IMHO many , not all, but many do indeed view themselves as superior over the everyday citizen. In general their attitudes suck although this does vary greatly from department to department depending upon their culture. When I get an unjustified attitude from a public servant, badge or not, I call them out on it just so their crystal clear that their superiority complex is ill founded.
I'm a big believer that the very sort of folks that would be best suited for police work are repelled at the notion of such a profession and the very people most poorly suited for the job are ATTRACTED to the profession- and then we se departments denying officer candidates the job because their test score was too high? And we wonder why there are so many LEOs out there with 'other than friendly' attitudes?
Here's what needs to happen to improve the overall situation- Stop allowing police to police themselves- every community should have a citizen populated police oversight board whom the Chief Of Police answers to and can be terminated by. This oversight board would also investigate alleged police misconduct cases and determine the appropriate course of action include termination and referral to the DA for criminal prosecution. The notion that police can effectively oversee themselves is absurd- why that is the typical way in which 'police oversight' is conducted today is beyond me.
LOL, so true. It's idiotic and absurd to investigate yourself and claim to be unbiased at the same time when you have a code protects everyone in blue. The ones who do IA are looked down upon, and few want to report misconduct. People need to police themselves in communities by learning morality and engaging in the effortful freedom of personal responsibility to be eternally vigilant for our own safety and not abdicate it to someone else. Thanks for the feedback ;)
Hey if they are really smart and want to get into the system, maybe they can play it dumb for a few years and then just own everything :D. Anyways that is how it goes in most of the world, as @thelightreports said, the people suited for the job are repelled by the others there hogging all the "authority".
The days of the local sheriff upholding the law for everybody are long past, nowadays politics are into law enforcement as much as it was in the medieval times, so serving the people is as stupid as not taking taxes and disobeying the count.
Good police officers are being flung all the trash since they can take it, if they can't great, power gets distributed towards less people, so the "rulers" rule more :D and having people that won't ask question and believe whatever you "spell" at them are a good addition to any ruling class.