Loyalty in sports, politics and life in general

When Lebron, Dwight, Harden or even Lin decided to go to another Team the media and fans alike cried foul calling them names. They were called traitors for not looking after the interest of the team and it's owners. Please note that they did this through free agency. Let's pause for a moment and see what is happening right now in NBA.
The Celtics traded their star Kevin Garnett and a fellow star Paul Pierce who had not played for any other team through out his career. The Heat have amnestied Mike Miller. I mean Mike Miller who played through injuries and made key plays in both of it's championship runs. Apparently the management thought hard to keep him but decided to amnesty him in the best interest of the team and save 20+ million. The Lakers did the same with Metta World Peace. Imagine game 7 of the Lakers last championship without Metta World Peace on the hardwood floor. The list goes on and on. The lowly Bucks would not offer a good deal to bring back their second best player on their team in Monta Ellis. It was not as if he was demanding a whole lot.
The media has to say only this - the teams are doing the best to stay competitive in the new CBA environment. It is an easy defense. It is understandable why the media does it. It makes for a good story by demonizing the players who are the faces of the franchises. They can work on that story over and over again for weeks if not months and seasons to come. Pissing off a wealthy team owner who could cut your access to his team is not in the best interest of a puny sports analyst. Some of the team owners could be the media owners or friends of the owners exercising pressure to not cover the team owners negatively.
But the fact that fans cannot see through this is a travesty. The first thing to note is that all the city based franchises are owned by corporations. Loyalty to the city is an easy way to bind the fans to the franchise and increase their revenue. These teams are nothing but corporations trying to make the most money. Also a one with revenue sharing and near zero competition arena. Your team is the only team competing for your loyalty in your city(at least in most cities other than LA and NYC). The revenue sharing has ensured that ownership does not have to be good at their business side of it. No wonder you see bad decisions over and over again by teams in Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte (which is owned by basketball's best player Michael Jordan).
The case of Michael Jordan is interesting. Once upon a time he was supposedly the best player on earth. During that time, the CBA(collective bargaining agreement) ended and he debated vocally against giving more revenue share to the teams ownership. He argued that players are what makes the game great and are entitled to more revenue than they were receiving. Few years pass, he retires, un-retires, joins the wizards, retires again after couple disastrous seasons there, buys a team and relocates it to his home town in Charlotte, NC. Now lucky for him, he gets to be part of the owners club when the current CBA ends and negotiation talks reach a stalemate. He for everyone's surprise wanted more share for himself as owner. The players had to give in. He got a pass from the media as an owner for his hypocrisy but not for his comments when he was a player.

But sports is not the only place where abstract notions like loyalty are expected of many with little or no power and a pass is given to people with power. Let us take political parties. Imagine a candidate who has been serving the community for few decades as a Senator. He has been with a party and the party decides to go ultra conservative or ultra liberal which is not to his liking. He decides to join the other party. Would you think he would win? No, he would be called a traitor by his new party and old party affiliates alike. Case in point is Arlen Specter ex-senator of PA who was put to shame for switching parties a few years ago. Needless to say, he lost his re- election. I mean individuals who are caught for corruption, cheating and adultery are much more likely to contest and win an election provided they stick to their parties. Please note that I am not advocating individuals that switch parties for winning election. The topic of conversation here is expectations of loyalty.
This probably plays out in even smaller entities. I was talking to a friend of mine who mentioned of trouble in his apartment complex. The apartment association is in cahoots with the owners and let in some illegal construction. When a few sane folks objected, they were told to abide by the decision of the association's elected body. They were apparently being called traitors and are accused of having causing disharmony with selfish motives.
I have seen this play out over and over again in different aspects of my life - public , private and everything in between. An abused women is asked to be loyal to her husband and adjust for family's sake, society's sake and whatever others reason. How often do we see this happen. Too many times for my personal comfort. In most of these cases, the woman is the one with hardly any power and/or any earning potential. Whereas the man is the one with power, both physical and economical. In most societies the woman who makes a fuss is called a word that rhymes with itch. her own family sometimes disowns her. Again I am not advocating divorce by women nor am I stating that it does not happen with men. The purpose is to drive a common theme where loyalty is used as a way to keep people with less power submissive to ones with more power.
So why is loyalty one way road. Why is it that individuals are expected to be loyal to entities that hold much more power.