Yeah, I guess I was. In the US you see things like relatives of police officers not getting ticketed when they crash while driving drunk, for instance, and other sorts of selective non-enforcement of laws and sometimes selective enforcement based on the prejudices the enforcers. But I've never had to pay a bribe, and I don't know anyone else who's had to pay one either.
Well, it's for higher echelons, and in that level it's not even called a "bribe". You know, like having your company get huge commissions from the very business your war policies created, or having your friends in DC bail you out because you're "too big to fail", etc. E.g (Wikipedia):
Halliburton has become the object of several controversies involving the 2003 Iraq War and the company's ties to former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million.[40] As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President. Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000 and has received stock options from Halliburton. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded a $7 billion contract for which 'unusually' only Halliburton was allowed to bid.
Yes, but equating these two things together is disingenuous. If you've ever been to a 3rd world country you'd know why.
I'm Lebanese(small country sandwiched between Israel and Syria that specializes in fighting proxy wars) and I've been around(not to the US, but to quite a few places in Europe as well as other Arab countries). Things are just not comparable from one place to another.
Yes, human nature is corrupt. Yes, with enough money you can buy people's consciences(at least a lot of them). But it's extremely different when it's systemic rather just one-off individuals being corrupt. Government employees here expect to be bribed, you literally cannot get anything done without bribery.
A few examples. I know quite a few engineers who work in construction, ask any of them and they'll tell you that they have a well-defined budget for bribes. Whenever there's a construction project anywhere, police officers will drop in for surprise inspections and expect to be bribed or else will stop work from getting done. Most of the time there are no violations, but they'll disrupt you enough that it's just cheaper to pay them off.
Another example, a friend of mine drives a motorcycle. They are actually quite rare here[1](and nobody bikes). This is due to the fact that road conditions and driving skills of people are really bad so it's extremely dangerous for anything that's smaller than a car to be on the road. We have a vehicle tax here and along with paying that tax you have to take your vehicle for a yearly inspection(it's one process). This is extremely streamlined for cars(as there are many of them and it has to be a fast process) so not much bribery to do there. But my friend tells me he pays about triple the actual tax where the rest if bribing people to accept his tax payments and confirm that he's had the bike inspected.
I've been to Syria a lot and it's even worse there. It starts right at the border. If you don't bribe the officer conducting the inspection they will just keep opening bags, laptops and asking you about every single detail of every single item and being general dicks until you pay them ~20$(a lot of money in Syria). I was at some point traveling there with a friend who didn't want to pay on principle, they held us up for ~3hrs at least and then he payed anyway.
The list goes on and on, and this is just for personal stuff. For doing business(getting stuff shipped, getting any kind of license, etc...) it's even worse. My friend's father is an executive in the local branch of a big multinational fast moving consumer goods company and he's told me that they have a lot of problems operating in these parts because they have a lot of internal policies that forbid them from doing a lot of things that are just facts of life here.
TL;DR corruption in the 3rd world is something that permeates almost everything that you do. Equating it with some individuals being corrupt and self-serving is just not right. You won't know what I mean until you've tried it I guess.
[1] Note: this does not include a lot and a lot of un-registered, illegally-aquired, scooters that are some of the most annoying as well as dangerous things on the road. These are mostly driven by poor people and immigrants who can't afford anything else. Unfortunately none of them have ever actually learned to drive and it shows. But most of them don't really have a choice so how to deal with them is not clear.
And I think you're overestimating the "impartiality" of the law in the First World.