Police Brutality

This experiment was good to show the nature of man when given too much power. Power corrupts. We see it with billionaires, politicians and even our local law enforcement. We saw it with the German people in the 1930's which the movie the Reader showed.

That when normal people are given power, it changes their personality. German guards decades after the Holocaust, some still could not believe what they had done. As I'm sure cops who shoot the unarmed feel the same way. That they don't wake up until a time after that power that is how intoxicating it is.

In police brutalities there are over 500,000 videos up on the internet. This is not to say all police are bad, i would say over 90% of them are excellent or do their job quietly. The ones that are though have that intoxication of power like John Wayne in the film does. They absolutely can not stand any sort of disobedience either real or imagined. This includes talking back, or even a gesture. If you check youtube for 'salt lake mother', you see a woman handcuffed by a police officer, while her 9 year old daughter watches. After an innocuous act of disobedience, The police officer, slams her and then punches and kicks her in front of the child like he was in a MMA cage fight...with a handcuffed mother. Thankfully that officer retired soon after to prevent from happening again, and probably for that officer to contemplate what he had done.

Even then, sometimes completely complying does not work. In the recent miami shooting of Charles Kinsey, he completely complied laying on the ground, stated who he was, and put his hands up. After he shot Kinsey, the cop did not know why he did. Same with the shooting in Minnesota. Same with the prison guards in the experiment a while after probably wondered why they did what they did.The position of power kind of shut off who they really were when they had that power

So this was an excellent experiment to be done to show the nature of power. The problem with the system is what has diminished to keep this all in check. The founding fathers created a system of checks and balances in America. That has since diminished. Also the GOP party would like to continue to weaken checks and balances with more deregulation and limiting the power of others such as judges, journalists, voters, etc. So the experiment was great to let us know about this and the nature of power in humanity. Hopefully we can find a solution. And I guess that starts with all of us to discuss online, in our homes, on the streets and maybe we can create some change.