My Two Cents: Lowering The Bar

This week, while already wincing from the dirty tactics being employed by presidential candidates, we all collectively cringed as it was announced that all thirty teams in major league baseball, had players linked to steroid abuse.

For a several years now, a significant number of major league baseball players have emerged with profound muscular development and unprecedented, off-the-chart athletic performances. Nonetheless, with rumors spreading and story's leaking, it was "business as usual" for baseball. For decades now we have been expanding our tolerance for the lowest common denominator when it comes to our political leaders.

We are faced, these days, with far too many examples of our once revered institutions breaking down. Whether in politics or sports, on Wall Street or Main Street, I can't remember a time when people were less demanding about the standards that we don't keep.

Should we just accept that the words "dirty" and "politics" go hand in hand? Is it acceptable as fans for us to look the other way, demanding less and less, year in and year out?

Significant breakdowns in such esteemed institutions as holding political office, major league baseball, boardrooms, classrooms - wherever -- usually occur at the level of institution rather than at the level of individual.

In other words -

The fish always rots from the head!

But, when we as voters or fans -- as citizens -- just keep "going along", implicit in our lack of response is our unspoken permission for folks to just keep on conducting "business as usual"...

That's my two cent's (for whatever it's worth).

Auguste Roc
auguste@danaroc.com