During the election cycle of 2008, campaign handlers for Montana’s governor broadcast a video clip showing him roping and flanking a calf. The campaign slots conveyed the image our governor was a regular Montana rancher. I rolled my eyes and banged my head on the table in disbelief every time the ad flashed across the screen. (It is one of the twenty-seven reasons I disconnected my television.) I always wondered about the video footage left on the editing room floor, because if this was the best, the rest must have been hysterical. The action scenes beamed across the airwaves show the governor clothes-lining his horse across the ears with his rope and then jerking his slack with his rein hand. The horse, unaware this was only make believe, snaps his head up and bites the air—a pain response to the jerk on the bit. Although the scenes were comical to folks who know which end of the cow gets up first, to the untrained eye Montana’s governor was John Wayne. Whether this made the difference or not is unknown, but Montanans flocked to the polls and re-elected the governor. I guess that is politics.

There is a similar deception being offered today, and this is why I am mentioning it here. Perhaps this is redundant and obvious, but to be successful in politics you must master the art of deception. (I am not a politician, so I am free to reveal this little secret.) Three terms in the Montana legislature has honed my ability to spot the lie, which is why this column sheds the light of truth on purposeful misrepresentations. Today’s Occupy movement is whipping up some real whoppers and you must train your eye so you can instantly spot them.

Hoping to mimic the success of the Tea Party in the 2010 elections, Occupiers claim to be patriots trying to restore America—both blatant lies. This is the hope and change crowd intent on building a progressive utopia of wealth redistribution. If they could see this, Karl Marx would be smiling while Paul Revere, a true midnight minuteman, would be banging his head on the table. Do not buy the lie.

The new America restored by the Occupiers would be one where the 99 percent lounge in a hammock wearing their bathrobes and bedroom slippers demanding to be fed by the one percent forced into servitude down the barrel of a government gun. These are principles of the Communist Manifesto not the Constitution, so by definition alone, it cannot be called a restoration when the ultimate goal is the polar opposite from America’s beginning.

It is time to be armed…intellectually armed. Before today’s sunset, take an hour to reread our founding documents. To recognize distortion and deception you must know the truth. For 235 years our Declaration of Independence and Constitution have provided the framework for our great American experiment in freedom. There has been more goodness and relief of human suffering bestowed upon the rest of the world because of American liberty than any other reason. We should be embracing those principles, not abandoning them, so do not let the Occupiers mislead you.