The HUB

In the beginning there was Adam the first man, Eve the first woman and the Serpent the first consultant. If there’s one thing you can’t be in life it’s honest when you’re trying to get ahead. If 95% of statistics are made up on the spot, then your goal should be to work even harder at fabricating the other 5% to where they’re more truthfully false than the 95% sounded. And when you’re really good, when you’ve done it long enough, you can graduate to the level where you actually believe your own lies and can convince those around you that not only are you the bringer of truth, but that the truth is worth the cost you charge. You are ripe for a successful career in many respected industries…politics, legal counsel, sales, media, being an older sibling on Christmas Eve. Aaah, this is where life begins. You may wonder, what is it about lies that makes them so believable? Are there levels of lying? What would you consider to be a liar at the grade school level? High school? Undergraduate? Grad School level? How do you reach PhD status? What are some of the obstacles to reaching the loftiest levels? What compromises a good lie?

First, what are good times to withhold information from those you love or those you hate for that matter? Try this one on for size. You have just been told that the girl your best friend is dating is really using him to get to his Porsche Carrera, the swank condo, and the realtor that sold him both. At this point one must ask, is "appropriate lying" a question of circumstance?

For those of you in the Bible-thumper crowd, here's a moral conundrum. How do you explain Rahab, the whore who saved the nation of Israel (Joshua 2:1-14) when she ball faced lied her way into protecting the Israeli spies she'd been smuggling in order to get them out of the city of Jericho alive? Or Jacob, engaging the classic family feud to garner his brother's first-born inheritance (Genesis 25:27-34). Flip to Malachi and you see God Almighty applauding the totality of Jacob's life over his older brother (Malachi 1:1-5). Which is more important from these stories? The tenacity and level of value that we place on what we value, or how we acquire what we value? What is God saying about His nature in honoring those who honor what He honors? Does the end justify the means?

In recent days, you look across the political landscape, scratch your head and say, how do you arrive at a Daniel Crane sexscapade, a Jack Abramoff/Ralph Reed liaison, a Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for Realtor, or any political campaign or lobby scandal where the players doggedly stand by their actions as acceptable. Are they lying to themselves? Why might that be a dangerous habit? What happens when we believe our own lies? What happens to the Coservative Right, often self-described as synonomous with Christian values, when they use God as a rubber stamp for policies such as the Faith Based Initiative Non-profit Gold Rush. What about a Left that rushes in to blindly and indiscrimanately elevate a woman's choice above that of her unborn infant, er, fetus, then cries that lawmakers need to legalize immigrant workers to make up for a smaller working class that does not have numbers enough to financially support failing social institutions? It all smacks of a passage in Genesis 1:24 of the NIV (Nihilist International Version).

“Man spoke: Let us make God in our own image, make Him reflecting our nature…So man created God in his own image, in the image of Man he created Him. Male and female, they created Him.”

We chuckle at youthful ignorance.

A little boy asks his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?". His Father replies, "I don't know, son, I'm still paying."

But when the rubber meets the proverbial space between the white lines, we must marvel at his honesty. Why do enlightened and mature adults cower from directly and honestly addressing many of the issues they face in today’s world? Are the stakes that much higher? Or is it simply an issue of respect. Is it easier to lie when someone doesn’t have respect for the other person, group, or themselves? In an ironic twist of fate, our sophisticated culture still wrestles with a Gospel play on words that is more than 2,000 years old. For four consecutive books it sets up the premise that the Truth is a Person, not a concept.

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free?”—John 8:32

Ever wonder why? How would believing this, that Truth is a Person and not a concept, affect one’s concept of truth? Of lying? How might it simplify the political process? Truth would then become less negotiable. Where it's easy to negotiate philosophical pros and cons, ethics wars and the like, it's difficult to do the same with a person’s identity and reputation. Lying held against the truth of the Person would then become an argument based on clearly established precedent (if the person were consistent), not revisionism to fit the current wind pattern of popular belief. But why would we want that! It's too simple. We're sophisticated. We're postmodern. So we send the kids back out in the yard. Someday they'll understand. We have a media monster with a healthy appetite that needs a steady diet of scandels to stay energized. It keeps the monster focused externally. We're never left alone with our own thoughts.

We've heard it all from every side staring cockeyed at the boob tube night after night. America has a record of imperialism that marches on in Iraq. America is spreading freedom. America is spreading tyranny. There were no WMDs. They FedExed the WMDs. We should draw down troop numbers and leave. We should ramp up troop numbers and get the job done. America is in an unwinnable war! Since when does winning have to be an objective to justify going to war? What if the first step is realizing there are no winners and losers this time, only necessitating circumstances? And on and on it goes, where it will stop, we must all at some point agree, nobody knows. One thing we do know is that we've opened up a Pandora's Box in the Middle East, or rather, a Pandora's Box was opened upon us. No one not suffering from amnesia questions the bi-partisan support (at the time) for war with Afghanistan, the less limited but still majority support for war with Iraq (after months of U.N. weapons inspectors were given the cold shoulder) and the crimes against humanity propogated by The Butcher of Baghdad. But in the current Middle Eastern front of the War on Terror, it's time we blew the whistle. The bill of goods is being sold by the Left and the Right. Given the centuries old scorn of Western society by Jihadists in the Middle East, a major attack on our homeland was inevitable. A response of some sort was necessary to discourage or, at a minimum, delay the sitting powers at the time in Afghanistan AND Iraq from further indirect or direct support of attacks on the United States. And any politician currently using "a total withdrawal" or any similar language is either A) taking advantage of your emotions and selling a dishonest optimism as a November 7th platform, or B) not being serious or educated in their understanding of the religious nature of the war as seen by Islamic Fundamentalists.

The Middle-Eastern view of history is not the American lunch-in-a-sack, fast food sound byte culture that allows us to declare success or failure after one, two or even five years. They know how to chew their food, digest and be PATIENT. Simply put, the Jihadist conflict with the West predates attacks on 911, attacks on the USS Cole, American Embassies in Africa, military barracks in Saudi Arabia, Marine barracks in Lebanon, the World Trade Center in `93 or even the song-and-dance of a Playboy Bunny Presidential Happy Birthday Wish! The conflict actually pre-dates the War of 1812 when in 1802 President Jefferson decided to challenge the "barbarism" of Arab warships preying on American merchant ships off the Barbary Coast. Jefferson asked the Arab diplomat "where's the shame?" and was given an answer that their right to attack was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, written in the Koran, that all nations not answering to their authority were sinners, worthy of subjugation. Adams, his predecessor, had warned that "We ought not to fight at all unless we determine to fight them forever". Jefferson, bucking the trend, launched his response against the twenty year record of kidnapping and ransoming of American merchantmen in North Africa. After the Bashaw of Tripoli took the crew of the USS Philadelphia captive at the Tripoli Coast, William Eaton rounded up his Marines and broke out to march 500 miles across Libya and take the coastal town of Derna, simultaneously ending the conflict (for a time) and giving the Marines a new line to their Marine hymn along with a great accessory for their uniforms - a sword shaped like an Arab scimitar (America, Bennett 182-183).

The time for the debate over how to close Pandora's Box is over. If America is a victim, many of its greatest wounds may be self-inflicted by those who would like to get this pesky little war over with so as to get back to internal politics and power-brokering. NEWSFLASH FROM THE COMMON MAN: There will never be a safe and total disengagement date for American interests in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East. Why? Because it's not about the oil stupid! It's not about the land. It's not about the prestige and it's not about a seat at the United Nations. It's only what these things represent. Quit thinking like a Westerner and getting distracted by claims to political motivations as they are given in diplomatic talks with Islamic Fundamentalist politicos. Does this mean we are destined to be an occupying force? Yes and no. We will not occupy but we will always be a support from a shorter distance. With any luck, we will never again push the likes of John O'Neill and Ahmed Shah Massoud to the back of the line. Everything changed for America after 9-11. For the Jihadist, it was simply a boldfaced chapter in an on-going religious conflict between Allah and The Great Satan. And no number of proposed Nancy Pelosi changes can dress up the House enough to make them feel at home.

October in an election season is tailor-made for a war of the words. Competition runs high for shelf space with booksellers and a seat with O’Reilly. Add the terror component and you have a boiler room. But there is a war room where we are in a losing trend and the long-term effects directly impact our ability to engage every enemy at home and abroad. America’s boys are dying before they leave the classroom. And our obsession with the sacred grail of feelings-based education and ramped up social conditioning is killing the very feelings they are meant to preserve. Nothing kills like apathy!

In 2003, 65 percent of boys earned high school diplomas compared to 72 percent of girls (Garibaldi, 2006). The number is only becoming more disparate over time. College bound females outnumber boys to an extent that many schools are now employing affirmative action for boys in admissions.

How have we reached this point and why should we be concerned? First off, in a time of war and a nation grappling with international issues, strong, male leaders are needed to employ principles arrived at by exercising their nature. As author Gerry Garibaldi puts it, “boys’ aggressive and rationalist nature—redefined by educators as a behavioral disorder—[is]…getting many of them in trouble in the feminized schools.” Why is socialized education afraid of the aggressive and rational nature of boys? Is it an ethical persuasion that says nothing good can come of it, the “rational” and “aggressive” inherently lead to the challenge of social mores? We like our world the way it is. Or is it more about pragmatism? Crowd control is necessary when dealing with adolescent boys in large numbers. Where does that leave the boy that learns by asking questions, not simply completing assignments obediently as girls are more prone to do?

Move them outside, and boys’ natural inclinations are being assaulted on the playground. Willett Elementary in Attleboro, Massachussetts, has now ousted tag, touch football and other “chasing games” out of concern for injury risks and liabilities (LaHoud, The Sun Chronicle, Oct 21st 2006). Dodgeball has taken a beating. As have many sports where winners and losers must be identified. Does this really make the playground safer? God forbid we tilt the sacred level playing field. If the playground is an early education to prepare for life and human interaction, how is this preparing boys (and girls for that matter) for the meritocracies within corporate America, and the competitive world of outsourcing to places like Bangalore where boys will not only compete against others but against new digital platforms and applied innovation?
Boys are having an identity crisis. Some applaud their feminization as a culturalization in the diversity of human interaction. But what about the danger? Could a danger come when growing adolescent boys, discouraged from exploration into their intellectual nature, feel trapped between a choice of apathy and compliance or engagement in the lesser reaches of male aggression and rationale? Where does this choice leave them? And if our future is currently in basic training, a loss on the war of the playground is a loss for the soul of a nation.