Have you ever encountered counterfeit money?
Probably not. It is pretty rare, and most people, should they come into contact with it, just pass it on unnoticed. That is why the Federal Government takes printing counterfeit money so seriously. The penalty for counterfeiting currency is a fine of up to $250K and up to 20 years in prison. For each offense! There are other penalties for making fakes of documents, trademarked products, stamps, or contracts. It is more likely you have been exposed to fake merchandise like phony Rolex watches or a Michael Kors handbag. We all must be conscious of the possibility of fraud because it is nothing less than robbery. In fact, counterfeiting is a serial crime because it victimizes people over and over again. Each time it goes unnoticed, someone suffers a loss.
And to make things worse, each person that holds counterfeit money or passes along fake money, documents or merchandise, is also guilty of fraud!
Basically, it is illegal to defraud people and using fake anything as a tool to do so is itself a crime. The act is something that transcends borders, so that is why counterfeiting is considered a Federal Crime. Like cancer, it metastasizes, spreads and destroys credibility and legitimacy as it goes along.
It has become commonplace to refer to things as Fake: Fake News, Fake Art and Fake Famous come to mind. But what is more insidious is the common acceptance of Fake Things. Many celebrities fake their social media following. Politicians fake their resumes, sometimes faking military service. Food labels make fake claims about content. Media platforms claim to be news reporters, journalists and cultural analysts without actually documenting their bona fides. As media information sources migrate more and more to digital online transmission, legitimacy becomes less and less quantifiable.
Ford Motor Company trademarked the term Genuine Ford Parts to fight the onslaught of aftermarket parts used to repair their cars. Coca Cola called their original formula The Real Thing. Corporations learned early on that it is vitally important to protect your brand and your identity.
As of the 21st century, Identity theft is ubiquitous.
In our world of the Internet Of Things, it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure every access point to our personal treasures. This has produced a massive industry of cyber security systems, of legal eagles chasing copyright, trademark and patent infringements. Thousands of law firms specialize in suing anyone that tries to cash in on someone else’s intellectual property rights, which can be many times more valuable than real property.
Private enterprise is how we protect our rights in a free and capitalist society. We respect these forms of private property, and encourage our citizens to create wealth by innovating and promoting beneficial ideas and services and the products used to implement them by passing trademark and copyright laws.
In our Constitutional Republic the voting franchise is one of the most important and valuable possessions we have.
Millions of American patriots have laid down their lives to give and preserve that asset for the American people. We have passed laws, both at the Federal and the local level, designed to protect our votes. We have a multilayered system to open the access to voting, but to make sure it is not abused by people who are too young, or have forfeited their right by committing crimes against society, or by people who are not citizens of our society.
These voting “rules” are typically enforced by volunteers because Americans don’t want to see armed authorities standing guard at the polls. As politics becomes more polarizing and contentious, protecting polls and absentee voters has also become contentious.
Other than volunteers at polling places, who is looking out for voter rights? What is the security device, the authority or the weapon that serves to stand guard over that precise jewel? Aren’t Americans entitled to have their voting franchise protected from fraud? From being hijacked by some unknown force, some anarchist group, or some unseen cyber thief? If we are supposed to be a Constitutional Republic that gives citizens the power to govern themselves, then how do we do that if we can’t trust our governmental authorities to protect the integrity of our ballot?
By extending the voting process to mail in, to vote by proxy and to counting votes by computer devices, aren’t we compromising accountability?
It’s like leaving the kids without a babysitter while you go to the movie. They may be OK, but if something goes wrong there is nobody around to take proper action to protect them. Voting fraud is like a tumor. It is sometimes invisible to the naked eye, but it can be a very serious attack on the immune system. Our Constitution is our nation’s immune system. When it becomes compromised, the patient is in serious condition because left unattended the malignancy will overrun the proper functions of vital organs.
The slightest hint of fraud in the election process suggests a cancerous tumor is present and should it be malignant, it would certainly be deadly to our Republic. No system of self government can exist without a secure system of collecting the will of the people. Representative government is a myth if the vehicle of representation is simply a realistic facsimile, an electronic digit or a ballot with no connection to an established identity.
Voting fraud is not new. For decades there have been rumors and claims that backroom deals have been made to pressure unions to command allegiance to certain party lines and candidates. That party apparatus has stuffed ballot boxes. That some polling places actually dump ballots, or simply misreport results to other operatives that then pass along fake accounting. In many cases the loser just accepts them as anomalies because it seems implausible that enough cheating could actually change the results.
Listening to claims that the election was rigged is like having the flu. For a few days you think you are going to die, but in a week or so you start feeling normal and you quickly forget what it felt like. Before long you simply go back to normal and wait for next time. This has become the standard political reaction to any claim of “stolen” elections. The major parties just look the other way, which implies that they both participate in some form of cheating.
Most people hate the idea that cheating is in any way acceptable. It doesn’t matter what party you favor, most Americans understand that there is no such thing as being a “little bit crooked”.
The most insidious form of disease is the invisible kind. Same with crime. Being victimized without knowing you are being victimized, as happens with counterfeit money, makes the victim an unconscious co-conspirator because by not reporting the crime it is as if it didn’t happen. But it did. That is just like passing counterfeit money. You may not have been in any way conscious of your participation, but you still participated in the crime because you unconsciously brought another victim into the fold. That makes you a perpetrator.
If you look the other way to what appears to be voter fraud, you are supporting the fraud. If you witness a rape but decide to keep what you saw to yourself, you have become complicit in the crime because you empower the perpetrator to do it again.You rationalize your recalcitrance because you say “What if I misread what I saw?”
But making that judgement is not your responsibility. As a law abiding citizen it is your obligation to report criminal activity. What goes around comes around. The next time you may become the victim. Wouldn’t you want your neighbor to help protect you? I am not suggesting you actively seek out crimes. That is also not your responsibility. That is vigilantism. But when a crime is committed in your presence, you must help prosecute it. You cannot stand aside and legally claim ignorance.
If you want to live in a free society, helping to enforce the law is an obligation you must accept. Ignoring that obligation is a hallmark of people living in authoritarian cultures. They refuse to be involved because it brings attention to themselves. They just want to blend in and live unnoticed.
As players in the process of elections, candidates, elected officials and security officials are predisposed to testify against anyone that violates the protocols of free and fair elections. It is a Federal Crime to interfere with the voting process, or to ignore anyone that does. So polling places are fairly safe and secure. It is what happens after ballots are cast that evades scrutiny.
So what do you do if someone hands you a counterfeit fifty dollar bill? Or asks you to falsify a loan document or even a job recommendation? Do you go along or do you cover it up? Or do you report it to the proper authorities?
And the bigger question is, can you assume that your concerns will be addressed in a serious way? With counterfeit money, you will probably never know what the authorities do with your evidence.
There is ample evidence to show that the same may be true with voter fraud. If Americans capitulate to systemic voter fraud, if we look the other way, we have participated in the f’‘ing of our Republic. We will have abandoned the idea of self government, because when one vote is f’d, all votes are less valuable, less legitimate, and less influential. Our Constitutional Republic will be feigned, and the American Dream will be deceased.
-This is an excerpt from my Amazon eBook, “f’d: For Your Own Good” published in May of 2022. Available for Kindle for $9.99 today.