"Power is when we have every justification to punish someone and we don't" - thoughts?

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

[jennifer_bloom]

I don’t believe that mercy or class is about withholding expectations or discipline, I believe it’s about enacting discipline in a way that is bearable and improves future behaviour from the wrongdoer, it’s more noble to discipline a criminal, than it is to let them get away without rebuke or surcharge.

[Agape93]

Schindlers list.

It's a cute idea of power. But power, real power, is something you have to use seldomly, and ideally only once.

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

Yeap.
It's kind of the ironic that the Nazi tries to follow the advice, and "forgives" two people. Then a guy fails to scrub his tub, he makes a face that says "Nah f*ck It" and shoots him anyway.

[Agape93]

Yeap. And at that point, it plays into the banality of evil, of violence so prevalent that it ceases to be a shock factor. And using it without a good reason just makes one a pointless butcher, not someone with a firm grasp of power.

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

Exactly.
I'd add that at such a point, people even get used to it, so of they stop, they go into withdrawal.

[Agape93]

Yeap. A smart commandant would make it into a labor camp. Decent food and quarters, strict but decent guard conduct and even some entertainment. Let the musician's ply their trade, for example. And then the moment someone disobeys, speaks out, you make it a very public execution. Then go back to the decency. The jarring sudden violence followed by normality will jar them far more.

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

Well the guy in question, Amon Göth, actually got expelled and closed in an asylum because he was that cruel (and also because of embezzling). The SS noted that his random killings and terrorizing actually made the camp unprofitable.
The guy that came after him was a scumbag himself, but according to survivors he was a Saint compared to Göth.

[Agape93]

Not surprised in the least. Like the bitch of buchenwald.

[Sun_Kim-Ai]

I remember that one. Her husband too was a nasty piece of work.

[Agape93]

She wasn't much better. Skeevy ass woman.

[Still-alive]

yeah i agree. kinda of a different take on the 'with great power comes great responsibility' line from spider man.

We really got to watch ourselves as human beings whenever we come into great power or we can easily become tyrants or terrible monsters