WELCOME TO THE CLUB, RUDY

FPC? It’s an exclusive club, but not one of our members enjoys belonging to it.

You might call it The Frustrated Patriots Club – and that would be accurate. Now, Mayor Giuliani, “America’s Mayor,” it sounds like you could be our champion, because you are among the few with enough gravitas and name recognition to get the media to pay you some mind. And even though you are put through the wringer for doing it, you are tougher and more resilient than your sissified critics.

Let’s face it, the rest of the FPC is so invisible that the media can’t even bring itself to bother with them, other than to label the entire FPC extremists; right wingnuts. Rudy, I assure you, most of our club members are simply patriots who see America going to the dogs, patriots who look at each day’s news and see only too clearly what is going on. They are primarily older folks like (if you’ll excuse my frankness) you, Mr Mayor. People who have been around long enough to have some sense of history. They give dollars and votes to so-called political conservative patriots who make promises in order to become part of the DC establishment. But once elected they virtually always let us down, with feeble excuses about how hard they tried.

We are sick of these phonies! To paraphrase one of The Who’s great hits: the new boss is just like the old boss. We won’t be fooled again.

Like you, many of us grew up in the post-WWII years when Americans basked in a sense of pride. When other nations regarded America as a bright positive light in an often dark world. We know that because most of them were, and still are, trying to get here by hook or by crook.

But since the 1960's, the scarlet pall of Marxist thinking has been infecting every institution in this nation, preaching the philosophy of America Last. America as the direct cause of planet Earth’s problems. The socialist philosophy of wealth redistribution. Since then, wealth has certainly been redistributed, but not much to the poor, nor much to the middle class.

While this philosophical infection has not made life much better for the most needy, it has certainly “transformed” America. Socialist technocrats within the U.S. governing agencies, led by plutocrat outsiders, are bleeding whatever wealth was possessed by America’s middle class, ultimately funneling it to the wealthy, creating the wealthiest super-wealthy in the history of the world. But that’s another story, Rudy.

Like you, I worked for decades in New York City. My office was in a building adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. I was on 45th Street walking back to my office when the chopper crashed on the heliport deck of the Pan Am building. The shattered heli blades showered down onto the street, a piece injuring one of my office colleagues. Remember that mess? I was shocked by the various terrorist bombings in Manhattan and the subsequent raised security precautions which showed up in so many buildings. I couldn’t visit my clients in nearby buildings or via the airlines without clearing security. A new experience for most of us. You did a great job Mr. Mayor, cleaning up the city of both crime and trash. But who could have even imagined 9/11? From my office I watched the Twin Towers rise day-by-day over the city. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by its architectural plainness, but, Rudy, I never, ever expected to see the towers come down the way they did. Ever! I can only try to imagine how you must have felt, as Mayor, when your city was violated that way. By that time, I was working in California.

So, in your angry mood, raging against this President, against the increasingly draconian methods of the Federal Government, against the way we are running the nation foreign affairs, you are broadcasting the mood of the millions of unwilling members of our club.

I hope I am speaking for the majority of our members when I beg you to not stop. Do not back down. Rudy, you are not only America’s Mayor, but the Voice of America’s Patriots. You are right, and right is translated into righteousness in your speeches.

I’m a few years older than you, but I share a similar background, being Italian-American... educated in Catholic grammar and prep schools. My attitude may be exacerbated by being from Jersey, but with all that, I have led a successful life, raised a wholesome family, and after all these years, with all it’s problems, I still love the idea of America. But many in our nation don’t get the way we FPC members project ourselves. It makes some uncomfortable when we show our passion for America. For any of our members who feel intimidated by the Left’s accusations, let me paraphrase Barry Goldwater’s admonition; “...[passion] in the defense of liberty is no vice!”

Many on the other side argue that liberty is in no danger. While they accuse us of seeing a bogeyman hiding in every shadow, they see a saint. These people are willfully blind. Many in our club believe the President of their club, as you might have suggested, is not only blind to the danger, but is in his own way courting disaster, or worse... inviting it. As Pat Buchanan puts it, Obama “is not a son of America.” For all you media dimwits, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t born here – it’s a world view thing – his world view is not “American.” Nor is this a comment based on his political party affiliation. With all Bill Clinton’s personal issues, while in the White House, none of us ever thought he didn’t love America. And while Bush’s initials might be GW, few of us mistook him for George Washington.

Many of our club members feel the situation is dire. At every turn, DC seems to be working against America’s national interests. I know I don't have to list the problems for you, you know them better than most. Reasoning with our leaders, trusting them, is getting us nowhere but to the next lower level of Dante’s Inferno. I believe you know what needs to be done, Rudy.

And to readers of this post; agree or disagree, please pass it along via eMail, tweets, FB or any other way. We need to get this debate in the public square! Thanks.

THERE IS NO PROFIT IN TRUTH

Since Man first learned the use of his tongue for speech, lying has been a tool used for gain, or to avoid loss.

One can generally tell the popularity of a thing by the number of names it is known by. Lying goes by many names intended to make the manure smell less odious; exaggeration, prevarication, fibbing, distortion, mis-remembering, selective truth, conditional truth, kitman, fabricate, forswear, perjure, equivocate, fudge, palter, beguile, deceive, delude, dupe, fool, hoax, hoodwink, take in, snow, trick, defame, libel, slander, traduce, falsify, misreport, misrepresent, misstate, distort, dissemble, dissimulate, misguide, misinform, mislead and so on.

All have one thing in common: the liar believes he has something to gain and little to lose. He sees no gain to be had by not lying, and much to be gained by not telling the truth. He believes he is so beguiling that you will not even think of challenging the lie.

Lying has become so pervasive in our culture that we have come to accept it as just another language tool to get what we want, or avoid what we don’t. There is no profit in truth.

We learn this at an early age. Bill Cosby did a very funny comedy bit about a toddler who took a cookie he wasn't supposed to. When caught, the toddler comes up with all kinds of excuses for why he did what he did. Now where did the toddler learn to lie? Certainly most parents don’t teach their children to lie. But children are smarter than we normally give them credit for. Cookies taste good but taking your medicine doesn’t.

Unfortunately this knowledge isn’t forgotten as we grow up. What teenager hasn’t made up a story of why he/she stayed out so late, or where they were, or how dad’s car got dented? Why? To avoid punishment. A different kind of profit.

Certainly some small fibs are forgivable:
    “Did you enjoy my home-made boiled kiwi pie?”
    “Wow, I thought it was store-bought.”
Or
    “Does this dress make my butt look bigger?”
    “Butt? What butt.”

Some lies are whoppers. When Bernie Madoff admitted that his investment firm was "just one big lie," it was an understatement. In 2008, he confessed to having conned about $50 billion from investors who trusted him with their savings.

“Kitmān” is a Middle Eastern term for the “art” President Obama employs in making ambiguous statements, paying lip-service to law. It’s typically used as political camouflage. For example: “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” Many of his statements may be sort of factual in a very limited technical sense, but they are not true. Promises such as “Hope and change” are empty slogans designed to make the potential voter fill in the missing details and believe whatever he thinks “change” means.

Brian Williams’ fibs are really quite sad and harmless compared to ex-NYT contributor, Jayson Blair, who plagiarized and fabricated sources, events and scenes, in almost half of all his considerable amount of work submitted to the NYTimes.

According to a well-credentialed investigator, much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies for Big Pharma is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. Euphemisms for lying. So why are doctors still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? There is no profit in truth. Medical research is “A noble endeavor, but it’s also a low-yield endeavor,” a respected medical researcher says. “...Only a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life. We should be very comfortable with that fact.” Comfortable with facts based on lies?

Don’t get me started on so-called religious preachers. The list of their lies is longer than a boring Sunday sermon.

Many in academia call their propaganda “education.”

Pollsters and researchers quickly learn to phrase their questions in such a way that they skew the replies.

After ­Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, scientists scrambled to find so-called "missing links" to fill the gaps on the timeline of human evolution. When archaeologist Charles Dawson unearthed the Piltdown Man, what he really found was one of the biggest hoaxes in history.

Hucksters: In the early 20th century, scholars were squabbling about whether the renowned artist Vermeer had painted a series of works depicting biblical scenes. A contemporary artist named Van Meegeren, who felt he was under-appreciated, pounced on this opportunity and set to work carefully forging one such disputed work, "The Disciples at Emmaus." With tireless attention to detail, he faked the cracks and aged hardness of a centuries-old painting. He intentionally played on the confirmation bias of critics who wanted to believe that Vermeer painted these scenes. It worked: experts hailed the painting as authentic, and Van Meegeren made out like a bandit producing and selling more fake Vermeers. Greed apparently overcame his desire for praise, as he decided not to out himself.

Some lies are multi-layered, involving many conspiring and colluding to dupe the public for gain. Take the idea of global warming. Scientists, politicians, hucksters and the media agree it’s a dire problem. The concept helps each advance his own agenda. Nations tax corporations and individuals for it. Scientists get grants. Politicians get pork. Hucksters make huge profits, and the media advances its leftist agenda. There is no profit in truth.

Scandal in sports? Bury it if you can. Otherwise it will hurt ticket and merchandise sales, and player testimonial fees.

Now if someone tells you he is not lying, well... odds are... he is lying. The point of this whole missive is to make you think twice about anything you are told, or hear in the news, or read on the net. Be skeptical. Know when you are being lied to. If the person stands to gain from it... you are most likely being lied to. If you know it’s a lie and repeat or in some other way support it, you are colluding. If you believe the lie and don’t know it’s a lie, you are being suckered. Think about it; you are better off being a skeptic than a sucker or a fool.

David Hannum (a competitor of fellow huckster P.T. Barnum) is the gent who actually said: “There's a sucker born every minute.”