Unfortunately, this did not occur in the French replication, in which the production assistant protested about the immorality of the procedure with virtually no effect on levels of obedience. And unfortunately, not in the Burger study either: Burger found that the intervention of an accomplice who refused to continue had no effect on the levels of obedience

So it may be that we are in fact more compliant today than Milgram’s original subjects, unmoved by social support. A dark thought for our dark times.

About 70 percent were willing to continue the experiment at this point, suggesting that subjects remain just as compliant in the 21st century. Nonetheless, Burger’s study was based upon a questionable assumption, namely that 150-volt compliance has remained a reliable predictor of 450-volt compliance. Subjects today might be willing to go a bit beyond 150 volts, but perhaps not to the far end of the scale (after learners demand that the experiment be discontinued etc.). In fact, this assumption begs the critical question at issue.

In other words, people were happy to ignore the evidence before their eyes in order to conform to the group consensus.

Did Milgram’s experiment demonstrate that humans have a universal propensity to destructive obedience or that they are merely products of their cultural moment?

Milgram was horrified by the results of the experiment. In the “remote condition” version of the experiment described above, 65 percent of the subjects (26 out of 40) continued to inflict shocks right up to the 450-volt level, despite the learner’s screams, protests, and, at the 330-volt level, disturbing silence. Moreover, once participants had reached 450 volts, they obeyed the experimenter’s instruction to deliver 450-volt shocks when the subject continued to fail to respond.

“They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other,” Watson told WLS, recalling trucks and military-style vans were used to separate adults from their children.

Ballard said the majority of those he saw handcuffed outside were Black residents and “quite a few” were detained for two to three hours.

Fisher said she was handcuffed anyway, before being released around 3 a.m. and was told anyone with an outstanding warrant, even if it was unrelated to immigration, would not be released.

People detained no matter their status

“Federal agents reporting to Secretary Noem have spent weeks snatching up families, scaring law-abiding residents, violating due process rights, and even detaining U.S. citizens. They fail to focus on violent criminals and instead create panic in our communities,” the governor said.

Ballard recalled seeing residents detained outside the building for hours, after seeing a Black Hawk helicopter flying over the five-story building in the city’s South Shore neighborhood and military-sized vehicles and agents filling the parking lot early Tuesday morning.

The agent demurred, turned away. She looked shy and frazzled. He asked her again, “Have you read Eichmann in Jerusalem?” But at this point another agent — a thick-necked, red-faced pig — walked up to the protester and leaned into his face in an effort at intimidation. I am not certain I heard the next part correctly, but I think the man hissed: “Eichmann in WHAT?”

The prospect of travel excited this applicant and many others. In fact over and over the DHS agents at the fair emphasized how it was the best part of their job.

This is a disgusting country, I thought, irredeemable visually, psychically, morally, and ethically, and whatever is likable about our people’s warm patter does not in any way forgive what we have done to the world. It isn’t hard to bring politeness and evil into view at the same time.

Across the highway was an enormous company headquarters called BigBear.ai, which, as it turned out, is yet another defense contractor, lately being sued for defrauding investors.

The US is filled with “pretty nice guys” who are ready to inflict, who have already inflicted, senseless and life-shattering violence on innocent, impoverished people.

A blind man I spoke to, who was hoping to find a data-centric position with ICE, said he was sick of his current job collecting child support payments from delinquent parents.