Last time we discussed the places that we might look if we were going to try to add members to our group or even find an existing group to seek membership in. These of course were just my thoughts right off the top of my head and you guys will come up with your own sources that I wouldn’t ever think of.

   So, who would you want to have around when the balloon goes up or TSHTF? I say when and not if, since I think we all agree that it’ll have to go up eventually. If an emergency situation never actually arises, we can all be very thankful but I maintain having the group preformed would never end up being a bad idea! This said, who would it be…?

   What about a doctor, anyone NOT want a doctor as a neighbor? What about a mechanic, farmer, carpenter, police officer, soldier, machinist, pilot or engineer? Would any of these professions be of value? Do you have a skill set that would compliment any of these or are you an aging desk jockey like me, which would be of marginal value?

   We’ll all have our own list of ideal candidates. Today I’ll share the facts about the people that I have surrounding me and maybe discuss the others I’d like to add…

   My group, for lack of a better term would be composed of both willing participants as well as those surrounding neighbors that would be added as tag alongs after an event due to their lack of having a better plan! Roughly 10-12 people for sure and several others depending on what season this event happened to fall in, one couple is only around seasonally… Like I said, the majority of these people aren’t even aware that they would be considered group members but they would have to be counted as so since were all on friendly terms now and couldn’t possibly be excluded after the fact.

   I’d have to describe most of the folks as your run of the mill “Jacks and Jill’s of all trades”, myself included. A small degree of skill in most areas of knowledge but few of us has mastered many, at least in the areas of practical homesteading. While in my estimation there isn’t a fool in the bunch, with the general exception of my outspoken pagan neighbor. I don’t mention this because she’s a pagan and believes differently than I do, it’s just that her personality isn’t exactly the most conducive to harmony around her neighbors in general.

   We do have a few technically skilled participants… There’s an ASE Master mechanic, an RN (registered nurse), an herbalist (the pagan gal), a retired Lineman (electrical), a retired sheriffs deputy and a candle maker (yes I know what you’re thinking; unfortunately we don’t have a butcher or a baker). Everybody else has things to offer but nothing formal, outside of life experience… Which may prove to be as, if not more, valuable then the formally skilled folks…?

   Two of the couples own and work with horses specifically but have a good deal of animal husbandry experience. One man has spent a good deal of time ranching and working with cattle. He’s spent many seasons “birthing” calves and I suppose if he can do that, other animals wouldn’t be outside of his ability to be useful. At least 2 of the men have hunting experience and I know they do, or have done their own butchering of wild game. One neighbor owns a sizeable flock of chickens and currently has eggs in surplus, which she sells around town…

   Two of the households own tractors and at least one of the owners is quite skilled in his machines use. I believe that 4 out of 6 property owners own at least one quad ATV, while not officially farm equipment, they come in handy for a long list of chores.

   All neighbors have either gardened in the past or have begun making half hearted efforts in the last few seasons. Their willingness to even try the gardening tells me that if and when this becomes a necessity, they will have gained some experience with which to get a head start on the green thumb learning curve that we’ve all heard about.

   All but one couple are at least gun owners, if not actual shooters. Two individuals have had formal competitive shooting experience as well as the sheriffs’ deputy, who has at least had to keep up his firearms qualifications until last year when he retired. There are guns-a-plenty! I don’t feel that stating this fact is a breach of OPSEC since that is the case in most of the rural areas of our country.

   Just about everyone has had a hand in building their own homes or doing significant carpentry work on these homes. Wood working tools and experience are not in short supply. Like I mentioned, other then the lineman with his electrical experience, our group fits well into the jack of all trades area. Most of us can do our own plumbing, electrical, framing and roofing chores and most of these neighbors are helpful to each other when someone needs an extra hand.

   Our RN neighbor will certainly come in handy and with a little foresight in stocking sufficient antibiotics, it’s my hope she will more than earn her keep. The herbalist can use her knowledge of our native plants, which I know for a fact is substantial, to help find alternative solutions to our health concerns.

   The mechanic is very humble about his expertise; the fact is there’s not a lot he can’t fix. This is providing that the issue isn’t with a computer or other high tech electronic part, which would be difficult to come by in or after a disaster! With tractors and small engines around, he can easily make up for any shortage he might have in his food storage supplies! This particular individual is also a top competitor in long range rifle shooting… He’s good at his hobby and I’ll bet you can all think of some post breakdown security strategies that could make use of his skills…

   So, who are we missing? I have to admit that after getting to work on this post, I feel we are a little better diversified then I might have guessed initially! This situation is far from ideal in that this is not a dedicated group of peppers’ with a commitment to each others survival.

   My wish list would have to include a medical doctor or even a veterinarian. Having a trained physician on hand would be worth his (or her) weight in Gold! I know, we do have an RN and I’m very thankful to know she’s in the neighborhood but she isn’t the same as a doctor… A doctor could provide prescriptions to allow the group to stock up on all the medications we could ever need. Yes, yes, there are vet meds that we can and should store but something about rolling through Walmart with the ability to legally purchase anything and everything… I say a doctor would be very valuable.

   What about a trained machinist? Properly tooled a machinist can make just about anything! After the collapse there will certainly be a lot of just making do, I think we might make do better with a machinist on hand. Currently we’re living in a throw away society but when the trucks stop running… Yep, we’ll be making do with what we’ve stocked or can scrounge! A machinist can make repairs and or even replacement parts as the needs arise, at least that’s the reputation they have!

  The list of valuable post collapse skills is just about endless. Blacksmith, leather worker, tanner, seamstress… We did mention a lack of a butcher and baker, right? Those skills would be handy as well!

   How about sending a communications expert our way? I do hold a HAM radio license but have all but forgotten what I knew about radio communication over the years. Sure, I could (and should) get busy dusting off the radios and plan to do exactly that in the near future. A group like this really needs to have the ability to communicate; this would be one of the best force multipliers we might have at our disposal. In future posts we’ll discuss the whole communications realm in great detail…

   I know I’ve said it before but each of us needs to evaluate who we already have around us and decide how they might fit into our “survival group”. Only after we realistically look at these people can we go out shopping for the additional members that fill in the gaps.

   Let me remind you to be objective when looking for a particular person’s value to the group. Each person will have both advantages as well as disadvantages. Even a medical doctor, while highly desirable might have a serious personality conflict that would make him (or her) a poor fit with your group, only you can make that determination.

   Conversely, one neighbor might seem like just any run of the mill old woman who stayed at home and raised her family, what tactical use could she add to the group? I say a stay at home mom would be a great logistics coordinator! She probably spent more tie juggling kids, activities and meals then any other person around? My point is not to overlook the less than obvious assets. “Too many soldiers and not enough cooks” would pose an issue just the same as if the situation was turned around!

   It’s important to remember that those neighbors WILL need to eat just like the rest of us. Wouldn’t it be better to feed them and make them an asset, than to try to defend against them as an adversary!

Food for thought!

Prepper

    Let’s get back to the survival group today… Last time we discussed that I’ve been thinking that the idea of a group would probably be better than going it alone with just Mrs. Prepper. The truth is that the probability of us going it alone would have been highly unlikely as we have some folks that are already fairly committed to this being a united front project anyway. We are far from where I’d like to be in the area of skills diversity though, so I am actually getting as much out of writing this article as I hope you will by reading it and doing the thought exercises.

   I covered the basic group of our 3 core participants or members and even brought in the likely addition of some close neighbors to help make a go of it. Whatever it, turns out to be? We’ll get back to the neighbor participation eventually, as I do want to cover that in better detail for all of you and share how I think that arrangement might work! Let’s cast our net further out, where could we be looking to find others of like mind to gather around us, for when the SHTF?

   For me an obvious place would be church! I put a lot of weight on the idea of having people around me that share my value system! This however wouldn’t disallow my pagan witch neighbor from working closely with us if and when the time comes. It’s just that my preference would be to have as much in common with those that I’m depending on as possible. It would make those “Tough Choices”, a little easier if there was an easy consensus when it comes to something that might be viewed as unsavory!

   Many of the larger churches have what I call community groups or even sometimes will have groups that members can join based on common interests. One particular church that my family attended in the Seattle area even had a group that composed of those interested in preparedness. Although, I did not get involved with that group, I certainly would have looked there if I had been hoping to find more local folks that were into the same things that I was! The main reason I never made it to any of their get together ‘s was that I’mnot planning to be around Seattle when it all goes ca-put. I plan to be living full time on the Eastern side of the state and will be attending a church there, so I’ll be seeking those folks out that will be in that local with me for strategic alliances.

   Ok, so I can hear you now… My church is small or I don’t attend a church regularly and wouldn’t know how to approach anyone even if I did attend. I highly recommend a good church as a place to do some prepping for your LONG term future but there are other places that I might look if I found myself in that situation. Most towns, even the very small towns, will have a food bank or other social safety net  system. I have found that a lot of these programs, the private ones that is, are run by planners. The planners would be a great place to start when looking for those folks that might have their act together. Families that bring in donations of food that is getting towards the end of it’s life cycle, would be an indication of potential preppers? I would certainly give some thought to this type of charitable organization in hopes of locating quality people, if not preppers specifically.

   How about a couple more areas to investigate in your search? Hard core couponers have been in the news a lot lately and all the shows on TV that covered these folks showed them with a bent toward stocking up… Might get involved with some local couponing club to find ways to free up additional money for preps and I’d be willing to wager that you’d only have to kick a few rocks to find one with a prepper under it!

   While I am not a LDS church member, I have several friends that are and they have been more then happy to let me tag along to the local cannery on more then one occasion with them. The LDS community is well known for their stand on the value of food storage. Check around your sphere of influence and see if you might have a Mormon church member at work or in the neighborhood? See if they might include you in their food storage acquisition plans. I’ve found LDS members to be very open about their views on preparedness and once they saw I was sincere in my interest they have been more than willing to include me in their activities! I’t might be possible to either recruit one of these families to your group or it might just be that you could be integrated into theirs? I’ve found these folks to be very tolerant of my differing beliefs and have never made me feel uncomfortable about not seeing 100% eye to eye on religious topics!

   Another place that seems like a logical place to find potential preppers would be in the “Search and Rescue” crowd. Most all Counties, whether large or small have some sort of search and rescue contingent. From my research these groups are generally composed of private citizens, even if they may be headed by a county government employee or office. While seeking out information on the group activities in my rural county, I found that many of the same individuals I already deal with as owners of businesses in town are also active with search and rescue… I know of several that are also active shooters and many have substantial camping and prepper gear for these outdoor activities. If they aren’t full blown preppers they would certainly be prepper friendly!

   Let’s see who else might be worth approaching in our quest for like minded individuals that would have “survival group” potential? How about the home school community? In my line of work I’ve ran into more then a few of these families and they have all been very respectable and thoughtful people. They are usual wary of the government and typically “conservative too very conservative” politically! They have chosen an unpopular way to raise their children and are often demonized in the press. Just my type of folks, family oriented free thinkers that aren’t afraid to stand on their principles, even when the going gets tough. That would make them good candidates for my group!

   These home school families are often very conservative financially as well, they have to be to make that program work… Typically Mom stays home with the kids while Dad goes off to work. I have found that Dad will often be working with the kids education as well, after work and on the weekends. Most of the families that I’ve had experience with are also tapped in to other families in the area that home school, even forming coops to assist each other in their common goals. Hmm, an entire group of people that are already pulling together to help when times aren’t even particularly bad yet? Might be worth some investigation, right?

   I’m sure that many of you have found other ways to identify potential allies. These are just some of the places I would be looking if and or when I’m on the search for group members. In the next “Survival Group” post I want to discuss what I mean by diversity of skills and what my ideal but realistic group might look like… I know, that should be interesting huh!

Prepper

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   So, did you think this topic over? I bet you have more people in your life then you might have initially thought! Who are they? What are their skill sets? Do you even have a choice but to include them in your plans?

   Let’s face it; you will not be able to exclude your difficult father-in-law from your survival plans. We all have people in our lives that will eventually have to be included in our plans, even if only begrudgingly. It’ll be a lot easier to plan for them now then to carry a heavier burden after the event occurs!

   When I started this topic, you all thought I was going to go into more of the classic “survival group” that we’ve all read about in the books. 12 guys all outfitted with the latest in AR-15 coolness, taking on the post collapse world in an attempt to hold on to their stash of 100,000 MRE’s. Nope, I think we better stick to the more realistic scenarios… I personally don’t have 11 other guys to hold up with and even if I did, I prefer the company of my family to the whole frat boy locker room scene. I’ll admit that 12 guys with guns can go a long ways towards an around the clock security rotation but I just don’t see that situation presenting itself to many of my readers. If you’re fortunate enough to have a trustworthy relationship with 11 other people, much less all men of fighting age, then count yourself lucky and see if you can’t still glean some useful information from these posts.

   Let’s get down to business… Yesterday I asked you all to think this set of choices over and then consider who the people most likely to be close to you in a disaster would be. Did you decide that you want to go it alone come TEOTWAWKI? You might have but I suspect that most of you will fall on the same side of the fence that I have and opt for having a select group of people around when this all goes down! With a few exceptions we will be focusing our time today on the whole group scenario and how to deal with what that reality will entail.

   Over the last couple of months I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the reality of what it’s going to take to not just survive but thrive if and or when the world gets turned upside down. It seems to me that there will be more work to be done and fewer people to do it? Granted the work will be different then the work most of are doing now and that fact alone will come with a special set of additional challenges, also making things more interesting!

   For the longest time I’ve been saying to anyone that might care to listen that I’d prefer to “just be left alone”, I largely still feel this way but have begun to think that this might be a recipe for disaster. I usually find myself feeling this way when I stop to pay attention to the news or catch something that the politicians are doing. The problems our nation faces are so unimaginable that I can’t fathom a solution that would spare us the heavenly wrath we so justly deserve. These fatalistic thoughts can easily overwhelm me, leading me to spend even more time thinking about my lack of preparedness. As I continue to add projects to my “to do” list, I can’t help but realize that the idea of “just being left alone” will leave me and Mrs. Prepper with far more work to do then we would be capable of completing…

   At times in the past ideas of life possibly getting easier when the SHTF would come to mind. You know, lots of time to sit around the bunker and read all those paperbacks that I would have so thoughtfully tucked away for doomsday. Maybe catch up on all that rest I missed out on while I had so diligently been working the last 20 years to pay for said bunker. An afternoon nap and then maybe monitor the shortwave for the latest reports from the BBC. I’d hear that Britain was still burning and their savage hordes had built canoes to begin the rape-n-pillage of their European brethren. Lots of time to contemplate the meaning of life and wile away the hours, living off all the food storage I’d been smart enough to store away…

   Sounds kinda nice, right? Like an extended vacation from the reality we’ve all come to know in our work-a-day world! I agree it sounds nice and I have been working my butt off for years to prepare as best I can to allow for as much comfort as possible when that fateful day arrives. I’ve even spent a good deal of money on preps but nowhere near the required amount to build the bunker I just described. I do have the BOL and it’s coming along nicely but it’s just acreage with a mobile home on it. I have a setup better than most preppers I know of but all I can realistically expect when the SHTF will be a lot of hard work! Not just hard work, I mean manual labor style hard work and this prepper has had far too little experience with that these last 10 years.

   Food will need to be grown, those food storage supplies will eventually run out and hunger is not going to give me a pass just because I was able to hold it off for a few months longer then the poor souls that failed to plan ahead! Gardens take a lot of work to build and even longer to grow. Those same gardens will also have to be protected while the produce ripens, no sense in letting predators steal the food while I’m sleeping!

   I don’t know about you but this all sounds like a lot of work! I’ll continue to work hard to get as much done before the day of reckoning arrives but I’m suspicious that I never will get an adequate doomsday bunker built. I’m coming to terms with the ideas of pulling together being a lot easier then pulling alone… Friends and family that could be recruited today will be a great blessing tomorrow. Every additional set of hands that are added to that list of “to-do’s” or “must-do’s” will be much appreciated.

   In my particular situation I’ve had a prepping partner from way back in a close lifelong friend that sees things much the same way I do. In addition, I’ve been blessed with a wife that’s 100% supportive of the prepping lifestyle. So that’s three of us, probably not enough to make it all work. I’m going to have to draw my circle of friends and allies a bit farther out to get to a more workable number of people…

   I could almost guarantee that my daughter will be joining the group, that’s if she’s left the nest by the time this all comes to a head. I couldn’t say for sure but I’d bet there’ll be a son-in-law in my future and if she ends up at the BOL, he’s sure to be close by. While this is far from a sure thing, I’ve been impressed with the character of the young guys she has chosen to spend any amount of time with… I’d bet a year’s salary that any man that wins her heart will be of the gun toting persuasion!

   Our little group is getting a bit larger but still not to the point that we can mount the required round the clock security detail that I truly believe would be advantageous. Who else could we get or maybe the question should be “who WOULD we get”? Undoubtedly there will be those friends or even family members that will all of a sudden see the error of their ways and remember the stacks of 5 gallon buckets that they saw only by chance in the basement or garage all those years ago! Could these late bloomers be of use to the group? It’s worth considering at least… We all have a unique set of variables that only we can evaluate.

      Like I said, I’ve been giving this group idea a lot of thought these last few months. I’ve come to the conclusion that the neighbors closest to me at the BOL would end up in the group whether they knew they were or not. One of two situations would play out, either they have far more preps then they have ever let on or they will have next to nothing stored away. Both of these scenarios will find them needing me as much as I need them. If they do have substantial preps, they will need the same help as I do in protecting what they have… If they don’t have much in the way of preparations, which I suspect to be the case, then they will be even more eager to play nicely with us since we can all get through this better with cooperation then if we were to fight each other. Besides, I’d rather cultivate a relationship that is already friendly then have to start completely from scratch with someone that happens in off the road. Almost 20 years of living next to these folks, even if only part time gives you a fairly decent idea of what they might be like when the chips are down. If they’re hardworking by nature then I doubt that would go completely out the window in an emergency!

   I think you can see what I getting at here today… We need to give this some careful thought and most likely do some reevaluation of what our situation really is and who is really going to be around when the wind really gets to blowin’!

   Tomorrow we’ll continue our discussion about who we might want to include and barring the obvious choices that I’ve already started to use as examples, we’ll see if we can’t come up with some other places to look for people of like mind to round out our little group of preppers!

Prepper

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If the topics we cover here at PREPPERNATION are interesting to you, please take a minute to subscribe to the email notifications. I will email you each time I add new material… I always like to hear from you, my readers, so let me also encourage you to post your comments on this or any of the other posts in the comments section!

   I wanted to spend some time discussing the idea of a “Survival Group”. I’ve received many emails over the last year asking about how to go about hooking up with other “preppers” to ride out the whatever it is, we all feel’s coming. Sure the questions weren’t always exactly this but they’ve all had a common theme about gathering together the like minded to make a better go of it.

   This question is far from easy to answer or I would have probably seen my way to getting around to it before now. Survival groups actually cover a lot of ground. I’m sure that we’ve all asked ourselves the question about either forming or joining a group of our own. Maybe you have already found a place in a group and are asking the logical question of allowing additional members to join or keeping your group more streamlined? I want to address these questions and maybe a few more over the coming days. It’s my hope to share my perspective on this subject and then you can all make up your own minds how you might choose to proceed.

   We better start by defining what a survival group is and what it is not, at least in my opinion. A survival group IS a group of like minded individuals that have made some sort of mutual aid arrangement to assist each other when the chips are down. What a survival group IS NOT is a group of individuals planning to get together when the balloon goes up so they have a better chance of taking what they need by force. It might seem like I’m making this awfully simple and I am! Over the years I’ve heard from many individuals that have all manner of plans, most are above board and might actually work out. While on the other hand I’ve also heard from and about groups of guys, mostly young guys, that have it in their head they don’t need to plan any further ahead then their rifles. They see themselves as the future Kings of the wasteland and should be avoided at all costs. These ideas are dangerous all by themselves but if a group forms around this train of thought the end results will be catastrophic!

   I’ll probably cover the topic of what a survival group IS in much greater depth then what it is not. A survival group might not even be called a “Survival Group”, in fact it probably would be better if it weren’t called that! I’ve heard people refer to their groups as prepping partnerships, disaster preparedness teams and plenty of variations of this type of theme. I was even aware of one group back in the late 90’s that called their particular arrangement a militia. Thankfully the militia news hype has faded out of the spotlight since then. It really doesn’t matter what you might choose to call this type of group since to be successful, not many folks should be hearing about it at all regardless of its name!

   Any number of reasons can be the impetuous of a group forming but they usually start around a common concern for the future. In many cases the realization of our society’s frailties will be revealed after some sort of disaster. Often when the threats seem the most probable, even after an event, we’ll find folks talking about how best to protect against them in the future.

   I’ll have to admit that examples of successful survival groups are few and far between. Finding like minded folks isn’t that hard but trying to get 3 survivalists to agree on anything other then to buy guns or not is almost impossible. Either the groups will form and go underground, for lack of a better word, or they form and then quickly disband for any number of reasons.

   I suppose that what a group like this might look like would be largely dependant on what the individual group members thought the most likely threat would be. Some groups will offer each other little more then a promise to come to each others aid in the event that some catastrophe fell on one or more of the group members but spared others that could assist in getting those unfortunate members back on their feet.

   Other groups will go to the extent of purchasing land together and then proceed to establish an actual bug out compound that the entire group will be able to use. This can be quite an expensive proposition and would be awfully hard to pull off by most of us working stiffs! I’d love to be in a position to have a formal group established and outfitted like so much of the fan fiction illustrates. While I have invested a considerable amount of money in my preps and BOL over the many years that I’ve been at this, the truth is I just don’t have enough close friends to pull off a respectable survival group.

   Opinions on this entire idea run the gambit. Some preppers believe that it’s better to go it alone then trust their future to a group. A strong case could be made to support this “Loner” mentality… By “loner” I would also include the single family approach to preparedness. The fewer people that know you have food and other survival gear the better, right? It’s easier to hide in plain sight when there’s only a few of you, right? More mouths to feed are exactly that, more mouths to feed… Maybe but let’s keep talking about this and see what we eventually come up with!

   Preppers on the other side of the coin will tell us that the group is the only way to go! “Many hands make light work” and other quips can be sighted to support this idea as well. Division of labor is something that most of us should at least take into consideration…

   Like I said this is a very difficult topic and good evidence can be sighted to strengthen either side of this argument. As this all unfolds I’ll try to hit on some practical ideas to help lead those in the “group” camp to find others of like mind. While at the same time try to offer those in the “loner” camp some advise that they’ll find helpful in their pursuits of “Life, Liberty and Happiness”.

   I’m sure that many of you will have already made up your minds as to which camp you belong in but I hope you’ll read this series with an open mind. Often we find ourselves in one situation only because we haven’t adequately considered all of the possibilities. Who knows we might even have assets and or personnel we’ve over looked.

   Please do me a favor and spend a few minutes thinking about the people you are spending your life with now. What are their talents and abilities? Are all of these people still going to be around if and when a crisis occurs or will they be part of the great unwashed masses that you will have escaped from in favor of your well stocked bug out location? Be honest with yourself and see if you can’t make a list of the people in your immediate vicinity, are they family? Neighbors? Who are they?

   In the next post I’ll be sharing some of the things that I’ve come up with recently in my own quest for an answer to this question. Even after years of planning I haven’t come to a firm conclusion on my own standing in this regard. Maybe while we discuss these ideas you and I will both come up with a workable plan to position ourselves better for the days to come and who we might spend them with!

Prepper

  Lately I’ve had additional time to ponder the meaning of life and what the future might have in store for us… (I did say additional time, I know that at least a few of you are wondering why I’m so delinquent in getting posts up if I have the additional time? The truth is I spend a great deal of my day behind the steering wheel, time to think and time to write are two very different things). When I say what the future might hold, I’m of course thinking big picture, the economy and freedom erosion, etc…

   It was during one of these lost in thought moments that I nearly ran over a bicyclist. Yep, that’s right, I was in down town Seattle and the bike was weaving in and out of traffic and had I not snapped out of my trance I would have plowed into this moron. Instead I get the finger and some choice words about sharing the road… The following thoughts are what stemmed from my near collision…

   When we look out at the society we live in currently, at least I think that most of us live here, what do we see? It would appear that most everything is counter intuitive any more. Women dressing as men, more scary – men dressing as women. The few with more rights and protections than the many? I recently heard or read, I can’t recall which, the story about a law suit filed against a mexican restaurant chain. In a nutshell, the restaurant was sued over there marketing slogan – “The Chipolte experience”, this particular restaurant is basically fast food and the meal is prepared to order while you watch. The suit was brought by a disabled patron in a wheel chair. Their complaint was that they were being denied the “Chipolte experience”, because the restaurant didn’t make a provision to allow the disabled to view their food being prepared? I don’t believe that the dollar amount that exchanged hands was disclosed but the restaurant did settle out of court with this individual. Does this make your blood boil or is it just me?

   I’m sure that I’m not alone in the way I usually cope with this? Turning a blind eye to the things that just don’t make sense as it is much easier than allowing yourself to be driven crazy by this madness… While I’m not going to advocate violence, I do adhere to the belief that a little healthy fear in a society isn’t always a bad thing.

   When I was a kid I recall that there were neighbors yards that I made sure to never set foot in as the owner was suppose to be a wacko or something. The point wasn’t that I had a wacko living in the neighborhood or not but that the fear of what going in someone else’s yard might mean kept me from doing it. How about the old corporal punishment in the schools? I know that my father explained that if I was ever to receive “swats” at school from the principal, I would receive twice as many from him when I got home. Knowing that Dad meant it, I steered clear of a lot of trouble on the play ground if it looked like it could be blamed on me!

   What would a healthy level of fear look like in my ideal society? How do you describe what should just be a natural state? If you’re a female maybe you think twice about parking in that dark parking structure when your be yourself, instead of believing the police will be there to protect you? How about if you were to trespass on someone else’s land, the seed of doubt bubbling up in your mind that you might be shot? In addition to possibly getting yourself shot the knowledge that the law would be on the side of the land owner might make a person think twice…? I think that my ideal society is the same society we all lived in, up until several decades ago. That is at least in America!

   A healthy level of fear would do more to protect us than it would to scare us! My wife and I have been doing a little hiking lately and we frequently see single women out on the trail. Single meaning alone, not necessarily unmarried of course. Women in the woods all by themselves? My gut reaction as a modern American would be, “well of course, why shouldn’t a free American women go anywhere she wants, the same a man?”. Just like the wheel chair customer thought about being denied the right to see their food being prepared at Chipolte, we’re all equal and should be able to have exactly what the other guy gets…? HOGWASH!

   In reality this unhealthy belief or over confidence will either get that women in the woods hurt or possibly worse. I think as a society we have brainwashed ourselves from the top down that we can do whatever we feel like doing and there won’t be any consequences. Wrong, there will be consequences and they are going to be much worse when the day of reckoning comes, the longer we behave as if they don’t apply to us. This eventuality applies to us personally as well as collectively as a nation. The government as of late has been running wildly off further and further into left field with their actions and responses to the current problems we face economically. Whoa to the unprepared when this all unwinds, we will all know the truth but in this case I doubt it will be setting any of us free!

   That bicyclist in down town Seattle is just another good example of what has become of common sense these days. A man on a bike that thinks because society says riding a bike to work is a good idea means he is immune to the forces of nature? Weather it comes in the form of nothing more than gravity or ends in the crippling effect of metal on flesh, this wrong belief could very well get him hurt or even killed. Then of course there’s the age old gun control debate… We don’t need guns to protect ourselves, that’s what the police are for – right? The fact that we even have to defend against this ass-hattery is proof positive that we are living in a age of mass hypnosis!

   Is there hope for a civilization that no longer has the understanding that the rules of the universe require there to be an iron clad relationship between cause and effect? I don’t think that we will have to wait much longer to find out the answer to this question? Stay tuned in to the world around you and see if you don’t start spotting the blatant disregard of all things logical going on all around you everyday!

Food for thought!

Prepper