All I knew about the original Diogenes is that he was said to carry a lantern even during daylight hours, explaining he was searching for an honest man. He also founded the Cynic philosophy. So you can see where I might identify with him. Where we part company is that, being poor, he made a virtue of poverty. That would be like my making a virtue of being short and bald.

But I dare say I have spent at least as much time as he did searching for an honest man. I have found a few, but in most cases, being honest in 2013 is even harder than it was in 323 BC. That’s because one can either be truthful or politically correct, but not both. And cowards invariably take the path of least resistance.

For instance, consider Muslims. We are constantly lectured to treat Islam with respect, even if they treat your religion, whatever it might be, with contempt.

For my part, I say you can see why the ninth century holds such appeal for Muslims. After all, if only the clocks could be turned back several centuries, we’d all be pretty much in the same boat. And that boat would contain very little that could pass for science, art or technology.

The world that included Copernicus, Galileo, Cervantes, Michelangelo, Bach, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Edison, Einstein, Dostoyevsky, Freud, Fleming, Henry Ford, Jonas Salk and Cole Porter, would not yet have passed them by, leaving them in the dust bin of history. When you get right down to it, in all those ensuing years, their only contributions to mankind have been suicide bombs and clitorectomies.

When you realize that America was founded by such giants as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and Madison, it’s difficult to realize how far we have fallen in terms of our leadership. Imagine, of our own volition, in just the past few decades we have put the likes of Carter, Clinton and Obama, in the White House.

For that matter, keep in mind that the Democrats actually selected Michael Dukakis to be their standard bearer in 1988. Dukakis, in case it slipped your memory, thought it would make for a great photo op if he donned a helmet and stuck his head out of a tank turret. He looked, for all the world, like a groundhog poking its head out of a hole in the earth and predicting a long winter. And a very long winter it would have been if he’d been elected.

On the other side, 20 years later, the Republicans nominated John McCain, the oaf who put his name on bills authored by the scurvy likes of Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, and took it to heart when those on the Left called him a statesman to his face, overlooking the fact they called him a sucker behind his back.

For those of you wise enough not to pay too much attention to New York politics, this year it seems that underwear bomber Anthony Weiner is running for mayor, and Eliot Spitzer, who’s a sure thing to capture the prostitute vote, is trying to become New York’s city comptroller. All they need now is for Eric Massa to announce he’s running for police commissioner to make for a perfect trifecta.

In other news, it was reported that Eric Holder’s wife and sister-in-law co-own a Georgia abortion clinic. To be fair, though, I’m sure the Attorney General would be doing everything in his power to defend abortionists even if the sisters owned a shoe store. After all, his boss actually voted in favor of late term abortions when he was in the Illinois state legislature, going so far as to vote for a bill that allowed abortionists to murder the tiny survivors of botched procedures. It’s a vote that places him in the same general category as such moral degenerates as Dr. Josef Mengele, Charles Manson and Vlad the Impaler.

You have probably heard that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been the most-traveled president and secretary of state we’ve ever had. Her fans even raved about the number of countries Mrs. Clinton had visited, carrying on as if she had piloted the plane when she hadn’t even had to do her own packing.

Only liberals would think that blowing $180,000-an-hour of our money to keep one of those planes airborne and bragging about the number of hours logged, while at the same time whining about everyone else’s carbon footprints, makes even the tiniest bit of sense.

But, then, making sense isn’t their long suit. Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep hearing celebrity millionaires drone on about evil corporations, seemingly unaware that the entities that sign their humongous checks – outfits like Warner’s, Paramount, NBC, CBS, ABC and all those major record companies – are all corporations, just like Fox News, WalMart and BP Petroleum.

Finally, in case you ever find yourself falling for left-wing propaganda, which so often disguises itself as compassion for one’s fellow man, never forget that Winston Churchill once correctly pointed out: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the sharing of misery.”

If you disagree, ask the next person you run into who managed to escape the tender mercies of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Nicolae Ceausescu, Che Guevara or Fidel Castro, why they ran screaming from Paradise.

Author’s Note: Although I’m still seeking sponsors, my online radio show is on the air, every Wednesday, at 1 p.m. That’s L.A. time. Access www.latalkradio.com, channel 1, and click on Listen Live. You can also download to your iPhone or Android apps. The call-in number is (323)203-0815. I’d like to hear your questions and comments, pro or con. Especially pro.