I have been trying not to respond to your offhand insults. I know it's an emotional thing for you, it is for me as well, but if I respond with my own it just becomes a shouting match. Afterwards I feel unjustifiably self-righteous and later, like a bag of shit.

You can't change the institution without changing the people who run it. The individuals as you say. Good luck changing them and good luck ever changing the system from the top down. No, you need to start at the bottom.

Think of it as abuse. Abuse is something that stays in a family. An abusive father abuses his child who doesn't learn how to raise a child who abuses his child and so on. The only way to fix it is to change a person's way of thinking. You have to show them that there is another way.

What happens once people start empathizing and understanding others, once they see them as fellow humans? Well they stand up and fight, sure, but they also teach. They teach others the ways they were taught, like an adult raises his child like he was taught. It spreads (hopefully) and as it does those who make the laws and run the important positions need to change as well. If not, they are replaced.

In today's world, scandal is the worst thing that can happen to an important figure. It ruins their reputation, their job and empties their wallets. When it becomes scandalous to do something horrible to a person (you know the policies and laws I am getting at) they are forced to repeal. Like cogs in a machine.

Another analogy, let's say a machine only prints blue squares. One day you white it out and make a red triangle. It's nice for a while, but the next day is prints out another blue square. But if instead you tinker with the machine itself to make red triangles then you no longer need to fix the pages. They automatically do it right the first time.