Marty: We are becoming a Corruption Nation

This weekend saw former major leaguer Rickey Henderson inducted
into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  Although he was a 10-time All-Star, the game’s best leadoff
hitter and ranked among the top 100 all-time home run hitters,
Rickey is best known as a base stealer. His career stolen base
record is 1,406. How good is that?  That is 50% better than his
nearest competitor, Lou Brock, who stole ‘only
‘ 938 bases.
This weekend saw former major leaguer Rickey Henderson inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Although he was a 10-time All-Star, the game’s best leadoff hitter and ranked among the top 100 all-time home run hitters, Rickey is best known as a base stealer. His career stolen base record is 1,406. How good is that?  That is 50% better than his nearest competitor, Lou Brock, who stole ‘only’ 938 bases.

Unfortunately, bases are not the only things being stolen in America these days. More and more Americans are stealing everything they can lay their hands on and those folks belong in the Hall of Shame. Our official national motto used to be, In God We Trust and our de-factor motto was E pluribus unum (Latin, Out of many, one), but our new national motto seems to be, “I’ll get mine – somehow.” 

See Richman’s talk show, The News and You, below:

The problem is everywhere and at every level. Locally, you pick up the paper and discover that someone is on a smash-and-grab spree – breaking into a score of parked cars and causing thousands in damages to steal stuff worth only a few bucks, at most. On the big stage last week, the authorities arrested half the politicians in state of New Jersey and their accomplices – a paddy wagon full of Rabbis – for bribery, money laundering and trading in, of all things, human organs.

Big time thievery: Swiss bankers helped Americans cheat on their taxes.  Small time thievery:  many ordinary people are buying big-ticket items they can’t afford with the intention of using them, then bringing them back for a refund; sort of a rent-to-own without the rent part. A fellow blogger recently educated me, apparently ‘borrowing’ designer clothing from expensive stores, wearing it to an affair and then returning it, is rampant.

What do you expect; we are a nation that admires cheaters and thieves. We cheer wildly when our favorite steroid-juiced baseball players come up to hit. Whatever happened to shame? Mike Greenberg, one of the hosts of ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning, was recently discussing the difficulty of taking his young son to a baseball game and cheering for admitted steroid user Alex Rodriguez. He was wondering how to explain the issue to his little boy; he needs to find a way, we all do. 

You see the problem is that under out current social scoring system crime does pay, few criminals are caught and those who are rich and famous and powerful usually don’t suffer that much. Right now people reading this are saying to themselves, I’d trade a 50-game suspension and some faked shame for a hundred million bucks, anytime.

Politically, it’s the same. U.S. Senator Roland Burris recently announced he was not running for reelection.  When he made that decision, talk of prosecuting him faded away. Burris was appointed by disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and FBI tapes clearly show Burris lied under oath about his contributions and contacts with the governor’s associates. In other words, he bought his senate seat from a guy who would have sold the statehouse if there were a profit in it. Nevertheless, it appears Burris will be a retired Senator while most of us will still be counting our pennies.

Burris is only an egregious and convenient example – corruption recognizes no political, racial, ethnic, regional or economic distinctions. Petty thieves say if only they were rich they would not steal, but it’s not true, rich people steal all the time. Cheaters say they need to cheat to keep up with everyone else who is cheating.  It’s a state of mind and stealing and cheating, not baseball, is now the national pastime.

Marty Richman is a Hollister resident. His column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at cw*****@***oo.com.