Perfidy is a word that isn’t in the regular vocabulary of many people. I came across the word many years ago, the context of which now eludes me (probably when reading about some sleazy progressive politician), but it was sometime in the last century (or the “dark ages” as my grandkids like to remind me). Let’s first define the word perfidy, which comes from the Latin, “perfidia”, meaning faithlessness. The dictionaries define it as follows:
Oxford: (noun): deceitfulness, untrustworthiness;
Webster: (noun): the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal; An act or an instance of disloyalty or faithlessness or treachery.
Other definitions for “perfidy” imply a deliberate breach of faith or trust.
Synonyms for “perfidy” include: treachery, duplicity, deceit, disloyalty, infidelity, faithlessness, betrayal, treason, double dealing. Indeed, the word perfidy encompasses the entire gamut of our dishonorable or sinful human interactions with each other virtually since time began.
I’ve used the word perfidy often over the past several years, particularly in my articles for The Times Examiner. However, it is in the world of “government”, “politics”, and “politicians” that the act of perfidy often rises to the fore. Some of these come to my mind immediately:
- The betrayal by the traitor, Gen. Benedict Arnold, of his American countrymen during our first “Revolution”, in 1780;
- The betrayal by the traitor, Ephialtes, of King Leonidas and his
Force of 300 Spartans (plus other Greeks) at the epic battle at The Pass of Thermopylae in Greece in Sept. of 480 B.C.;
- The deceit and treachery perpetrated upon Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite, by King David as he sinned with Uriah’s wife and plotted to have him murdered, ca. 980 B.C.;
- The assassination of Julius Caesar by his relatives and “friends” in the Roman Senate in 44 B.C.;
- The betrayal of our Lord Jesus by His disciple, Judas Iscariot, for 30 pieces of silver, ca. 33 A.D.;
- The treachery (and treason) exhibited by Harry Hopkins, President Franklin Roosevelt’s primary and most trusted aide during much of Roosevelt’s administration, as Hopkins betrayed his country and its interests to the communist Soviet Union over many years (particularly during WW11);
- The disloyalty and treachery perpetrated by communist Alger Hiss against the American government and people, as he betrayed us to our communist enemies in the late 1940’s, including foisting the un-American and pro-communist United Nations upon the U.S.
Perfidy, in all of its definitions and forms, has been prevalent within the circles of the U.S. government virtually since its inception. We all know that there has never been a “perfect” person--no, not even one (except for our Perfect Savior, Jesus)—and surely there has never been a politician who has exhibited that elusive character trait, except perhaps for George Washington who, in my opinion, came the closest to human perfection of all of our Presidents. But even he was imperfect.
U.S. presidents and the gaggle of politicians who enable them and the government to function, have never been remotely “perfect”, however one defines “perfection”. Some have been boring and predictable, others have been adequate, and who have tried to perform their constitutional duties as well as possible; but some of our presidents have been downright dishonest and dirty, determined to enrich themselves or degrade our republic. A few have been outright enemies of our constitutional form of government, given to us by our admittedly imperfect Founders. Ex-President Comrade Barak Obama was surely one of those (and still is)! His participation, during his administration, along with his far left wing progressive Attorney General, Eric Holder, in the dastardly and treacherous “Operation Fast & Furious (an anti-2nd Amendment gun running to Mexico scheme that backfired and ended up getting at least one of our dedicated Border Patrol agents murdered by a despicable Mexican drug runner) was just one of many evidences of Obama’s “perfidy” during the eight years of his “Mal-Administration”!
The years since the end of WW11 were mostly good for the American people, but less than satisfactory for the office of the Presidency of the U.S. Most of our post-war presidents were experts in the art of “perfidy” to one degree or another. President Dwight Eisenhower was a war hero who took pains to conceal his sordid part in “Operation Keelhaul”, in which right after the end of WW11 he participated in rounding up thousands of Soviet dissidents who had defected from the tyrannical grasp of Joseph Stalin, and shipped them back to “Uncle Joe’s” tender mercies. He also tried hard to conceal his “dalliances” with a young woman who was not his wife. Faithless? Disloyal? Yes!
President John Kennedy was young and popular with our people. He was also an incorrigible womanizer who was faithless and disloyal to his wife. President Richard Nixon was a veteran anti-communist much beloved by his people, until a breach of trust—lies upon lies—took him down and forced his resignation. President Lyndon Johnson was the archetype of a sleazy and crooked politician—utilizing the votes of dead people to win his congressional races and later committing our young warriors to a hopeless war in Southeast Asia that he refused to let them win. He was also a racist who had no qualms in lying to (and abusing) a significant minority of our population in order to win their votes—“for the next 200 years”!
Who can forget the perfidy of President Bill Clinton, as he used his powerful office to lie right in the faces of his people, being impeached by the House of Representatives, and insisting almost to the end of his term that he did not commit adultery with “that woman”. Of course, President George H.W. Bush. was caught in his lie of “no new taxes”, and President George W. Bush was caught in the quicksand of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared, but which allowed him to invade a country that was NO threat to the U.S. and expend many billions of dollars and the lives of thousands of young warriors who trusted him, to their peril. President Ronald Reagan promised to drastically “cut spending” and our mounting deficits, and “solve” the problem of the illegal alien invasion of our country. He decided to do the opposite.
Perfidy has thrived in recent years in the U.S. Its “capital” appears to be Washington, D.C. (the “District of Criminals & Corruption”). The vast majority of those who “serve” the people in “our” government most likely understand the principles of perfidy all too well. Barack Obama has been a deceitful anti-American Marxist progressive for most of his life, and did his best to “fundamentally transform” the U.S. into his vision of a socialist workers’ paradise. Hillary Clinton has long been known as a master of the “art” of perfidy for decades in progressive circles, to such an extent that she must be considered as the “Grand Master” of Deceit (as well as ‘The Wicked Witch of the East’). The current crop of weeds called Democrat Presidential Hopefuls are full of these “masters of perfidy” and doublespeak. God help America if one of them ever becomes POTUS, because every one of them will shred our constitutional liberties to an even greater degree than they presently have been. To ever vote for one of them would be to plunge more “daggers” into the heart of American liberty!
Which brings us finally to our current President, Donald Trump. Without any doubt Mr. Trump has been quite familiar with the “principles” of perfidy during his life. That can’t be denied. But of course it can also be claimed with some degree of accuracy that all of us have practiced that “sin” in the past to one extent or another. At least he has worked hard to improve our economy, and thankfully he has declared his support for traditional American constitutionalism and at least some autonomy from the devils of “The New World Order” and the Marxist tyrants who run the so-called “United Nations”. His speech, in September of 2018, to the Socialist/Marxist/Progressive cadres who comprise much of that anti-American organization was a broadside fired at the gnomes of international finance who picture themselves, with their vast wealth, as molding all of mankind into their “vision” of the ultimate total power utopia.
No POTUS in my lifetime has appeared to be so bold and so willing to battle and resist the progressive enemies of our constitutional freedom. The remaining years of President Trump’s first term will prove to “we, the people”, that we put our trust in a “strong oak tree”—a man with principles—or in a compromiser with the internationalists and treacherous progressives of BOTH parties (and I do mean both parties). Perfection we shouldn’t expect from any man, especially a politician. But neither should we ever tolerate a leader who delights in subterfuge and duplicity and is willing to “compromise” with the enemies of our liberties! And that applies from the President of the U.S. down to the local mayors and city and county council members. Untrustworthiness by their elected politicians requires the enmity of the American people, who must always vote the guilty and the corrupt out of office at the next election. Failure to “retire” corrupt and America-despising politicians and constantly re-electing them only strengthens their resolve to engage in more corruption, and thumb their noses at those who are their real “bosses”: The American people! And IF we continue to tolerate their abuses of their offices, who is the more corrupt—them, or US?