2020 - a time when many think cheating is worth it

Michael Baumann has a great column in The Ringer that starts with sports, but hits on the same problems we have in politics and business - the people at the top feel that cheating is worth whatever minor punishment may follow.

Baumann begins by discussing the recent suspension of English soccer team Manchester City getting a 2-year ban for exceeding salary caps on signing players, and championship-winning rugby team Saracens for also breaking the salary cap. And he includes the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal which gave them a title in 2017, but now has disgraced them.

Baumann notes that it's not surprising that sports teams bend the rules, because they and other teams got rewarded for their sketchiness.

Having three high-profile cases in such rapid succession, across national and sporting boundaries, makes it look like this is some kind of high-water mark for brazen rule-breaking, but this is not a novel concept. How many times have the New England Patriots been caught sticking a video camera or an air compressor in the wrong place at the wrong time, only to receive a slap on the wrist? It wasn’t too long ago that the Seattle Seahawks built an entire defensive system around the idea that there’s a limit to the number of penalties referees are willing to call, and that limit does not change with the number of penalties a team actually commits.

If there was ever a time when the spirit of a law dictated behavior, that time has gone. Now it’s no longer about the letter of the law, but about what a given actor believes the authorities are willing to enforce. And within this specific amoral framework, crime pays. What do the Astros, Man City, and Saracens have in common, apart from suffering penalties severe enough to merit six-column headline type? They’ve won, constantly and inexorably, and flags fly forever. So, too, for the Seahawks and Patriots.

Baumann goes on to note that this type of rule-bending (and outright breaking) goes well beyond sports these days, and is central to the strategy of our largest corporations.

So, too, to the peril of society at large, have disruptive commercial and industrial institutions similarly benefited by greed and regulatory capture. It’s now a billion-dollar business to find creative ways around—or uncreative ways through—rules designed to ensure public safety, or to protect workers and consumers. The proof is in Uber, and Amazon, and investment banking.

Athletes cheat, and have cheated since time immemorial, because they want to win. Businesspeople—the kind of folks who now run organizations like the Astros, Manchester City, and Saracens—cheat because they can. Avoiding the rules, or avoiding punishment for breaking them, has the same effect as following the rules, and absent the values of fairness and justice that inspire such rules in the first place, the ethical consequences are the same as well.

And is it any surprise that we see the same effect in our politics. We have a lawless GOP that only cares about grabbing power at all costs, and will gladly cover up crimes by this White House and look the other way on foreign interference on elections as long as it helps them stay in power.

And if there is no accountability to this type of system-rigging, why would they stop? Until our elite politicians and corporates get tossed out en masse for their cheating and amoral scumminess, and/or get thrown in jail and face massive fines for going around our laws to gain an advantage, we will continue to spiral down the drain.

Which reminds me - in light of the explosive reports about how the Trump Administration wants to bury information about Russian agents misinforming people for the 2020 elections, is the Wisconsin Senator that chairs the Homeland Security Committee going to have hearings to expose this to the American public, and make sure we have fair and free elections this Fall?

Who ya with, RoJo? Legitimate democracy, or a slanted system that might allow you to keep your status, no matter how illegitimate it is?