Jason Bermas hosts an IMA panel excerpt debating when to call the cops, contrasting a chaotic assault at the People's Reset event in Morelia, Mexico, where police merely escorted an aggressor without arrest, against successful community de-escalations. While one "statist" defends using law enforcement for business disputes and search-and-rescue, others condemn the system as intergenerational organized crime unfit for custody battles or raw milk sales. Ultimately, the discussion reveals a fractured consensus on authority, suggesting that in a corrupt system, individuals must weigh personal risk against unreliable state institutions. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Forced Into That Situation00:13:48
May be necessary, but those are extreme.
They should, in my opinion, should be utilized as rarely as you would, you know, any encounter with a, you know, attack dog.
Same, yeah, exact same situations and purposes.
Could I jump in here?
Go for it.
Yeah, so I will just give a little bit of a monologue and then I've got to be on to a medicine journey.
But thanks, James, for inviting me.
And I think this is a really deep question, which I'm going to sum it up as when should we look outside of our own inner authority to an outer authority?
And I think the short answer is you always know what's best for yourself in any situation.
You just need to be able to step out the fear, the apprehension of, oh, hey, I'm about to have an encounter with law enforcement.
Oh, or I'm not going to get the money back for this person who's totaled my car.
And try to step out of that fear and say, hey, is there a common good here?
Do you believe in your own ability to figure things out for yourself, even in new and challenging situations?
And is there a reality you can envision that's a win win for everyone?
Because at the end of the day, I don't think the police want to come out either and supervise this car accident or whatever, right?
They have better things to do.
But I just want to point out that there are different solutions, but you have to be able to think creatively.
And I'm not saying that this is going to work, but perhaps if you didn't want to get police involved, You would reach out directly to this person and say, Hey, I did some research on insurance claims.
And I found that if I have to go to the police and have to report this accident to my insurance company, and they reach out to your insurance company, you're going to end up paying $200 to $300 more per month.
And so here's how much my repair costs.
Maybe you could just pay me directly instead of paying extra for insurance, literally for years and years.
You would end up saving money.
But that comes from a place of, Being concerned for the other, right?
Trying to find the best situation for both of you.
And as we move into an era where modern institutions are going to break down further, we have to realistically ask ourselves I mean, like this problem we're talking about, I think a few years from now, it's not really going to be a problem.
Or is there even going to be a police that you can call on and have them reliably show up?
I'm not sure about that.
Is there going to be an insurance that would pay out any claims?
I'm not sure.
For me, deep inside, I feel like we're not going to be able to rely on any external authority.
And we're only going to be able to co create that of our inner authority.
And it's the most important thing is to not be afraid, not to project the fear we have over that we have of the police onto other people.
Because at the end of the day, they're just people, they're men and women more than a police officer.
And if you can engage with them on that level, you can find the best part of them and you can bring the best part of you and find something that works in the middle.
So, whatever you feel inside, whether that's fear or anger, that is going to be.
Brought into the situation, so your inner state is such an important part of every interaction you have, and that's the only solution we really have in a world where external authority is becoming irrelevant.
We have to figure things out on our own.
I'll add a couple of thoughts to that.
That's fine.
By the way, sorry, can I just say inner statist?
That's an interesting maybe, maybe I'll pronounce myself an inner statist.
I like that.
Sorry, uh, yeah, I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts to that to the general question.
And then, kind of more broadly.
So, in terms of when do you call the cops, for me, I guess the most basic way to answer that is when you're dealing with a situation or a person or persons who are unreasonable.
I guess, like Larkin was saying, the rabid dog situation, a person acting like a rabid dog, which I can just say briefly, I had to deal with recently.
I did call the cops, but the cops did get involved.
I don't know if I would have chosen to call them ultimately, but just a short story, a gentleman who claimed to be a target individual, which I do believe is.
Probably real, but also very difficult to distinguish if people are having voices zapped in their brain, as some people claim, or if they're just truly struggling with mental health illness.
And I'm not equipped to handle that.
All I know is that this gentleman started to show up around my local community and then actually came to our event, the People's Reset in Mexico in January here in Morelia, and showed up two times.
One time, he smacked somebody in the head.
So, right off the bat, you know, that's a violation of the non aggression principle and sort of violating somebody else's self ownership.
Then the second time he showed up, we were already sort of on alert and he.
For those who've met my partner Miriam, he was like in a beeline straight towards Miriam.
We don't know what he was trying to do, but he was headed towards her with a very angry look on her face.
And thankfully, some, you know, before I got there, some other people sort of intervened.
The local cops showed up and they escorted him.
They didn't beat him.
They didn't, as far as I know, they didn't even arrest him or anything.
But that's kind of those situations.
Again, I was the one that called in that particular situation.
And if I had been there directly, I probably would have physically gotten away and been like, you know, hey, you're not coming any closer.
Maybe that would have escalated and, you know, our.
Local group would, our local attendees and friends wouldn't have been able to handle it on our own.
That's, of course, most ideal.
And now that I think about it, a couple of years ago, we had another potential incident of violence where somebody showed up and said he was going to punch me in the face and started to act aggressively.
And I sort of just yelled out loudly, like, hey, community, everybody, this guy's acting violent.
And then a couple of friends showed up, like, hey, what's going on?
And we calmly but assertively escorted this dude off the premises and we didn't have to involve the cops.
You know, that's an ideal situation.
But I think it would be for me in those cases where you're dealing with somebody who's just clearly not reasonable.
And if you can't, Resolve it on your own.
Also, the other thought that came to mind is living in Mexico, which, as you guys know, parts of Mexico are lawless, they like to say, or the Wild West, which is true to some degree.
I mean, Mexico is also just like any other American city, and some cities in Mexico, including the one I live in, are safer than several dozen American cities, right?
So it's all relative, but there are absolutely parts of the country, and I've experienced this firsthand getting pulled over, armed gunmen.
Not a fun situation.
No cops around to ask for help, even if I thought they were going to help.
And, you know, I had to go through that situation.
My point being, in places where there isn't a lot of trust of government and where cops are very weak, it is true that some people will take advantage of that.
That doesn't mean that anarchy always ends in, you know, roving gangs like people want us to believe.
But there are, of course, people, the reality is people will take advantage of that.
And in those situations, when you're in a place like Mexico where you know you really can't call the cops, somebody mentioned like getting into a wreck.
We got into a wreck before here in Mexico.
It was not our fault.
The other party was clearly drinking and they hit us and started to claim that it was our fault.
So somebody called the cops.
The cops showed up and just said, All right, you guys figured it out.
He sat there and smoked a cigarette and just made sure we didn't kill each other.
Like that was his role.
Like he didn't actually do anything.
So, my point being, there's some realities to navigate, especially for those of us who are trying to work towards a volunteer society, a stateless society, however you want to frame that, that it will be complicated.
It won't necessarily always be easy.
Like, yay, we abolished cops or government and everything is solved.
It just means more personal responsibility on ourselves.
So, To the person's question, don't feel bad if you have to involve the cops.
You know, I mean, maybe don't make that your first move.
That's sort of the way I operate.
But also, don't be worried about the anarchist peanut gallery saying, Oh my God, you called the cops if you feel like that's your only solution in a bad situation.
I'll go ahead and jump in on that next.
Speaking from somebody who, you know, like Etienne and Larkin and James and Derek, somebody they've been on this path a lot longer than me in regard to the anarchism, you know, perspective, you know, ideological perspective.
And I've been going through my journey of that over the, you know, quite a while now.
But speaking, you know, as I'm still kind of grappling with some of these exact kind of moments where you were like, like Derek kind of points out, you feel like, Oh no, am I like, am I, Compromising?
Am I being a hypocrite by that kind of, even the small things in daily choices?
And so, from my perspective, my first thought is obviously my inclination would be as little as possible and not even necessarily to adhere with some kind of mindset, but just because I don't feel comfortable in these situations around these people with the way that we know, in my opinion, that they operate.
But I would argue there's probably a time where that would feel like the only option.
And so, for me, it really comes down to a personal choice based on where you feel it's necessary in those moments and do your best to adhere to what you think.
You know, is in your best interest.
But what I would say is it really applies to the current system or the current authority or whatever you want to call it.
Like, hypothetically, we're in an anarchistic society, and it would be like Derek would say, like a more of a community enforcement idea.
Well, you would still say, like, hey, you know, this guy and direct.
So it's really about the representation of that authority and the illusion or, you know, illegitimate nature of it.
And so I'll reference an interesting point I had, an interview I had with a guy named Matthew Sands, who is simply arguing this idea of, you know, like the, The one main thing we should do is basically shift into one universal law, which is the non aggression principle, and then argues that except there are situations where you can allow the community to enforce in an aggressive way, essentially, only in circumstances where people violate that principle.
Now, clearly, there's like any idea, there's criticisms, but it's like that comes down to the same idea is that so there still is a moment where that might be necessary, but when it's sort of a communal idea.
And so even that becomes difficult to define.
Now, I just think of it like my point is, I guess it comes down to what we're addressing as the authority figure in that situation.
And it's about the illegitimate nature of it versus just authority enforcing what you think should happen.
You know, anyway, that's my thought on it.
Can I jump in here?
First of all, I'm not an anarchist.
I miss the, or even non aggression.
I'm probably the biggest statist on here, right?
For me, I can say I've called the cops dozens of times.
And, you know, I'm glad I went after Ryan because I know that he's been in the bar business, for instance.
So I've been in the late night world, right?
And I think that varies from my personal life.
In fact, I can't remember even an emergency situation in my personal life where we have called the police or I have called the police.
And I say that because I can remember an instance that was really wild.
We were at a concert, we were coming back, it was nighttime, and the car in front of us, there was a woman driving, and her male counterpart just started duffing her in the face.
I mean, hardcore punching her in the face.
And obviously, this takes us all by surprise.
She gets out of the car.
Other stuff ensues.
I won't even get into it.
But essentially, she wants a ride out of the concert to a certain place and we give it to her.
And that's the end of it, right?
She doesn't want to call the police.
We just witnessed a totally violent incident.
We don't go that route.
But then, in the case of running a bar or late night pizza place, there are instances where I've got somebody just passed out in my establishment.
All of his friends, if he had any, have left them there.
You know, what am I?
Am I taking them home?
I mean, obviously, you have to assert yourself to some kind of authority figure.
I'll give you another example.
Long time customer, arrested a bunch of times.
Somebody who was probably on thin ice of being in the established in the first place, passed, I think it was like $300 to $400 in fake 50s.
And I had them on tape and I knew who did it.
Yeah, no, I'm calling the cops on that person.
You know, I don't know that that person's going to, I mean, what am I going to do?
Have a long talk with him?
Am I going to get my money back?
I mean, let's be honest with ourselves.
And often when we get into these arguments of how much authority you should turn over to another individual or the state, I always bring it back, you know, To post revolutionary times, but that, Derek just said the wild, wild west.
Well, essentially, when communities were governing themselves, you had a sheriff and he had a posse, and you would delegate a lot of the type of authoritarian law enforcement to those individuals.
And I would say that that was kind of the burgeoning governance locally of what we see today.
And even now, if I were to have to defer to law enforcement for something personal, and again, I can't think of a time I've ever done it.
Right.
It would probably be my sheriff, right?
Because that's the person that's elected.
That's the person that's accountable.
And even here in Iowa, where I moved during the COVID 1984 nightmare, by the way, Derek, can't wait to see you in July out here.
You know, my sheriff came to a lot of these events that were anti masking, anti six foot distance, and all these other things and was having an open conversation with us all.
So I guess that's where I would kind of step back and let other people discuss this.
But I think, in essence, you know, just like Ryan said, You know, at some point, you have to delegate authority to someone or a group.
The question is, what is that?
And, you know, again, I'm a big believer in personal accountability, actions have consequences, et cetera.
But, you know, especially when it's not even my business, it's just my career, and I'm not trying to do harm to another individual, there's just no other outlet.
When Prevention Fails00:14:53
You're kind of forced into that situation, in my opinion.
So I agree with Jason 100%.
In my work, I make the case that the government is best thought of as a technique of intergenerational organized crime to rob and control populations.
And they've grasped a monopoly on what you could call armed protective services, the police.
They've given themselves a monopoly on dispute resolution, which they call the courts.
And so in violent encounters, there is no choice because they're the monopoly provider.
And so there are cases where you should, you know, you may have to call the police because they have, you know, grasped this monopoly on armed protective services.
I think the more interesting case are the cases when you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever call the police because the police and the courts, and especially the family court system, really is kind of an intergenerational organized crime system masquerading as a charity.
And if you're thinking about using the court system to get custody of your child, you're calling essentially a private mafia.
And you're engaging a private mafia to get your way.
And it must be very, very tempting for women, especially who the state has a track record of handing children over generally to the mother to use the violence of the state.
And I know self proclaimed voluntarists and peaceful anarchists that have used that weapon when it came down to their kids.
But it really is kind of the, that's one of the issues you should never, ever do.
Also, you should never ever involve the police in a personal dispute with a neighbor.
If you can't work it out with your neighbor, you don't really call a gang of armed thugs to come and have them try and enforce your will on your neighbor, or even worse, report your neighbor for selling raw milk or being engaged in commerce out of their home or violating a zoning law or some other aspect of.
You know, where you might be violating this, where the neighbor might be violating the state's, you know, victimless crime laws in a way that you could have them, you know, removed or in a worst case scenario, calling ICE on somebody that you know is illegal.
Those are really where I think the cases where it really, you know, does, you know, you're become clear that people are using the government to get their will over other.
People in a case that would not be the case if the government did not exist, in many cases, over things like victimless crimes.
And so I think that that's an important, you know, something important to think about.
Can I bargain?
I want to hear your ebullient, incredible, undoubtedly boisterous opinion on this.
But first, I actually let's go international on this because everybody here except me and Kit is American.
So, Kit, I would like to hear your English perspective on this.
Well, I was actually going to mention that.
Yeah, I would be coming at this from a very different angle.
Like, the state is sort of a much greater part of people's lives in the UK, generally speaking.
Like, we all, the whole political spectrum shifts fastly over to the left.
And I'm too, like, like Jason, I would not have described myself as an anarchist at all.
I'm not sure I still would, but until 2019, I would have been a leftist and you guys all would have despised me.
I mean, I was like pro Corbyn and everything, very much.
And I'm also going to have a different angle because I've never really had any interaction with law enforcement.
I've never spoken to a policeman since I was about 12.
I've never been robbed.
I've never been attacked.
It's a very sheltered life, obviously.
And when the question, this is probably indicative of my experience, but when the question was asked, when would you involve the police?
I suppose I didn't think of violent crime happening to or by me.
I thought of situations in which I might need simple numbers, like, for example, a missing family member.
I've got a large area to search, like, somebody couldn't search on my own.
There's going to be search and rescue teams that are going to be available.
To do that.
And you could argue these things shouldn't be aspects of the state, but right now they are.
And I think I would avail myself of them in that situation.
I think it would also be healthcare, of course.
That's another aspect of the state that I would deal with that you guys wouldn't.
Is that every nurse and a doctor I've ever spoken to in this country was technically an employee of the state.
But you also tend to forget that because a lot of governmental institutions are very much less than some of their parts, and the individuals within them are trying their best to do what they can.
So, like Hakim said before, you can also work like, okay, I'm involving the police, but I'm also talking to this person.
I suppose it would be a way of handling it if you needed to.
You know, I just thought of something in almost the same regards where I threatened law enforcement and a personal, and it worked, by the way.
So, same exact situation where I'm running the bar, but I'm there drinking.
Okay.
And the phone chargers are out by the entrance, they're pretty close.
So, my phone gets stolen one night.
Okay.
I go to the cameras.
I watched the guy steal my phone.
I know of him.
I know some people that know him.
So I immediately have them put in contact with me.
I go, listen, you got 48 hours to give me my phone back, or I'm going to take the video to the police and you're going to go to jail.
He brought my phone back.
I will say this he dumped my SIM card and my SD card beforehand, thinking that he was going to sell it or get rid of it.
But at the end of the day, I got my phone back.
Now, I didn't have to go to law enforcement.
I didn't want to go in law enforcement.
What was I going to do?
Threaten to kick his ass?
You know, at the time, guys.
I'm probably like a 36, 37 year old guy, and this is like a 20 something year old kid.
Am I going to exude my own force?
He's already kind of gone against the non aggression principle by stealing my property.
So, again, just another example where I don't think everything is black and white.
Can I barge in?
Because somebody said the A word authority.
To me, the distinction that matters, and the bartender is a perfect example because on a routine basis, you deal with belligerent drunk idiots, hopefully not too routine.
But to me, the distinction is just would I have the right?
Like, if there's some female bartender and there's some big, loud, belligerent drunk dude, she has every moral right to say, You're not invited here.
I'm taking you out.
But she may not have the ability.
So, asking somebody else to do something that you have every right to do, but you may not have the ability to, you may not want to, like hiring someone to mow your lawn or do plumbing or something.
The time when it becomes a problem is when people call.
Authority to do things that they wouldn't have the right to do themselves.
So, a lot of these examples, like if somebody steals your phone, I think you would have the right to confront them and go, I got to punch you in the face, like whatever you think would be a justified response and say, hand it over.
I'm going to do unpleasant things to you because I know you stole it and have the proof.
And if you ask somebody else to do that for you, that's perfectly consistent, even if not everybody would agree with what you would do.
But if you at least agree with yourself, like I asked the guy with the badge to do something that would be justified if I did it.
And that doesn't require authority.
That's just, it's like hiring somebody to do something for you that maybe you don't want to.
When it comes to law, when people say, well, I wouldn't have the right to like steal your money to fund something I want.
But if it's in the form of taxes, then law enforcement should do it.
So just that mindset answers the question.
Yeah, there are gray areas and debatable areas of when people will or won't call them.
But just the mindset of, I'm just a guy, and the guy with a badge is just a guy.
We have the same rights, morality applies the same to everybody.
If there's something I would do, then it makes sense to ask somebody else to do it for me, whether he has a badge or not.
And based on that standard, 99% of state violence would never happen because the vast majority of time people call the cops is for things they wouldn't do on their own.
It's not defensive.
It's not inherently justified.
They just want to call the big bag bully to beat up on somebody they don't particularly like, even when force isn't justified.
If I get one quick thing, James, go ahead if you want to jump to the next part.
Uh, right after you, we're going to go straight to Ernie because I've never seen him sit quietly for so long.
So, no, I was going to add the point about the no, go ahead.
I was, it's going to be a second.
Go ahead, jump to the next part.
So, I'm uh, I guess I can take it now.
The um, the reason I'm being so good, James, because you know, I was, I didn't hear anything about prevention.
You know, you make a lot of as I, you know, I'm older now, you know, a lot of the I've had a restaurant, you know, where we've had, you know, you get.
Burglarized or broken into, or things are stolen, or whatever.
A lot of these are agreements that you make for being covered by insurance.
You're required to get the benefit from the contract that you did.
You file a police report.
And a lot of them here in Arizona, I remember like 20 years ago, they wouldn't even come out when your car was stolen.
They just take a report here, file with your insurance, let them deal with it.
We don't care.
You know, so this, it's the promise that we get for having government or supporting or living in this.
Country or wherever else is what is the deal that we have?
Well, we're here to protect your life, your liberty, your property, and do that in a court system for it and everything.
But you realize as time goes on, it doesn't really do that.
You go all lark and rose on them, you know.
But the thing is, is that once you get a lifetime of experience, you know that you're going to act in what you perceive to be your best interest.
As time goes on, you find a lot of the times, you know, it's a fender bed, it's a small thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, You know, I should lock that up more.
I should this.
I should even got videotape of them.
You know, do I really want to go?
It's a lot of times it's shunning.
You just go to the community, you let them know the punishment is that you have evidence or you're good to your word or people believe you over the word of someone else.
So it's all about proactive.
You know, are you taking care of your kids?
Should you go to that bar?
What kind of concert was it?
Did it have a mosh pit?
I mean, you know, what did you expect was going to happen?
So, I'm just like, you know, as time goes on, you put yourself in a circumstance to where you don't have to be in these kinds of, you know, dilemmas and whether you're calling for authority.
But the big thing is, is that you're not only prepared to defend your rights and your property and so on, you have the skills, you have the tools, you have, you know, all this is forethought, you know, a lot of times.
But then the other thing is that you run into the Karens, you know, like you're saying, like Larkin pointed out, you have somebody.
You're not allowed to do it.
You can't do it.
But gosh darn it, I saw on TV that somebody called and they don't have a mask on.
I mean, you know, this is, you don't want to be that person.
So, my solution to all these problems that people have had here is a lot of times you either have standards that is clear and people don't even want to go that are bad, that you have a community or friends or you're not, you know, a lot of young white women want to go to the Middle East and prove how peaceful it is and they wind up dead.
So, this is just forethought in preparing yourself to be able to defend it, to not have it happen to begin with.
And what kind of contracts are you in that require police involvement?
Which is a lot of times, like the gentleman from the UK, we have the option and the freedom for private insurance, private clubs, private.
So that's my offering.
And hearing all of this is a lot of these instances where you feel compelled or even required to call law enforcement, you can't make sure you're not.
And that's where I put myself, is where, look, I don't want to be in this situation.
And then sometimes, You take the hit.
You know, it's just my experience is that, you know, law enforcement and the court system is less than useless.
So never freaking mind, I'll take the hit.
Or when you need to and you see it's in your self interest, I don't have a problem calling the police, especially when you know you're in the right.
You know, not that that matters all the time.
But so that is my situation on that.
I am not averse or have a religion against calling the police.
I've just through experience tried to be in a position I don't have to.
And when I I do, it's either because I'm required to, you know, or you don't get your contract filled on fix my freaking car, or it's just a lot of times you see that it's best to have a very public record that you're adding to the record.
This is a bad guy and that, you know, you're helping your neighbor that way.
But I'm all about prevention, you know, like divorce or children, marry well.
That's the first thing, you know.
And so, there's so many things that are in.
Your responsibility that I don't think people take responsibility for.
We're constantly, this is the main problem.
I'll end on this.
We're always putting ourselves in a position to delegate our authority to someone else to take care of it for us.
When they don't do it right, you get pissed.
I'm going, well, you know, there's your first problem.
So that's kind of prevention.
That's my most valuable contribution to this discussion I can take.
So, can I just speak to just a few of those points?
Reputation Does Not Save You00:02:22
And then I got to jump to my niece's choir.
So, let's talk about prevention.
He gave the example of a bartender not being able to forcibly take somebody who's being vile, is physically intimidating out.
Again, prevention, our solution to that is there are no bartender women that are alone after 5 p.m. ever.
Okay, ever.
There's always a man there, there's always some kind of security there.
Now, he just spoke to building.
Building your reputation with the community.
Totally agree with that, but it doesn't always work.
So, I'll give you that same example of when that guy stole all that money.
So, before I went to the tape and I knew who it was quickly, I went over and I talked to another bar owner and I explained this.
Oh, he was in here telling me he had a new job.
And I'm like, no, man, he definitely just robbed me.
And I've known that guy for literally 25 years.
And then he saw that he passed the fake bills.
Reputation doesn't always get the job done.
And speaking to tamash pits and women getting duffed in the face.
I was just at a Lorna Shore show, Deathcore show, great show on Saturday.
Bunch of kids there, and no one's getting hurt.
Big mosh pits.
Everybody's picking each other up.
Kid crowd surfs out to where security is.
Security that's hired there that should not be inept, totally inept, drops him on his head.
I watch this thing.
I'm wondering if this kid's getting back up.
Kid gets back up on the back of his skull.
I see the blood pouring out.
Now, This is in Illinois.
It's not just private security.
You sell a certain amount of tickets, law enforcement has to be there.
I saw law enforcement on that like this had lights on the kid, helped him up, took him backstage.
I was in the VIP area.
They had an ambulance there for that kid within 10, 15 minutes.
So, again, you know, I think that that's what you want from your law enforcement to serve that purpose.
You don't want to be somebody that isn't prepared.
You don't want to be somebody that relies on it time and time again.
But when it needs to be utilized, you hope it's utilized in the proper manner.
All systems are corrupt, especially run by humans.