To the Editor:

“What is truth?” the  Colonial governor asked the young carpenter, but the governor didn’t stay around  for an answer. It is an age-old question and a good one, essential even.

Recently, in the March 30 issue of The Altamont Enterprise, Mr. Dennis Sullivan had much to say about truth and lying. March 20, 2017, “Field notes: President denies reality, ‘topping off’ facts like my Pops did bushels of tomatoes”).

As an “ethical kid” from his youth, Mr. Sullivan didn't like his grandfather cheating his business customers.  And he knows that he, like us all, in his view, have a tendency to shave the truth, in short, to lie.

Mr.  Sullivan is particularly upset with what he sees as President Donald Trump’s exaggerations, unverifiable claims, and false accusations.  In other words, he deplores what he sees as dishonesty in our president and his camp followers.

How could one disagree with opposing dishonesty?  My observation over the years, however, is that such dishonesty can be found at both ends of our very large political pond.  Mr. Sullivan casts his net to catch such deplorables in the Right end of that pond. A fuller perspective would result from casting a second net on the Left end of that very large pond, as well.

Take Barack Obamas sales pitch in projecting a future reality that just wasn't going to be there, and he knew it. It was a sales means that had to be done in order to get to his goal. Following his and Hillary Clinton’s mentor, Saul Alinsky, and his axioms for achieving political power including “the ends justify the means,” such deception was strictly required.

Let the voter beware, just as Mr. Sullivan's grandfather believed in "caveat emptor": Let the buyer beware.  Same thing!

On June 6, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama did more than shave the truth; he knowingly lied. “If you like the plan you have, you can keep it.  If you like the doctor you have, you'll be able to keep your doctor.  The only change you'll see are falling costs as our reforms take place.”

Now, while this sales meme or pitch or con was being pushed by Obama, a key, highly paid consultant who was intimately involved in the Inner Ring and in the design  process and its promotional campaign was an advisor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Jonathan Gruber.

At the same time Obama was giving his July 6 pitch, Dr. Gruber, a long-time Democratic operative, was saying things quite different in more limited Inner Ring settings. Such as: "Exploiting the stupidity of the American voter is fun and easy; kinda like squeezing a lemon."

"The typical American voter is so stupid, his dog teaches him tricks."

"P.T. Barnum said a sucker is born every minute, but his estimate was laughably low."

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage."

For his advisory work and strategic consulting on the structuring and marketing of the  health care initiatives, Professor Gruber  received at least $5,886,150 in taxpayer-funded dollars for his extensive labors on President Obama’s signature health-care law as well as health-care consulting fees from several politically connected  states.

Given his objection to dishonesty, I trust that Mr. Sullivan is not among the Alinsky-philiacs such as are Obama and Clinton and other members of the Fabian Progressives and the Hard Left Socialists who now extensively populate the Democratic Party. Especially so, in that Alinsky dedicated his book, “Rules for Radicals,” to Lucifer, The Father of Lies, and urges the use of the following ruling tactics by his trainees:

— 1. One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue;

— 2. The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment;

— 3. In war, the end justifies almost any means;

— 4. Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point;

— 5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa;

— 6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means;

— 7. Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics;

— 8. The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory;

— 9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical;

— 10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments; and

— 11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” “Of the Common Welfare,” “Pursuit of Happiness,” or “Bread and Peace.”

The Obama, Pelosi, Clinton, and Gruber Team for structuring and marketing Obamacare has been shown to be, as is now well documented, a coterie of seasoned partisan Alinsky-ite practitioners of the kinds of mirage-building and reality inversion that Mr. Sullivan so rightly deplores.

Does he agree that the problem of cynical power hungry deception can be found on both the Liberal-Left as well as on the Conservative-Right? How he weighs which of the two is currently worse, is unclear.

Victor Porlier

East Berne

Editor’s note: In keeping with the Enterprise’s 1,000-word limit for letters, we are publishing the first half of Victor Porlier’s letter this week; the second half will be printed next week.