When The Game Is Rigged, Everyone Loses

[Joeve]

This is a transcript of Joe Vecchio's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast, availaible via "screaming audio" here and posted with the permission of the author.

I'm not surprised that greedy and ambitious people sometimes lie (and do far worse than lie) in order to get what they want. In their minds, the ends really do justify the means, and not only are they not ashamed of it, they're proud of it. It shows that they're people who can "get things done". That's why so many of these people admire football, they see it as a microcosm of the "real" world where the right combination of talent and teamwork equals success.

But football is a sport where people are expected to play and win by the rules of the game. And while both players and fans will tolerate a limited amount of going around the rules or using them to your advantage, we wouldn't praise a team if they intentionally set out to injure their opponents, or bribed the officials. No decent sports fan wants his or her team to win under such circumstances, and players know that if they go out to injure other players, they face retaliation. So why then do we tolerate this kind of extreme behavior from our political leaders? Certainly who "wins" and "loses" in politics has a lot more bearing on our lives than who wins the Super Bowl.

The real problem is that what's happening in Washington is just a charade: a circus to keep us distracted while our freedom and our money is being stolen from right under our noses, behind the scenes and away from public view. That's why an independent press, along with an open government, are so important. Because it's behind these closed doors where the rules are broken and the results are rigged, and when that happens, everyone loses.

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