If you trust quotes - Bush said "No new taxes" (and there were), Obama said he'll close guantanamo as soon as he goes into office -- he even signed such an order in his first month -- but guantanamo is still operating.
Quotes are PR. Actions speak louder than words. And the actions had always been to worship the successful, as in the examples I gave, the Cheney example you gave, and the Burr/Hamilton I wasn't even aware of.
You seem to have your pet way of interpreting history. I'm not arguing that honor and other values were some kind of omnipotent force for good I'm just saying they existed.
When you assume that I'm a complete idiot you're failing to "assume good faith" which is one of the conduct requirements to maintain your honor. In a court of law, a lawyer who fails to assume good faith is dishonored and his arguments are automatically invalid. Honor is still used in our justice system.
When was the last time you observed real court proceedings and saw a laywer dishonored? Many of them act in bad faith every day.
You ignore historical examples dismissing them with excuses, your references are (essentially) PR speeches and the conservapedia (this thread http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?121000-Conser...! might enlighten other readers, but it is irrelevant to reality in your own planet).
If courts worked as you believe, the SCO/Novell fiasco would not have dragged for the years it has (it's still not dead!).
Yes, honor exists. But you have failed to demonstrate that the course of american society was significantly influenced by the concept of honor.