Posts Tagged → gullible
Are conservative voters really gullible naifs?
Yesterday I had the wonderful experience of spending most of my day with central Pennsylvanians in a remote corner of our rural region. These are salt-of-the-earth people. Hard working, religious, family-oriented, earnest. The best. My kind of people. We were conducting business together, and of course we naturally discussed current events and related subjects.
One of the things emerging from my day with these genuine people weighed on my mind as I drove home in the rain.
“Are religious conservatives really clueless and naive about politics?,” I wondered.
These are decent people, good people, and the idea that someone would seek to destroy the character of someone they simply disagree with is totally foreign to them. They seem so completely unable to grasp just how evil and conniving their political opponents are.
Once someone says something negative about someone else in their world, why then, they think there might be a smidgeon of truth. It is enough to impeach the person’s credibility. Because of a naive belief that someone would only make such an accusation if it were possibly true.
In politics this naivete results in just enough votes lost or time delayed to get the Left a win.
It is this naivete among America’s best people that Leftists play upon and exploit.
As with last year’s impossible US senate defeat of Judge Roy Moore in conservative Alabama, by a far-left Democrat, today we face a typical fake leftist attack on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US supreme court.
Despite being a good man with an old-time (and odd) interest in younger women (not illegally-aged girls), Moore was defeated in a swarm of obviously false accusations designed to destroy his character. Just enough doubt about him as a good person was cast upon him that he lost just enough votes among good people to lose the race in a state he should have won overwhelmingly.
Despite sharing Moore’s values and policy views, a narrow majority of religious, conservative Alabamians were fooled into voting for the communist Democrat who will do everything possible to undermine those same voters and their values.
Today we have an obviously lying lady who has the most bizarre, dis-believable, 11th hour claim against Judge Kavanaugh. This discredited professor lady is already every kind of long-time kook-Left activist possible. She has a long public history of outlandish claims and bizarre behavior. Her students write that she is psychologically unbalanced, and “scary.”
Zero evidence backs up her accusation, which flies in the face of every other piece of evidence and testimony about Kavanaugh.
If at all remotely true, her accusation against Kavanaugh would be decades old, having nothing to do with his judicial views. But we know she is lying, and that her last-minute accusation is false, and that it is simply designed to derail the confirmation of a judge the Left disagrees with. This lady is simply the sacrificial goat used to achieve that goal.
Her attack on Kavanaugh is just one more attempted character assassination on someone the Left does not like because of his Constitutional views.
And all these false attacks are enabled by good Americans who think “Well, no one would really deliberately lie like this. No one would really be that indecent, that corrupt. There might be some shred of truth to it…” and so good people like Moore and Kavanaugh get damaged, and the Left advances its anti-democratic agenda to control government the voters would not ever cede to it.
Folks, if you are a religious person, a kind person, a good person, a decent, law-abiding, honest and fair-minded person, then that is great. You are my kind of person. You are all-American, and I hope you never change your values. But do not make the mistake of assuming that everyone else is like you. Do not make the mistake of listening to the lies of Big Media. The media is not news, or truth; it is the propaganda arm of one political party, and not the political party you would usually vote for.
Don’t be naive. Don’t be gullible. Don’t let yourself be manipulated by your political enemies so that your vote or your voice are wasted. Stay strong, be skeptical, and stay focused on what you know is good for your community and your country.
First World Problem: Antique Arms Collectors Now Face Mostly Fakes
This headline is probably ho-hum to most people, at best.
To others, it is a “here we go again, another whine-fest by history buffs who spend their money badly on old rusty junk.”
But if you are indeed a history buff with a penchant for old weapons, both edged and those that go BOOM, you may be interested in this post.
My opinion is that most antique weapons collectors are facing an overwhelming amount of fakes.
Much more so with Japanese swords, so let’s discuss them first.
Used to be that finding a Gendaito blade was unusual; maybe one or two a year. Now, you go on eBay and find the same several sellers conveying dozens of them annually. Wakizashis, katanas, even various sized dirks and tantos etc.
These must all be fakes, as there simply were not this many Gendaito blades in existence before Chinese smiths began to create them in about 2011. Having watched these counterfeits move at an ever brisker pace, I simply feel sad. At some point the uninformed collectors will discover their money has been taken for what is a very good reproduction that is probably worth a thousand bucks, simply because it is that good of a copy. But it ain’t real.
Smith-made (hand made art blades) Shinto blades also fall into this counterfeiting scam by the hundreds annually. Again, there simply were not as many of these blades surviving WWII as there are now for sale on eBay.
With guns, it is harder to fake than a sword, because a gun is obviously a gun. A Winchester 1873 is a Winchester 1873, and its condition usually dictates its value.
What makes some gun values go crazy high are rare or historic marks (the ubiquitous spurious stage coach markings on rabbit eared double shotguns being the best example), which can be easily faked by anyone with good control of a metal punch. This is true fakery and it is an area most collectors know about and do more diligence about.
But let’s talk about the area where it is harder to see what has happened, and harder to call it fakery, though it is: The collectible antique sporting rifles.
Demand is high for antique sporting rifles, because their modern day equivalents cost about $35,000 to start and easily get to $100,000 and much, much higher. So in that context, it “makes sense” to pay $5,000 to $20,000 for an antique sporting firearm that functions as it should, rather than several times that amount for a brand new one that goes BOOM just like or nearly like the old one.
Antique sporting rifles are getting lots and lots of makeovers, both in England and here in America. They are marketed at auction and on websites as having been “period upgraded” or “period refurbished” (say from the 1870s to 1930s), when in fact they were very recently “tarted up” by a gunsmith to heighten their attractiveness to unknowing, unquestioning collectors.
I recently purchased – and immediately returned – such a rifle.
Oh it was a rare dandy, and looking past the hyperbole on the well-known seller’s website, which included an obviously fraudulent claim of “original condition,” there was still a fine gun that could take an American bison or a grizzly. If it worked the simple way a rifle should work, it was the gun of a lifetime. In a rare, hard-hitting caliber that I wanted.
So, I busted a move on it.
After joking on the phone with the salesman about the obviously fake claims of original condition, the seller and I eventually reached agreement on price, and the gun arrived in a couple days. Right out of its original 1895 leather and brass case with the original owner’s name and military rank on it (God, what a case!), the red flags were popping up: Improperly refinished wood had pulled the stock away from the receiver, leaving the stock to accept the heavy recoil on only one side.This meant the stock would crack soon after use.
A punch mark on the barrel lump was testimony to the cheap and meaningless effort to temporarily tighten the otherwise loose action. The list of el cheapo work went on. Yes, the bores were immaculate, but the fact is that this gun had been recently “tarted up” for re-sale, and it had been worn down quite a bit recently. Worn down more by the nature of its heavy caliber than by any misuse by previous owners.
Had the seller simply disclosed these facts, I might have made a more informed decision, and he would have received less money. We would have had full disclosure and an honest exchange. But within 48 hours of receiving it, I drove the gun all the way back to the sales room, three hours away, where the sales manager and the business owner tried to talk me out of the return. The refund check arrived ten days later, with none of the additional costs I incurred like shipping, transfer, gunsmith evaluation etc. They knew full well what had been done to that gun, and they simply got caught, and they punished me by withholding cash they should have covered.
This is one of the big names in high end gun sales.
Today I am looking at another uncommon rifle on a well known auction site. The gun has clearly been recently overhauled for re-sale. The wood finish is as bright and shiny as the new wood floor in a brand new home. The metal finishes look like they were done weeks ago, and not the 117 years ago that is the actual age of the gun. Yet it is marketed as having a “period” refurbish. Rubbish! Nonsense! Buyer be super aware!
This is not total fakery, as no fake numbers or markings have been punched into the metal or wood. Custer did not purportedly grasp this gun as he fell at the Little Big Horn.
Instead, until a few months ago, this gun’s metal parts were probably a mix of silvered and plum finishes, the welcome, honest patinas of hundreds of days afield in India or Africa, or the Scottish Highlands, chasing big game in the hands of a British, Indian, or Scottish Man of Importance. Until months ago, the wood probably looked like hell, was beat to hell, dented, dinged, and scratched, each a story in itself. Not any more! Now it looks so fake and shiny it about blinds the eye.
Shame, too, because under the fakery is a really cool gun.
Apparently the sellers believe that hiring “gunsmiths” to do quick and dirty upgrades to these collectible old sporting arms is more important than selling the actual honest gun, with its actual original wear and condition.
This means the sellers have gullible buyers who ascribe too much weight to new and fresh appearance, when the opposite is true: An original condition gun that has not been butchered or fooled with by a modern day “gunsmith” is actually more valuable.
The key to fending off the faking is educating new gun collectors and buyers to understand this fact: Fresh, new looking antique guns have been shined up to turn them into shiny objects. Don’t be a foolish fish and bite on them, unless you recognize a) what they are, and b) there are probably problems covered up by the new “improvements” that would have been addressed 100 years ago, but are now papered over, and thus, you are not getting what you paid for.
And as for the Japanese swords out there on eBay, man, what can be said? Be super wary. Ask yourself simple questions about production numbers, survivor numbers, and then answer your own question: How on earth is this one seller repeatedly finding so many of these should-be rare swords? Is every American veteran selling his prized Japanese sword to just these few dealers?
You know the answers to these questions. Run away, and hold on to your money.
In closing, buyer beware. Because there are gullible collectors willing to part with their money, there are unscrupulous sellers willing to sell them things that simply cannot be true. It behooves the smart man to ask the simple questions before biting.
Good luck and be patient!