It's important that we have an independent press and groups like the ACLU to hold our institutions accountable and bring this sort of abuse to light. However it's also important to keep in mind that we only ever really hear news about these institutions when something goes wrong. We only ever hear the bad, not the good.
This bias is unfortunate because our institutions do a good job protecting us and and safeguarding justice and order. By "good" I mean that most of the time these institutions do protect the common people.
I think much of this bias emerges for two reasons. First, as I said before, the news we hear is usually bad news. One can only hear so much bad news before developing negative bias. In a large nation like the USA with so many people, abuses of power are almost guaranteed to happen once in a while. It's critical that a free press report on these incidents to keep institutions honest, but an unfortunate side effect of this is negative bias against those same institutions that so often work well and protect us.
The second reason is that institutions do have power over us, and loom very large in our lives. In comparison to them, we are very small. This can be disconcerting and uncomfortable for some.
This bias is unfortunate because our institutions do a good job protecting us and and safeguarding justice and order. By "good" I mean that most of the time these institutions do protect the common people.
I think much of this bias emerges for two reasons. First, as I said before, the news we hear is usually bad news. One can only hear so much bad news before developing negative bias. In a large nation like the USA with so many people, abuses of power are almost guaranteed to happen once in a while. It's critical that a free press report on these incidents to keep institutions honest, but an unfortunate side effect of this is negative bias against those same institutions that so often work well and protect us.
The second reason is that institutions do have power over us, and loom very large in our lives. In comparison to them, we are very small. This can be disconcerting and uncomfortable for some.