Our friends at Wikipedia describe counterfeit as follows; A counterfeit is an imitation that is made usually with the intent to deceptively represent its content or origins. The word counterfeit most frequently describes forged currency or documents, but can also describe clothing, software, electronic stock shares or certificates, pharmaceuticals, watches, or more recently, cars and motorcycles, especially when this results in patent infringement or trademark infringement.
Since counterfeit currency is associated with the word counterfeit, let’s take a look at some facts about currency counterfeiting:
According to the United States Secret Service: “The counterfeiting of money is one of the oldest crimes in history. At some periods in early history, it was considered treasonous and was punishable by death. During the American Revolution, the British counterfeited U.S. currency in such large amounts that the Continental currency soon became worthless. “Not worth a Continental” became a popular expression that is still heard today.During the Civil War, one-third to one-half of the currency in circulation was counterfeit. At that time, approximately 1,600 state banks designed and printed their own bills. Each bill carried a different design, making it difficult to detect counterfeit bills from the 7,000 varieties of real bills.A national currency was adopted in 1862 to resolve the counterfeiting problem. However, the national currency was soon counterfeited and circulated so extensively that it became necessary to take enforcement measures. Therefore, on July 5, 1865, the United States Secret Service was established to suppress the wide-spread counterfeiting of this nation’s currency.
Although the counterfeiting of money was substantially suppressed after the establishment of the Secret Service, this crime still represents a potential danger to the Nation’s economy”.
Following are some forms of creating counterfeit money:
- Print your own money – Printing your own money is fairly easy to do. All you really need to do is go to your computer, scan in a bank note, and print it out on your desk jet printer. This is easy and many people have tried it. Most have failed and are now serving time in a federal prison. Most try this because it seems easy and is a lot less physically and mentally taxing than working to earn money
- Clipping – Fraudulently diminishing a coin by clipping, filing, boring or abrading it, or otherwise taking away a part of any true and genuine coin, and substituting a metal or substance of less intrinsic value in place of the part taken away, and passing it on as a genuine coin.
- Bleaching – The practice of taking legal tender $1 and $5 bills. Masking off important areas, ie; serial numbers and holograms, using bleach remove the unmasked portions of the bills, and printing larger denomination copies over the balance of the bill. By this practice the counterfeiter passes a small denomination bill off as a much larger denomination.
Are you a counterfeit father? Are you practicing one of the counterfeiting methods mentioned above to pass yourself off as a real father?
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Do you use your child’s computer to substitute valuable time with you? Do you bury yourself in your work, at home, using your job as an excuse not to spend quality time with your children? If you do, you are a counterfeit father. Many children today are being raised with the values and morals taught through, television, movies, video and computer games, and other electronic media. More often than not, these values are not what we truly value in our lives. By default, we allow these values and morals to be taught through our counterfeit actions.
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Do you give your child token time and attention? Do you abdicate your responsibilities as a true father to the time of a daycare provider or a little league coach? These people are not at fault, they are trying to do the job they earn a living or volunteer to do. Unfortunately, they may not hold the same values and morals as you. They have a place in a child’s life and their influence can be invaluable in support of the values and morals you are teaching your children, but their influence should always hold a less intrinsic value to what you can and should provide as a father.
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Do people see you in public as a much better father than you are in private? Are you concerned about what your children might say about you when they are in conversation with school or church teachers and/or friend’s families? Have you taught your children to mask off certain truths about you or your family and pretend you are much bigger or better than you are? This can happen in the most innocent ways, with no ill intent. You just want to be seen as a great father, good Christian, or a socially conscious individual.
Counterfeits are everywhere in our society today. We all know about the “Knock-off” trade and what an impact this has on the economy of the world. Yet, we still are seduced into the purchase of these counterfeits because they look so much like the real thing.
The real thing is so hard to detect from the counterfeit, it often takes specific knowledge of the real thing to differentiate. This is the way it is with some of us as fathers.
As a father, are you a counterfeit? Do you know who you really are, or are you pretending to be someone or something different to make you more acceptable.
As I observe the families in my community I am seeing an alarming trend in the fathers today. It seems they all look and act the same. They are all determined to make their children the best athlete, the best reader, the best runner, the best swimmer, the best writer, the best of everything (Sometimes contrary to the way their children feel). They are all environmentally conscious, and politically correct. They all drive basically the same car and wear the same clothes. They all take at least one day a month to have lunch with their child at the school lunch room. They do their children’s home work projects and show all their friends what a wonderful job their child did on their home work.
Now, all these things are not necessarily wrong. In fact most, if taken in moderation, are very healthy to the father/child relationship (with the exception of doing their child’s home work project). The problem comes in when fathers don’t take the time to find out who they are and what they can realistically impart to their children.
Fathers you need to learn to be who God made you to be. When you try to be something different, you are only fooling yourself. Your children and family know who you are and love what God made you to be, and others see through the transparent veil that is the counterfeit you. You and those around you are most happy when you can be who you really are.
A wise man once said, “You need to learn how God wired you”, once you do, you will be the genuine item and not a counterfeit.
En servicio como padre
Dave
Dad Talk 