[dgordon]

What the banality of evil suggests is that "evil" or in this case "thuggish" behavior is much more a function of social role, and less a function of character, than people thought. (Yes, it really was a radical idea -- recall that two-thirds of the people in Milgram's famous experiment went to shocking an unresponsive subject with 450 volts, when almost everyone had assumed, prior to the experiment actually being run, that only a one-in-a-thousand psychopath would get there. Check out Milgram's book Obedience To Authority for more details.)

[tptacek]

You're doing a fine job illustrating the banality of evil, but you're not explaining what that has to do with the situation at hand. Yes, we need to be on guard for situations in which authoritarianism provides cover for evil. That's why we have a constitution and a court system and why we elect the people who create laws and appoint the people who enforce them.