CULTURE OF CHEATING

Centurion took my tongue-in-cheek post on Rusty Hardin’s defense of Roger Clemens, NEW STANDARD FOR EVIDENCE OF INNOCENCE (8-29-10), a bit too seriously.
　
In taking issue with my post, Centurion said:
　
__Somehow I can't get all that excited about athletes using performance enhancing drugs. They've been doing it for years and will continue to do so.

__Meanwhile, Iran is on the verge fo developing Nukes, they have a delivery system, North Korea has Nukes, Israel, our only friend in the mid east is being cut loose by our present administration and are about to be wiped off the map, our Southern border is a joke where illegals line up to cross like kids waiting to get on a ride at Disneyland. I could go on of course...

__So a few athletes cheating to build up their bodies to overperform...you'll have to forgive me my lack of outrage. I don't condone it, but I just can't get all that excited about it.
　
Centurion has a very good point. In the scope of national and international concerns, cheating by athletes seems rather insignificant. But does that mean he shouldn’t get all that excited about it? No, not at all! Quite to the contrary, I think he and every other American should get excited whenever role models cheat.
　
What Clemens and other prominent athletes have done is symptomatic of America’s culture of cheating.
　
Public school teachers, in fear of losing their jobs, help students cheat on standard performance tests. Most high school kids and college students fee it’s okay to cheat on exams. Many college students copy someone else’s work to turn in as their own. Many Americans cheat on their income taxes. Many investors have been cheated by stockbrokers and investment banks through frequent trades made solely to earn the traders more sales commissions.

Accounting firms have been complicit in the cheating by corporations to make their current and projected earnings look much better – Enron immediately comes to mind. Mortgage banks have qualified homebuyers by helping them cheat with their income statements. Cheating is endemic in the sales of cars, jewelry and other high-dollar consumer items.
　
The criminal justice system is not exempt from cheating. Prosecutors often withhold evidence from the defense that casts doubt on the accused’s guilt. Court appointed defense attorneys often cheat their indigent clients out of a good defense. In civil cases, the use of dirty tactics to win cases are a form of cheating. And, I’m sorry to say, there are those cover-ups of wrongdoing by cops.
　
If we don’t get excited about cheating by ‘role model’ athletes, we might as well turn a blind eye toward all the other forms of cheating. A nation in which cheating has become a way of life is a nation that has lost its way. A culture of cheating is not what America’s founding fathers envisioned.