For those who have played sports or any sort or games: do you cheat because your opponents cheat? Do you give up and play sloppily without care for sportsmanship or basic civility simply because you're on the losing side by a large margin and hope of winning is dim? How do you conduct yourself when confronted by bad behavior? Do you reflect bad behavior in return, because it won't matter one whit to your protagonist if you respond politely, reasonably and calmly?
Quite honestly, I played football for eight years, and yes, if an opponent insisted on breaking rules, then I broke as many back as possible. Cheat? No. Return foul for foul? You bet. Bite me in a pile up, and you'd better hope not to find yourself near me in the next pile up. And you know what? It works. I was only bitten twice in eight years, and word got around.
Give up sportsmanship and cilvility simply because I was on a losing side? Never. One of the proudest games I was ever honored to play in was a lopsided loss to a much larger out of division school whose players hit hard, hurt well, but did so in within the framework.
As to how I respond to bad behavior, a lot depends on what that behavior is and what is on the line. Give me the finger in traffic, and you'll most likely get a smile and a nod...perhaps a friendly wave, if your bad mood led to the gesture...certainly an apologetic look if I did indeed do something that violated your driving space.
OTOH, walk up and punch me in the face, and you'd best hope there's not a 2 x 4 handy, as I WILL whack you with it. Pull a knife on me in order to rob me, and you will (pardon the pun) find yourself undergunned.
What you are trying to draw above is a correlation that is so far out of the bounds of reality as to be totally ludicrous. To compare a mere sporting event to the events that are going to affect the rest of our rights and the rights of our descendants from here on out as free human beings is to compare losing a penny to losing one's life. Perhaps the gulf is even broader than that.
Dunno if there are enough people who remember what our first flags looked like before Betsy Ross worked her beautiful artistry, or how much of the blood of those who flew the "Don't Tread On Me" banner still flow in this society's veins...I guess time will tell.