You are exaggerating by 200% and leading it ad absurdum.
"Cheating" for me means getting one or two hints at an exam and with the exam situation being what it is, those hints typically only really help to jog your memory if you did study. It does not mean downright plagiarizing your thesis and 90% of your studies.
But US Americans seem to be offended even at the idea of getting or sharing a single hint during an exam. Here in Europe you could easily loose "street cred" and be forever labeled as the worst kind of "nerd" if you did NOT at least try to help a fellow student on purpose. Again, I am not talking about writing 100% of homework for you but sharing a hint or a small piece of help during an exam.
Funnily, we had a few very, very high profile cases of plagiarized doctorates amongst politicians here in Germany. Their degree was taken away from them of course.
"Cheating" may mean that for you, but it's not what it means for most people, and certainly not for "Americans" in general. Panos is pretty clear in his post about what was going on. This wasn't "hints" or anything close.
20-95% of the content in some of these papers was being copied straight off the web without even a citation. It's plagiarism, just like the high-profile cases you recently had. How is that not cheating?
"Cheating" for me means getting one or two hints at an exam and with the exam situation being what it is, those hints typically only really help to jog your memory if you did study. It does not mean downright plagiarizing your thesis and 90% of your studies.
But US Americans seem to be offended even at the idea of getting or sharing a single hint during an exam. Here in Europe you could easily loose "street cred" and be forever labeled as the worst kind of "nerd" if you did NOT at least try to help a fellow student on purpose. Again, I am not talking about writing 100% of homework for you but sharing a hint or a small piece of help during an exam.
Funnily, we had a few very, very high profile cases of plagiarized doctorates amongst politicians here in Germany. Their degree was taken away from them of course.