I am Having a Hard Time

I am having a hard time understanding the venom that is coming from people who have seen the pictures of the #OWS protest at the University of California at Davis. How can people see images if kids being sprayed in the face with military grade pepper spray. How can people see these images of passive kids. How can people see these images and know they are passive kids and spew venom directed at the children? The people spewing venom know they are passive. The people spewing venom know they are kids. I know this because they say it. The use the word passive. They use the word kids. And they still are blinded by fury at the image. They are furious at the kids. But are they? Or do they feel anger at the image just as I do? Do they see a picture of a person who meant no harm being hurt and get angry at that image just as I do? Is the difference in our response not the anger but another pice of knowledge that they have? Is it that they know deep down that authority is protective? They know deep down that police are good? Is the difference that I just add another word into that sentence: Police are usually good. Just as I know that police are people, and people are usually good. The difference may be that I can look at that picture and know that this is astonishingly abhorrent. This is not the behavior of somebody who is protecting and good. This is somebody who has fallen down the trap of Milgram and Zimbardo. The lesson I am learning tonight, is that the person who is expressing outrage towards the kid may vary well be expressing the same outrage I am feeling, but unable to pair their outrage with the other knowledge that they have, so the anger comes out twisted and misdirected. This unconscionable person becomes a person... Or maybe he is just a jerk.