Well, I for one am surprised and I've lived here a long time. You have to have faith in leaders and policing or you have chaos. Am I surprised that absolute power is absolutely corrupting? No.
Look, we are a stratified community. A fairly large, imaginary wall protects those with money, education and power from those who have little of each. Only if you've spent time in the lower echelons of the populace have you had a chance to see the crap some of these guys get away with. Its usually considered anecdotal and not part of the system by those of us with faith.
Now we have to wonder if we've deceived ourselves and if we really care since its outside the walls.
It's those rose colored glasses! Take them off...now!!
Have faith? That could be true if there weren't such a pantheon of examples with reasons NOT to have that faith. We are rife with them in this state from city to county to state. Specifically, each city, county and state level of government. And even more at the federal level.
My most recent witnessing of the real - not at all imaginary - large wall that separates those with money, education, and power has been detailed here for a while. The case of Mark Allen Eaton - the guy that tried to kill the kids of some acquaintances of mine. And for whom Judge Glassco and Tim Harris gave the protection of that wall. You remember that don't you? The one where the guy plead guilty at his court appearance and Glassco said, "Whoa...not so fast!! Your connections say not to let you do that, so I won't! It might stain the family reputation for what end? It's just two of those lower echelon types who have no money, education or power...."
There have been many other examples - many personally witnessed, and many, many more detailed in news reports throughout the decades. I have previously mentioned an incident where an acquaintance was told to leave the state (native Tulsan) or else...he did. Didn't wanna die then for some unknown reason. Wonder what happened to those two reporters that 'resigned' ??
I would like to spend some time behind that wall just to see how it feels, but not likely, since I don't have the money and power, so doesn't really matter to me that much. Not everyone here at this site enjoys the privilege that comes from living behind that wall.
Actually goes back to the very beginning when we were "founded" by the celebrated Sooners - cheats, thieves, and liars who 'gamed' the system for their own personal advantage ahead of others. Not even mentioning what was done to the Native Americans in those days...
But, I keep being the eternal optimist and keep working toward making things better. It is a fairly steep uphill path.