geauxtohell
Choose your weapon.
You see I see it differently. I don't see him as being hostile at all. He eventually gets agitated, but the first thing he asks - in what I consider a reasonable tone - is "why was I stopped?". No cussing, no walking around macho, no attempt to run, no flipping the bird - nothing.
I didn't see the driver even being unruly until a few good minutes into the video, and the cop just constantly yelling at him.
I see Harper's behaviour as totally normal - in the beginning. he was not being unreasonable in any way, shape or form IMO...
In this country if you get stopped by a police car you stay in the car. You don't go outside, walking toward the police officer, demanding to know the reason for the stop.
If he tells you to get in the car, you get in. And if he tells you to get out of the car, you get out. And if he tells you to stand over here, you do it. And if he tells you to stand over there, you do it. And if he tells you to turn around, you do it. And if he tells you to put your hands on your head, you do it. And if he tells you to get on your knees, you do it. And so on.
There is a game that some people play called Bondage and Domination. One of the participants in this forum, Cecilie, can tell you all about it because she is a dominatrix, which is a woman whose definitive role is to dress in an authoritative costume (uniform) and impose her will on submissive men.
Dr. Erich Fromm has written a few extremely interesting chapters on the subject of emerging authoritarianism in American society in his classic, Escape From Freedom. In these chapters he explores the subliminal dynamic of Sado/Masochistic sexual activity and its relationship to real world behaviors in which dominance and submission are played out.
You might find Escape From Freedom interesting as well as educational. (Available from Amazon in paperback.)
Seriously. The psychobabble as applied to this scenario and posters commenting on it is pretty comical. Now you are going to go all Freud on us and say this all has to do with sex somehow? Get real.
I just see this logically. If this driver had sat in his car and the officer had gone up and started screaming at him and hassling him and told him to get out of the car and on his knees, it would be a completely different situation. There is nothing "submissive" about sitting in your care and waiting for a law enforcement officer to come up before you start questioning his authority.
You guys keep wanting to omit that Harper made a routine stop a tense situation where an officer had to draw his weapon.
That to me is the curious thing. I don't see Harper as a "civil libertarian". I suspect he acted the way he did because he had a shitty day at work or his girlfriend dumped him and he was at his wit's end or he has some sort of personality disorder/impulse control issue or a lawsuit was his intended outcome or he was trying to draw attention away from some other facet of his life or vehicle (though I am sure they searhed him and did all the labs).
I can't reconcile why Harper went fucking ballistic on the cop and I don't think it's because he is some sort of "I don't bow to authority crusader".