it on their superiors...A lot of these guys aren't bad but there are a lot of cops whom look for the easiest way to show who is in charge...

Glad to see that some honest communication made a difference. The cop piñata sounds pretty tasteless though.

Most cops join the force with intent to help society, not to look tough. In any case, an operation described in the OP was clearly orchestrated by the top levels of the local police force, and was scaled back with the participation of elected government. Cops take their orders from the city, not the other way around.

woah... check out this email from Capt. Perry Tarrant:

All of the feedback I received from our staff was positive and indicates to me that you have the capacity and the desire to keep your event going and don't need our presence. During the ride, it was good to see your safety monitors/marshals asking a few riders to comply with the rules. My observations from both of the events, which I have been present, lead me to believe the core of the group wants to do what is necessary to keep the ride and enthusiasm alive. It is very likely you will see me next week, but only briefly. You will not have direct participation by our organization, but I would offer a couple of suggestions to make things safer for your group and motorist: Please encourage the riders to use lights at night; continue to identify safety monitors/marshals (the vest idea is a good one); share the road; and lastly continue to have fun.

I hope you and your group will keep the lines of communication open regarding this and other endeavors that might impact traffic or public safety, so that we can work together.

Good luck,

Perry Tarrant; Captain
Specialized Response Division
Tucson Police Department
270 S. Stone Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85701
520-791-4000

Score one for diplomacy :beer:

And no-one even had to stage a peace-rally...imagine that!

*chuckles at self and all of us for getting our panties in a twist*

Glad to see everything worked out with a little dialogue and cooperation. Hope your ride continues to be peaceful.