This is a serious question. Perhaps some of you philosophers, lawyers, or anyone else smarter than I can answer it.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

22. Everything trended south after 2000

I recall the introspection following the 2000 SCOTUS decision and that we'd become a "cheating culture".

"A public policy expert reveals how decades of deregulation and increasing inequality have fostered a culture of cheating across America.

There have always been people who cut corners, but in The Cheating Culture, David Callahan demonstrates how cheating on every level—from the highly publicized corporate scandals to Little League fraud—has risen dramatically in recent decades. He then asks the simple yet provocative questions: Why all the cheating? Why now?

Callahan pins the blame on today’s dog-eat-dog economic climate. An unfettered market and unprecedented economic inequality have corroded our values and threaten the level playing field so central to American democracy itself. Through revealing interviews and extensive data analysis, Callahan takes readers on a revealing tour of cheating in America and offers a powerful argument for why it matters."

https://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Culture-Americans-Doing-Wrong/dp/0156030055#