In America, and also in other countries (notably China), people cheat all the time. The ethos is that people do the minimum to earn the maximum gain. Many universities fully expect this. Instead of having honor systems, they resort to professors proctoring exams.
When you decide to enforce a system, you take the onus for honor off of the individual and put it on the system. It may be counterintuitive, but when you expect people to behave honorably, they do. When you tell them you will watch them, they feel free to do what they want when they think you aren’t watching.
Most people in our society believe the measure of a person is what they do. What they give to the society. If you can get away with it, and do good, you are supported. It’s the Robin Hood myth. If you do good, then you are forgiven your sins.
SO cheating is not cheating if you redeem yourself. That is, in my opinion, for better or for worse, how things operate in many countries in the world. No one has time for morality. They only have time for results.
Lance Armstrong delivered a lot. He delivered a lot, and he also passed every test in the enforcement system. It was only his buddies ratting him out that caused the problem. And we all know that humans can lie. There are lots of reasons to lie. So what do we believe? The scientific tests that rely on objective data, or the lying humans who have their own personal agendas?
I choose not to rely on either. I choose to think that the rules are wrong. That cheating is not cheating. There is no level playing field. I think that an athletic feat is a feat even if the person used medicine to help in the training. Even if they took additional risks to become better. That makes them crazy, in my book. A fanatic. But I’m not going to worry about cheating because that is a systemic problem, and the system encourages cheating. Why? I don’t know. Yes I do know. They want to be seen to be going after cheaters when in fact they don’t really care. If they really cared, they’d put the athletes on the honor system. But there is no honor in this system, and where there is no honor there can be no cheating.
So Lance did great things. He did them despite the dishonorable system and sets of rules he played under. He did a very good job. To see a system without honor trying to tear down someone like Lance is like watching a deaf man walking down a railroad track. They are killing themselves but they don’t know it.