There would be redress for such abuses of power in any worthwhile society, Keith: channels available for complaint. Don't tell me you, yourself, would put up with any such obstrucionism from any officious official (even if you came across an instance of it — the particular sort of abuses I rubricate just wouldn't happen here, for all your "everywhere" — tell me, please, where "everywhere" else they happen in the manner , and to the extent, that I relate). But what channels of complaint do you imagine would be open to as Palestinian Arab who had been spitefully delayed for days at a checkpoint, over some imagined or invented lacuna in his papers or whatever? I fear I think you are being naif and obstructive in your argument here.
And don't forget that I am on your side, dammit -- or wish I could be...