You seem to feel your options are escalate to violence (or the implied threat of same) by calling the cops, or just deal with the loud music.
I personally am with Asimov: violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It has little to do with whether you employ the violence/threat yourself, or call a man with a gun over to do it for you.
The correct course of action in almost all circumstances is "do nothing".
There are some good reasons to escalate a situation. I'm not of the belief that a noise disturbance is one of them.
You start by saying "you feel your options are limited to X or Y" and then go on to say "X is the last refuge of the incompetent, do nothing" implying there is some other option besides Y when you do nothing?
So your real response is: when confronted with someone who refuses to engage with you on the level of a decent human being, just take it. This doesn't seem like the way civilization works to me.
You've edited in a nice little tidbit about "well sometimes you've got to escalate" but failed to provide where that delineation is for you. Loud music isn't it. What about gunshots? What about children screaming loudly? What about someone breaking in to your neighbor's? When is it OK to escalate?
> There are some good reasons to escalate a situation. I'm not of the belief that a noise disturbance is one of them.
This mislocates the point of escalation. The first point of escalation occurs when you arrive and the resident doesn't say the words "I'm sorry about that" followed immediately by turning the music down. The second more serious point of escalation (if there happens to be one) occurs when the police arrive and the same thing happens. In both cases the epicenter of escalation is within the person who won't turn their music down when lawfully required.
Everyone else has behaved reasonably and within the law and so can't meaningfully be said to have escalated the situation.
No, having armed people show up to force them to turn down the music (by first threatening violence with their armed presence, and then applying actual violence if that doesn't work) is the point of escalation. Armed law enforcement is not a reasonable response to loud music, full stop.
I've actually written about this very issue before:
I actually do think people should take your point seriously, even as I disagree with your conclusions. When you make a law you are always doing it with the implied violence you highlight. The law itself is an escalation, in a sense. If someone refuses to follow the law, then society has to ask itself what it's willing to do about it. If nothing, then the law is meaningless. To make the law is to decide that you're willing to enforce consequences for violating the law. And furthermore (and probably much more important, in the long run) you're willing to enforce even harsher punishments on those who refuse to accept sanctions for violating the law.
A society should be careful not to have too many laws; on an individual level one should understand clearly what it means to want something to be illegal (and what it means to refuse to obey the law, should you find yourself in a situation where you might be tempted to do that).
I personally am with Asimov: violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It has little to do with whether you employ the violence/threat yourself, or call a man with a gun over to do it for you.
The correct course of action in almost all circumstances is "do nothing".
There are some good reasons to escalate a situation. I'm not of the belief that a noise disturbance is one of them.