THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO VERACITY

La Vérité "Truth" by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

With all the controversy over the formation of the National Association of Contractors and Remodelers of America which was formed on the 29th of October, 2012 in Dallas, Texas it has been discussed and debated ad Nauseum concerning the facts of who has done what and who is who amongst the various players and the “interlopers”. You certainly know the one that we are discussing here that interferes with the affairs of others, often for selfish reasons; a meddler. It all comes down to the conformity to facts; accuracy: "the veracity of the story". It is the habitual truthfulness or in fact of "his veracity and character" that is really what is at issue.

Truth is most often used to mean in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. The opposite of truth is falsehood, which, correspondingly, can also take on a logical, factual, or ethical meaning of its own. This friend is what our fair group of interlopers has attempted to feed to us over the last couple of months.

The concept of the truth can be discussed and debated in several contexts, including philosophy and religion, but pure facts seem to be better understood within the realm of our industry. You know the saying “believe what you see not what you hear”. Those that were involved saw and believe what transpired and made their decisions to stay the course rather than let these “Interlopers” destroy all that had been accomplished.

We can continue to discuss the various issues and theories but in the end it is the views of the truth that will continue to be debated among the membership that will finally prevail.

The method used to recognize a "truth" is termed a “criterion of truth” and it’s the language and the words that are the means by which humans convey information to one another. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth: what things are truth bearers capable of being true or false; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective or objective, relative or absolute. All this has to be taken into consideration when discussing the issues.

The interlopers have said they are in the right and only “they” have any “creditability” or “integrity” but as was said in the beginning it all boils down to “Veracity”.

Spencer K. Smartt
Founder and Charter Member
National Association of Contractors and Remodelers of America

INTEGRITY – SOMETHING THE “THREE AMIGOS”ASSOCIATION LACKS!

Integrity is a word often thrown about by many contractors in our industry but in reality do they really have any or do they really even understand what the word means? For most people the word “Integrity” is the concept of “consistency of one’s actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes”.

“Ethically speaking, integrity is regarded by most as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions and is usually regarded as the opposite of “hypocrisy”, in that integrity regards internal consistency as a “virtue”. With this concept in mind we wanted to assess whether or not the “Three Amigos” and their “bogus” group really have any integrity?

“Whole” or “Complete” are the words that this Latin adjective aspires to describe in the inner sense of "wholeness" deriving from qualities such as “honesty and consistency of character”. In as much, one may assume that others "have integrity" providing that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles that they claim to hold. Our friends at “NACRA.org” seem to think that only “They” have any “Integrity” and that everyone is to believe that just because “They” claim to have it, in reality “They” by their very actions prove otherwise!

What it boils down to is what is this group’s “Value” system and how can one judge for themselves whether or not they have any integrity or not. One can test a value system's integrity either: subjectively, by human constructs of accountability and internal consistency, or objectively, via the scientific method. We don’t have this “scientific” method available to us to make such an evaluation.

Integrity can also be referred to as having honor, being honest, being trustworthy and doing the right things. It is quite evident by the very comments made by our friends the “Three Amigos” where they brag about breaking away from the original group and forming their own group and by adopting the same acronym for the sole purpose of stealing from us our identity is “prima fascia” evidence that there is no honor, integrity or creditability within this group.

Now they have stooped so low as to copy almost verbatim our goals and mission as a group. The very ideas and objectives that we set out to achieve they are coping and adopting as their own. Creation of a new lead generation system now too seems worthy of consideration! Especially since it was part of our original goals that was considered nonsense when we were first discussing the formation of our association.

When discussing integrity one must take into consideration “behavior” and “morality” as part of the virtue of one’s actions when considering the very principles of integrity. We can describe a person as having ethical integrity to the extent that everything that the person does or believes, his actions and methods all derive from a single core value.

When evaluating integrity, accountability must be first and foremost as the measurement for which any value should be attached. The “Three Amigos” feel that they are accountable to no one and why should they have to answer for the dastardly deeds they have committed?

The bottom line is either you have integrity, which means you are honest and can be trusted by others, or you have no integrity and cannot be believed or trusted in what you say or do! Our friends the “Three Amigos” in my opinion cannot be believed and certainly cannot be trusted.

In the business world integrity must feature basic concepts of honesty and ethical behavior especially when marketing or branding one’s products or identity.  The "integrity" of a brand is regarded by most individuals as the most desirable outcome in the mind of their audience.  Having this brand taken by “dishonest means” thus becomes the pinnacle of hypocrisy!

Spencer K. Smartt
Founder and Charter Member
National Association of Contractors and Remodelers of America
Dallas, TX.

CREDIBILITY – CAN WE ACHIEVE IT?

According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, “professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility”. However in today’s highly charged political atmosphere that cornerstone seems to have crumbled and has thus weakened our entire national foundation. Our politicians and leaders blatantly lie and deceive us on such a regular basis that it has now become our national pastime to see who can tell the biggest lie and get away with it.

Accordingly when one uses the term “creditability” when speaking in terms of the quality of being trusted; we are actually referring to “the government’s loss of credibility”.

 Journalistic credibility is all but a memory from the past and institutions which reared up to become giant acropolises are now nothing more than vending machines to distribute coupons and advertisements for profit.

In his 1925 book “Mein Kampf” Adolph Hitler states in chapter six of volume one “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”. This factor played heavily in his ability to convince the German people to blindly follow him to their destruction. Therefore credibility refers to the “objective and subjective” components of the “believability” of a source or message.

Traditionally speaking especially in this modern sense, credibility has two key components: 1) trustworthiness and 2) expertise, both of course have “objective” and “subjective” components. It is how the message is conveyed that really makes the difference in how the message is received.

In the recent “Domain hijacking” by several so called members of this organization which were entrusted to act on behalf of the membership at large, this domain theft and the act of changing the registration of a domain name without the permission of its original registrant, that being this organization, will have far reaching consequences in our efforts to get this organization on its feet.

This can be financially devastating to the original domain name holder, US, who may have derived much needed membership income from a website hosted at the domain or conducted business through that domain's e-mail accounts.

Additionally, these hijackers can use the domain name to facilitate illegal activity such as phishing, where a website is replaced by an identical website that records private information such as log-in passwords etc. Thank God that these “Buffoons“ got the horse before the cart and jumped the gun, thereby shooting themselves in the foot!

Trustworthiness is based more on subjective factors, but can include objective measurements such as established reliability. These “Three Amigos” certainly exhibited their trustworthiness with their actions and are now exposed as the very type of individuals who are not reliable and who that have plagued our industry for decades and which were the very type of people for which we all wanted to organize to rid our industry of! Now is the time to take that action and throw the subject on the table for discussion! It’s time to put a stop to “Chuck and his Truck” and get unlicensed and uncertified contractors out of the marketplace so that we can gain the confidence of the public and our customers. In short we need to clean up our image.

Expertise can be similarly subjectively perceived, but also includes relatively objective characteristics of the source or message (e.g., credentials, certification or information quality). It is now up to us to grab hold of that golden ring and develop the proper credentials and certifications required to make this a viable and objective organization that we can all be proud. Please do not think in terms of awarded titles and acronyms that one must pay an annual fee for the right to use these “Phony” certifications.

Secondary components of credibility include source dynamism (charisma) and physical attractiveness. We have that! All its going to take is for those of you that believe in our original goals to stand up and take control. We need to show this industry that it is possible to have charisma and guts to fight for our causes both at the same time. For those of you that don’t think you have the intestinal fortitude to carry this banner maybe you might be better suited to join in with the Hijackers and hope for the best!

Credibility online has become an important topic since the mid-1990s. This is because the web has increasingly become an information resource. It has also become a double edged sword that if not used properly can be just as devastating!

Scientific credibility, unlike what has been described above  has been defined as the extent to which science in general is recognized as a source of reliable information about the world.

This term, scientific, has also been applied more narrowly, as an assessment of the credibility of the work of an individual scientist or a field of research. Here, the phrase refers to how closely the work in question adheres to scientific principles, such as the scientific method. The method most commonly used to assess the quality of science is peer review and then publication as part of the scientific literature. Unfortunately for us we don’t have the benefit of the “Scientific Method” at our disposal and use. It would make our jobs much easier in the long term.

What we do have available however, is the use of “Street credibility”. Of particular importance is the rise of this phenomenon in recent years with the advent of  popular “hip-hop” music and its sub-culture of “Gangsta-Rap” as one vehicle to gain some respectability. We certainly don’t need the negative consequences and baggage that goes along with this identity, but there is no reason why we cannot adopt the methods used to convey our message.

There is also another message and perhaps a lesson to be learned by the likes of those who had the audacity to stand up for a cause like the “TEA Party” that by their own efforts have made enormous strides in changing the political atmosphere in this county.

Think about what we set out to accomplish! What is at the very tips of our fingers? Is this something that you can take part in with the hope that someday it will benefit us all or is it just a pipe dream that we all had a glance at but can’t bring ourselves to become a member because we are no longer joiners?

I believe if enough people hear our message that it will become a reality and one day we will all look back and say “Thanks” to the “The Three Amigos” who got us stoked up enough to do something!

Spencer K. Smartt, Founder

The National Association of Contractors and Remodelers of America

March 10^th, 2013 – Dallas, TX.