For one the IC basically excludes edgier and free spirited types, or those with baggage, by design. It also excludes financially motivated people and academic types - in practice we’ve already ruled out most of the urban upper middle/upper classes and most poorer people. Among the remainder you have to pick those with college education that are willing to live in or around cities. And then among those, people willing to commit to a long career, believe in the cause, maintain discretion, unlikely to fall off the wagon… and without any kind of concerning overt bigotry. Besides people who enlisted directly out of high school I feel like Mormons are the only major group who would consistently fit the bill.
Yes, they would, and very often they'd be so convinced of their righteousness that they’d use their power as government agents to run over anything that thet saw as standing in the way of their vision of a better place.
If you look at the history of abuses by the FBI, almost none of them were venal and corrupt, they mostly were just putting a vision of a path to a better world ahead of things like due process.
This is exactly the kind of thing motivating the saying “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. ”
On this topic I'm often reminded of a line from Killing in the Name by Rage Against The Machine: "Some of those who work forces; they're the same that burn crosses." The song was written in response to the beating of Rodney King[0] by LAPD officers in 1991. I wouldn't be particularly surprised if those officers had considered themselves to be a positive force in the world who just had a lapse in judgement on a bad day.
But I still wonder sometimes if people are titrating. "I'm such a monster M-F that I'm gonna go hard on righteousness on Sunday"
Or for Mormons, Monday. Mormons make a big deal about having a special night for your family, traditionally on Monday. So these guys came home from a day of torture on Monday to bond with their wife and kids. No Saturday for a buffer there.
Most humans I've met are wholesome, too. Of the Mormons I've known, several are utter scoundrels, quite a few were mean and petty, and many were dishonest when it suited them. Much like the rest of humanity, there are bad people who happen to be Mormon, and good people who happen to be Mormon. Several Mormons I knew developed a drinking habit on their mission, fell out for a while, and returned to the church.
Don't buy into the mythos. They're just people. The one trait that I did note as almost-uniform among the practicing Mormons that I've known is a distinct holier-than-thou attitude. In the good ones, that seemed to keep them honest. In the bad ones, it was their justification for misbehavior -- especially the petty meanness.
IIRC, one of the field officers was interviewing another female officer's agent (agent being the local national spy) and when they got on the topic of the work he had done with female officer, he said "We haven't done anything, all she does is try to convert me to christianity". She was removed thereafter.
Seems to me that a secular mind is probably best for the objective reasoning required for areas like the FBI, CIA.