Well, I don't agree with the premise of the original post, that they're there to protect people and help the oppressed. Maybe a few are, but most are there to uphold systems of power. Some are there to get more power for themselves. I mean, these people have the power of life and death and freedom over people with very little oversight. They can do pretty much whatever they want to people with little fear of consequences.

Read about the Stanford prison experiment if you want to see what power over people's lives does to normal people. That's the role we put police officers in when we give them a badge and a gun.

I was sexually abused for 16 years by a police officer, as was my sister. When we tried to have him investigated, no one was interested. The other officers didn't care about helping the victims or getting justice; they just cared about protecting their fellow officer. We weren't really even people to them.

So why do I feel fear when I see a police officer? Because I think that if I get noticed, I'm going to get raped again. I think that no one in power will care that it happened. I think that this person's badge and gun give them complete control over my life, and there's nothing I can do about it when they abuse that power.