From the top down, U.S. becoming a nation of cheaters

Playing a friendly game of cards with a group of Brazilians not long ago, my partner chastised me for not protecting my cards well enough and allowing my opponent to see them. The insinuation being that it was a given my opponents would try to see my cards, and it was my fault, not my opponents lack of card-playing ethics.

My partner’s reasoning was sound for one simple reason – Brazilians are notorious cheaters.

A perfect example of that was displayed in the 2002 World Cup, when Brazil – the eventual champions – was playing a group match against Turkey. Surrendering a corner kick, a player for Turkey booted the ball overly hard at Brazilian striker Rivaldo, hitting him in the thigh.

Rivaldo dramatically fell to the ground clutching his head as if he’d taken a shotgun blast to the face. The Turkish player was expelled.

In Brazil, this type of cheating is to be expected. In a land where 99 percent of those in congress are millionaires – with the vast majority earning their wealth after being elected – doing whatever it takes to succeed is the norm, ethics be damned.

Travel North to the United States in 2007, and it’s no surprise that the man chasing the most cherished record in Major League Baseball – Hank Aaron’s mark of 755 career home runs – is widely regarded as a cheat of proportions rivaling his muscle-bound cranium.

While one must assume innocence until proven guilty, it takes but the slightest bit of common sense to see that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds used illegal drugs in order to advance his baseball career. Evidence both circumstantial and concrete point to Bonds using illegal steroids to bolster his body.

Bonds, of course denies this, however, and will take the field in 2007 with 734 home runs – some 240 of them after the age of 37, and after displaying a completely revamped, muscle-bound body.

Is it any surprise, however, that the outrage over Bonds’ obvious rule breaking has been somewhat muted? In years past, professional athletes have been taken to task for such illegal dalliances. These days, it has become nearly an accepted byproduct of the game, and therefore of society.

Let there be no doubt that this grudging acceptance of cheaters has, like Brazil, come from the top down. As Glenn Greenwald so accurately points out in his Salon article “Lying to Congress has become a Republican principle, literally”, cheating and lying about cheating has become an integral part of the GOP platform, and has been for nearly two eons.

“Illegal behavior — in the form of, among other things, continuous and deliberate deceit of the Congress — is pervasive at the highest levels of the Bush Justice Department and it has plainly become a central part of the Republican ethos,” writes Greenwald.

As much as living in a nation with an out-of-control budget deficit helps create a citizenship of debtors, having the top levels of government so blatantly cheat has helped create a nation of cheaters. Because while trickle-down economics has been a resounding failure, trickle-down dishonesty has taken root, with the sporting world being the perfect example of ethics tossed aside.

Because in the end, this win-at-all-costs, stay-on-top attitude permeates all levels of American society, helping to create citizens who now know that they had better keep their cards well hidden, for fear of who’s peaking.

–WKW