The Head Of The Snake

Military Eligibility Test. Photo by The Department of Defense.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. There have been West Point cheating scandals before, and even with the revelations about the size of this one – 73 students – there have been worse. A cheating network was revealed in 1976 in which 153 students were determined to have violated the honor code.

The general consensus is that the 1976 cheating was far worse. It was arranged by upperclassmen, exposed potential past misdeeds and demonstrated a complex organization for the cheating. This one, by comparison, involves almost exclusively first-year students, there is no indication of other cheating and the organization was haphazard… simply taking advantage of the honor system during unmonitored remote testing required because of COVID-19.

I’m disinclined to agree with the “far worse” interpretation, because I feel they both represent a similar problem, and that is the result of a loss of appreciation for principles.

In the 1970s, the United States was faced with a situation where a Republican President had just stepped down due to misdeeds after his Vice President had been pressured to resign due to charges related to taking kickbacks and nonpayment of taxes. Meanwhile, the Democrats had been embracing a movement which condemned not only war but the military and sometimes military members themselves. It was in this climate that the young military leaders of tomorrow were being told to stand for honor – while leadership on one side seemed to be displaying a lack of it and leadership on the other side was empowering people who said that the military itself was dishonorable.

While the Democrats are no longer as hostile to the military as they were in the 1960s and 1970s, they continue to have as a large segment of their support base people who either retain their Vietnam-era biases or were taught them by trusted adults. The military retains a strong pro-Republican lean. It is in this atmosphere that we are faced with a President and a majority of his party who insist that lies are truth and that patriotism is to be discarded and renamed as nationalism. The only thing that is important, the lesson has been taught, is “winning”.

With that as the baseline, I find it utterly unsurprising to learn that more than 70 cadets have been caught cheating when an easy, convenient way to cheat was available to them. The problem isn’t the cheating, the problem is the notion that cheating is acceptable, that honor is transactional, and that any action which can provide personal gain is worth considering.

The people who complained about the predictable coarsening of the culture following the enabling of Bill Clinton’s offenses are being presented with the wholesale dishonoring of the culture due to their support of Donald J. Trump. This is the rot which has been introduced into our system by the election, and continued support, of the sitting President. He is going to be conclusively removed in less than a month. It is on the leadership of the Republican party to purge itself of the many callow enablers of their nationalist wing. I have no faith that they will do so, but if they do not the mentality which led to this latest cheating scandal will remain pervasive among the next generation of political, military and business leaders.

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About AlienMotives 1991 Articles
Ex-Navy Reactor Operator turned bookseller. Father of an amazing girl and husband to an amazing wife. Tired of willful political blindness, but never tired of politics. Hopeful for the future.