Russian Traffic Etiquette Activists ‘Stop A Douchebag’ Confront Police

In Soviet Russia, citizens enforce police parking. At least, that is what happens in this video.

‘Stop A Douchebag‘ is a group of Russian activists who confront rude motorists that block traffic through lazy or entitled automobile parking. They film instances of traffic etiquette abuse and ask the cars driver to move, if they don’t, they get a large sticker applied on their windshield. I do not read Russian, so I have no idea what it says, but my guess is that it would involve labeling the driver a ‘douchebag’ in some way.

In this video they are confronting a driver who is stopped in the road and are then harassed by police for themselves being in the road. The great irony here being that the activists are trying to keep roads clear, while the police are themselves violating traffic safety laws. On top of that, rather than dealing with the traffic offenders Stop A Douchebag are confronting, they confront the guys doing their jobs.

You can see there is very little difference between Russian cops and American cops. The police trump up a legal pretense to detain and investigate the young man, who they also end up roughing up. They refuse to alert a supervisor and eventually give tickets for jaywalking to the group of YouTube stars.

Besides showing use that Russian cops are also dicks, these guys are using a non-violent method in order to create social structure and harmony. Rather than relying on police to do their jobs and keep the roads clear, since the police are just as guilty of blocking them, they use a camera and some humor to encourage good road etiquette by providing consequences and public shaming against those who do not.

You may or may not agree with shaming as a method of social order, but it has been shown to work in several cultures, without the dangerous effects of systematized enforcement of local values and mores. Taking responsibility in your own community for affecting positive change is always more helpful then sending armed thugs to force people to obey. In the long run, it changes social habits, rather than just creating an agency that exploits the worst of them for profit.

Thinking about ways to create social order and harmony outside of the paradigm of aggression is one of the most challenging prospects of imagining a world without police, but it opens endless doorways to creative solutions. It is an opportunity for us to flex our human intellect and overcome what many think is possible- the increasingly obsolete system of authoritarian-based civil cohesion. Our imaginations are the greatest tools for beating the police state by replacing it with something(s) far more sophisticated and humane than enforcing laws with the threat of imprisonment and/or death.

Russian Traffic Etiquette Activists ‘Stop A Douchebag’ Confront Police is a post from Cop Block – Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights