A cop once gave me a parking ticket on a small side street outside the Eaton Centre in Toronto because I ran in to drop something off to a customer for 5 minutes, 5 minutes before parking became free for the night. I saw him doing it and tried to explain the situation to him but he wasn't hearing it. I was so pissed off because there are signs everywhere saying no standing and there was about 8 cars just parked there idling waiting to pick up people getting out of work. So, if I sat there idling for 5 minutes and waited until parking was free it's A-ok but if I get out of the car 5 minutes before parking is free I have to pay the minimum 30 mins parking. I said "why aren't you giving these people tickets?" and he just got in his car and drove off like a coward. Clearly he didn't have the balls to confront the people in their cars and instead like a snake lurking in the grass pounced on my vehicle once he saw me walk away from it. As you can see, I am still annoyed about this years later.
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People with power gradually come to realize that it's very difficult to enforce the rules consistently even if you wanted to. They then realize that no matter how hard they try to be just or consistent, that injustice and inconsistency will seep through. Eventually, they stop caring at all and just accept that they can enforce their power arbitrarily.
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enforce their power arbitrarily
This is a good way to describe where we are now on a macro level in the US.
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Stanford prison experiment!
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Bingo
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Agreed.
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Your rationalization of his behavior sounds accurate.
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