Quoting someone doesn't necessarily signify approval.
I didn't think either of the quotes was obviously stupid. Each one would require a good bit of thinking to decide if they made any sense. Or why they do not. And the context etc.
I wonder if the police trainer is a bad guy or an interesting one. A bad guy tries to pervert trainees. An interesting one explains that things which sound relatively innocuous might actually be at the heart of what makes them useful in service of an evil causes.