I juat think that no one wakes up in the morning and says "I'm going to skirt my job by intimidating students and BS-ing.

I can assure you that some do. There comes a time when you notice that you can bring your laptop to class and assign group work while you surf the Web. No one calls you on it. You don't get summoned to some office and reprimanded. The students sit there and do as they're told. Then you realize how little oversight there really is. The students have been conditioned to obey authority, and the authority is YOU. Power corrupts. I ended up deciding I didn't want to be evil, even if that would mean a lot more work for me.

But I may just be overly cynical. Most teachers I've come across seem to care and genuinely want to see their students do well. I would hope that your explanation is more typical than mine.