As preppers we usually focus on practical steps that will give us a better chance of surviving whatever crisis comes down the road. We talk about what kind of food to store and how much of it, where our water is going to come from, and the best weapons to have available. These are all important points, and if we don’t get them right life will be a lot harder post-SHTF. But is there something else, maybe just as important, that we’re all overlooking?
Being prepared is about being ready to survive in a world that’s radically different from the one we live in now. Most of us are pretty well equipped to deal with the physical differences – not being able to go to the store for food, or the mains power going out – but what about the moral differences?
The moral standards we use in everyday life are going to be stretched to the limit, and far beyond, if the SHTF. Our standards of right and wrong developed in a safe, organized society where most essentials are easily available. How well are they going to cope in the chaos of social collapse? Probably not very well – and that means we all need to think about our personal moral values, what limits they put on our actions, and how we might have to adapt them when the situation changes.
Most people’s moral code says “don’t steal”. It says “help people who’re in trouble”. Unless you’re a psychopath it says “Don’t shoot at anyone except in self-defense”. It probably includes beliefs about marriage, relationships and what’s acceptable in those areas. You can probably think of a list of other rules you live by. Have you thought about how those rules will work in a crisis situation?
Obviously some of them will still work just fine. Don’t rape; don’t kill for the fun of it; don’t abuse the weak and helpless. All of these things are simply wrong, in any situation. Other things fall into more of a gray area though. You’ll have to be a lot more willing to use violence than you’d usually be comfortable with. Other people’s property rights will often take a lower priority compared to what you and your loved ones need to survive. Helping others has to be balanced against the impact it will have on you – if you give a starving child a meal, you can’t just head down to Walmart to replace the food you gave them.
Madly Murderous
Modern society has strong taboos against killing unnecessarily, and that’s basically what murder is – killing someone without legal sanction. Soldiers on operations are legally sanctioned to kill within their ROEs; a homeowner faced with an intruder is legally sanctioned to kill under self-defense laws. But if you kill someone because they took the parking space you wanted at Safeway, or because you saw them grab an ear of corn from your field, there’s no legal justification for that and it’s murder.
But what happens if law and order have collapsed? In a serious crisis there won’t be any legal sanction, because who’s enforcing the law and making that kind of decision? In that situation you have to look beyond your personal morals and consider what knock-on effects there will be.
Shooting someone for taking a parking space is still wrong; just because it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean you can’t walk an extra ten feet. Shooting someone for taking a single ear of corn is probably also wrong – if they’re taking a single ear. But what if they’re systematically harvesting your crop?
A lot of preppers grow their own food in normal times, and like anything valuable sometimes crops get robbed. Usually, unless they threatened you with a weapon, you wouldn’t be justified in killing someone for stealing your crop. They’re committing a crime, but you can replace the lost food from the grocery store. In a crisis it’s different. Let them take that food and, come winter, you and your family could be starving to death. Will your personal morality let you shoot to keep hold of that food? It’s something you need to consider.
Are you going to make a moral judgment based on who is taking your food? A lot of us would feel justified in opening fire on a group of armed looters, but might be more hesitant to pull the trigger on a starving woman with kids in tow. Are you willing to face a bit of personal hardship to keep someone else alive?
Fair Shares? Forget it!
Most of us do what we can to help the less fortunate. Whether it’s handing some spare change to a homeless person or volunteering for a local shelter, we generally do what we can for others. That’s fine when only a minority of people need help, and the majority can carry them without much of a sacrifice. It’s totally different when only a few are prepared for a crisis and almost everyone else is looking for a share of their supplies.
With the best will in the world, you can’t help all your unprepared neighbors. You just don’t have enough food, fuel and medicine to keep them going for more than a couple of days, and in the process you’ll wipe out your own supplies.
Recently we looked at your options for what to do if someone asks for food during a crisis. That decision has moral dimensions too. You might find it morally unacceptable to leave others hungry when you have food – but is that a realistic approach? Simple – no it isn’t. To survive you’re going to have to adapt your morals to the situation.
Finders, Keepers?
If I find lost property, I do everything I reasonably can to return it to its owner. It’s theirs, not mine, and I don’t have any right to keep it. I never steal, either; property rights are the foundation of any decent society. But when the SHTF I’m going to have to evaluate my positions on that.
In a crisis there’s going to be a lot of lost stuff lying around. When refugees start leaving urban areas, expect their path to be littered with things they got fed up carrying. A lot of these things will be useful to you, and it’s obviously impractical to collect them and return them to their rightful owners. It makes no sense to leave them lying around, either, so I’d say it’s morally acceptable to scavenge them and take anything that improves your own chances.
Stealing, on the other hand, is still wrong. If someone else has something you want, that’s tough; it’s theirs, not yours. If you think you’re justified in taking it from them by force you’re not a prepper; you’re just a bandit.
I’ve looked at three of the biggest moral issues that we’re likely to face in a major crisis, but there are many more. For example a lot of us have religious beliefs that disapprove of sex outside marriage. What happens if a collapse is permanent and there’s nobody left to register marriages? Are you going to let humanity die out because there isn’t a pastor handy? You might think alcohol is immoral – but will you have the same opinion when you need a broken arm reset and a bottle of rum is the only effective painkiller you have left?
The end of the world as we know it will throw a lot of challenges at us. Surviving them is going to take work. Don’t put yourself in a place where that work becomes harder, and you and your loved ones are put in unnecessary danger, because of moral values that don’t fit the situation. You need to look at where you can redraw the limits to survive the crisis and still be a decent person at the end of it.
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My morals don’t change.
1. Don’t use a weapon without a reason you can live with in the end.
2. Don’t rape.
3. Safeguard your family.
Anything else, it’s a free for all. My family is number one to me. If you have food, medicine or other supplies that are needed, I will try to barter for it. If you won’t accept a trade, I’ll take it from you. By force, if needed. You are not my friend, my lover nor my family. You are an obstacle at this point. Either help us survive, and we will get along, or get in my way and be destroyed.
I’m pragmatic and I don’t let sentimentality get in the way of hard choices. Now, I’m not evil and I am not cruel. I will do my utmost to ensure my family and I survive. Now if that means I wipe out a group, I will. That’s not to say that I would kidnap or kill a child to make someone do what I ask. Anything I do has a purpose for survival. Wanton murder is not one, nor is causing unnecessary harm.
Most don’t like what I have to say, that’s fine. But i say it for one simple reason: to show you that not everyone is gung-ho about group survival or helping everyone possible.
Think of it this way, at least I’m honest about it. I won’t hide it from you or anyone.
I think there is a area that has not been addressed here.
There will be a need for lots of man power for groups, (both small and large) to to survive long term. Much of this will be construction and farming related. So here is the point.
How will we all stand on Slavery or Indentured servant , Sharecropping or Serfdom, type scenarios?
Most of the Middle ages operated on Serfdom (a type of slavery), most of the pre industrial world operated one form or another of these systems.
So would you and your family voluntarily agree to such an arrangement or would you be enslaving people by force?
Rather than just feeding a person, making them a ” useless eater”, to what lengths would you go, to force them to work for their food?
How much would you freely share before you need them to contribute to the group? And would this be done by Force or Voluntarily?
Due to the current feelings towards Black Slavery/The Confederacy, in this country, How would this affect you? Your Moral code? Etc?
Mic, Forcing someone to work for food is not slavery, it is a choice! Work or starve! If someone will not work for food or anything else they deserve none.
If someone comes to me for help, I will only help them if they are willing to work to help them self.
Also if in a group and are not willing to work as the others in the group, they should be expelled to fend for them self. That should be the first rule of the group.
That is not slavery!
The bible states that if a man will not work let him not eat.
You make some good points, Mic, but on this I think I would have to agree with Ferd. You don’t work or help you don’t eat. Simple. Work or starve. At this point race or colour of gender really won’t matter much. We will need every able-bodied person to help rebuild society. Women are just as strong as men and can work right along side them helping with manual labour. Or us helping the women? LOL! The truth of the matter is that for the most part women aren’t as physically strong as men but tougher than men. Who’s able to have babies? And to do that women, by necessity, have to be much tougher than we ever could be. I’ve had kidney stones and that is supposed to be the closest that a man is able to come to having the kind of pain that a woman experiences during childbirth. I wish I would have passed out from the pain. But I didn’t. The pain made me projectile vomit. A most unpleasant experience. The point of all of this is that our survivability will depend on our individual usefulness to the GROUP. And I would think that the early groups would have to be founded on communal principles resting on some kind of a common foundation. Something like the Mennonites or Amish working together towards a common goal founded on shared beliefs. In their case a religious foundation. In our case the reason to come together for a common goal would be our mutual survival. What better reason is there? When a disaster or crisis happens in a community people are very quick to come together for mutual support. It’s just something that most of us do naturally. Almost like it’s written into our DNA. Why should that be any different in a true extended grid down situation? People need people. And to beat an old truism to death, no man is an island.
If SHTF to a MAJOR DEGREE I strongly believe slavery will return in some groups. You’ll have groups that work together for the common good and you’ll have raiding groups taking from everyone they can and there will be groups with slaves forced labor or buy and sell at will. And for several generations under a major SHTF it’ll stay that way. Until society total rebuilds it self . But even then which way will the majority go After all we’er talking 20,30, 50 maybe even 100 years before society rebuilds it self mind frames will be way different Slavery may be acceptable. But I don’t think it would be a racial slavery. Just haves verses have nots. Yea the more I think about it the more likely it bound to happen. But I am enficing again this is one MAJOR SHTH time
On slavery, moderns shouldn’t believe the propaganda against or for, Its nature varied by law, place, time, and the persons involved.
Before the period 1600 to 1900, when slavery ‘officially’ ended in South America and South Asia (it never actually has but now is peonage), slavery didn’t have a racial context.
Sometimes it had a tribal nature (see Rwanda when Brits first arrived), but in some cases outsiders would be hard put to distinguish between nude owners and slaves. Main differences: owners may appear larger and healthier in appearance; would depend on individual case.
Via Moses (Tanakh), YHWH strove to regulate servitude for ancient Israel, which regulations in reality configured it as indentured servitude. ‘Slaves’ in Israel were by law freed on a 49-year cycle (Jubilee year), or whenever the High Priest died. Latter event much more frequent, since rarely would any priest be consecrated for service before age 30.
(Before that age, each free Israelite male was expected to marry and produce male heirs for family/clan property. BTW, all land sales contracts were also got voided Whenever Israelites obeyed the Law, a giant economic Reset button got pressed every 50 years.)
The central sin of America in re slavery was its pretense to Christianity (and consequent respect for Moses). That vicious hypocrisy led to brutal and genocidal behaviors against more-peaceful Indian tribes, and to chattel slavery. And more recently, to imperial wars and sponsorships of violent colonialism.
For those condemning the Confederacy a reminder: that pious North (abolitionism began in those churches) was deeply involved in slave-trading; it was one leg of the Triangle Trade. Even when Northern merchants weren’t directly involved, bankers and investors among them were funding such ventures.
What led to the decline of Atlantic Basin slavery wasn’t morality, but mechanization. Once steam power was feasible and extant, and labor-saving machines got invented, buying and supporting slaves became uneconomic.
Chattel slavery might have survived for many decades as a status symbol among wealthy, yet it had already been banned in the British Home Isles in the 1830s. (Yet more hypocrisy, since practices very like slavery continued throughout the remainder of the British Empire – a debt form yet continues in rural India.)
slavery? It never left. There are about a half-million, conservative number, in the US, alone. Between 6-8 million in Mexico.Most streetwalkers are slaves. About 10 years ago, three preschool age children were found near Williamsport (AKA Little League world capital) so mutilated no one could tell if they were boys or girls. It was determined they were Native American, possibly from C. America, and it was dropped. Many nations turn a blind eye to slavery and some religions advocate it. I lost a few friends who helped rescue or fought slavery in the Southwest.
Mic, I do agree with you on this. You want food or any other help from me, you work for it.
Agree totally. Frankly, we all have had plenty of notice about the possibility of TEOTWAWKI. Those who are unprepared have determined their own destiny. I currently volunteer to help the needy, but when the SHTF, the only needy will be me & my family.
SAD
Why, are you a liberal
“Free for all”? You obviously voted for Hilary! I will keep this simple, you are a piece of shit like so many others with your thoughts. I can only hope and pray you end up at my door step.
It’s certainly within one’s prerogative to question another’s opinion on this list. What I object to is using vulgarity to denigrate another’s opinion. In my view it does nothing to reinforce your side of the argument and, in my opinion, actually weakens your argument due to your lack of an adequate vocabulary to express yourself without using vulgarity.
Agreed, Chuck. This page should be the one place that we should all make a real effort to try and be civil with one another. After all aren’t we all working towards the same goal? If we can’t even do it here how will we fare if society does break down completely?
Absolutely, Armin. I might challenge some position you posit but if I can’t do it civilly without resorting to name calling and vulgarity, I think I should remain silent. Reasonable minds can reach two different reasonable conclusions. That’s is the real reason why we have courts. In addition both of us could be wrong. The real answer is something neither of ever considered.
I am not a religious person but I believe I should treat others as I would want to be treated. I try to live my life that way. If you are deeply religious, that is fine for you as long as you don’t try to compel me to accept your views.
Our country was founded on the principle that each man was entitled to his own opinion as long as he didn’t try to force others to accept it.
Left Coast Chuck, Actually, that is why we have the 1st. amendment. If someone speaks with what you call vulgar language it is no business of yours to tell them how they can speak. And it does not weaken their point just because you don’t like it!
As why we have courts? We are supposed to have courts to make sure things are fare and just. But the courts have become corrupted by lawyers that write legal language so no one but a lawyer can understand it and the decisions made in the courts by which lawyer can impress and sway a judge or jury. No matter how wrong they are!
It’s all about respect, Ferd, and has nothing to do with the first amendment. For a true democracy to work properly every participant needs to act responsibly all the time. Vulgarity and obscenity are the first refuge of the illiterate. Would you like your young child to liberally sprinkle their everyday speech with “f” this and “f” that and go to “h” and so and so is nothing but a dirty bitch and whore and sh*t. How long would you stand for that? Is that also not them exercising their rights of the first amendment? The first amendment wasn’t written so that people could curse and swear all day long. It was written so that people could communicate using right speech, right thought and right action. Respect for self. Respect for others. And this shows in all you say and do.
Armin, you say the 1st. amendment is there so that people can communicate using the right speech, right thought and right action. The right speech, the right thought and the right action according to who? According to you?
The First amendment was written so that people could communicate their own thoughts in their own choice of words or language, without others in power or otherwise being able to shut them up by violence, fines or imprisonment,
According to that little voice in that back of your head that always tells you the right thing to do or say that so many people don’t listen to today. Your conscience. It always knows the right thing to do or say if people would just listen to it. And I agree completely with the first amendment even though I’m not American. The right of free speech is a wonderful thing and should be enshrined. But certain community standards have to be met, especially where children are concerned and we’re supposed to be good role models for children. The first amendment gives us the right of free speech and it’s wonderful that we have it. Colourful language is fine but that doesn’t give a person a right to stand in public and spew constant defamatory or profanity laced speech. And this is a public forum.
Ferd, one can express an opinion without being discourteous. People like Clay speak that way on line because they feel safe. It is not something he would get away with if he said it in my presence. And, if it is done in public, anyone who is offended by it has as much right to express themselves by calling him on it. You go Chuck!
One thing I forgot, Rogue, and that is that what that person said (anonymously from behind the safety of a keyboard) is that it wasn’t even vulgarity or discourtesy per se but a personal attack on another that they didn’t even know. A cowardly act. An unnecessary action. If you’re going to vent on me at least give me the courtesy of doing it in a civil manner. Respect extended. Respect returned.
Vulgar language marks a person’s intellect. Rudeness and vulgar language are tactics employed by people who have no logical thoughts to add to the discussion. I doubt that the First Amendment protects vulgar speech. The First Amendment only restricts the government from banning speech at the Federal level. States can enact laws that punish lewd and vulgar speech.
To Ferd, just try the free speech by cussing in court next time you are called up for jury duty, and when the judge orders you refrain from that type of language just tell him you are excercising your first amendment rights and you can talk however you want to. Then see how fast he holds you in contempt of court and slaps a fine on you or even gives you some jail time. You see, first amendment does not mean you can speak however you want, it means you have a right to express your opinions and beliefs without going to jail because the powers to be don’t agree with you. In matters as such as these forums we discuss and have discourse and even debate but it should always be done with dignity and mutual respect because we are all human beings. I promise you, if anyone comes up to my kids or wife and just let’s cuss word after cuss word come out without and consideration of anyone around him I will call him on the carpet. And if he does not have the dignity to stop and apologize because he does not care and all he can think about is himself, I will ask him to walk away.
Thank you, Reg. Well put. You’ve made my point for me but much better than I could ever have said it.
To Wannabe. I take my hat off to you, sir. It gives me more hope for the future that we are more alike than unalike even though we live in different countries. Excellent points. Very well put! You are another that I can respect.
Amen, to that brother. Well said. If most of us treated others as we would like to be treated then I would bet the majority of problems would disappear from the earth. To respect others, you first need to have respect for yourself. On one of Claude’s other pages I ran across what I would describe as nothing less than a psychopath. And I do not say this lightly. There was no need for the kind of diatribe that person engaged in. But I still responded to that person in a very civil manner while trying to teach and enlighten. What many people don’t seem to realize, Chuck, or seem to have forgotten; is that one of the reasons we’re down “here” on this beautiful planet is to teach and help each other as much as we can. We’re all on a figurative ladder forever striving upwards. Is it not better for each of us to give the person above us that little extra push UP the ladder instead of trying to pull that person down or even off the ladder?
Well Armin, to you and Reticent Rogue, I use colorful language sometimes but try to curb it in front of women and children, and I do not use it to disrespect anyone and I am not a coward behind a keyboard! If I were in front of you and did use language you didn’t like you could leave, but if you think you could make me shut up, my suggestion is for you to go for it. You probably will not like the outcome because it will be a very hard road for you!
By the way Armin, We do not live in a True Democracy! United States is a Republic. And it has everything to do with the 1st. Amendment.
I agree with you, Ferd, when you say we do not live in a true democracy. I don’t think a true democracy exists on this planet. To a greater or lesser degree I think all political systems today are some form of dictatorship. And to some degree I think they have to be. Most people, if left to their own devices, wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. They are unable to govern themselves properly. To be exact the United States political system is a “Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic”. Democracy is defined as “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives”. On the surface it appears we might be living in a democracy but we really aren’t. The whole system has become horribly corrupt. More like a modern day police state than anything else. We the people have let the system get away from us. It was supposed to be a system of government for the people and by the people and they’ve turned it around on us. We only have ourselves to blame. Most forget that the government is supposed to be working for us but now we are working for the government and with the creation of the FED in 1913 the citizens became debt slaves unto perpetuity. Many years ago, when I was still a young man and not an old curmudgeon, one of our Prime Ministers, Jean Chretien, let it slip on national TV. He said that Canada was a benign dictatorship. In some ways it sounds like an oxymoron but I think he was closer to the truth than most. Only ever saw it that one time and they never repeated it. In many ways the United States and Russia are very similar. In Russia their methods of control are more overt. In America the methods of control are more covert or subtle but still as effective. And I understand what you mean about the 1st amendment and democracy. If a system is not a true democracy or even a plutocracy, which seems to be more evident these days, then it’s even more important to have freedom of speech. If we’re not allowed to fight back with real weapons without being imprisoned at least we can fight back with our words as the pen is supposed to be mightier than the sword. I look forward to intelligently discussing anything with you.
We shouldn’t even be having this discussion, Ferd, because it wasn’t you I was taking about. You’ve completely missed the mark on this one. And I don’t know why you’re being so defensive. And I don’t appreciate your veiled threats either. Doesn’t say much for you. I have nothing against “colourful” language but I do object to unnecessary profanity and mostly it is unnecessary when people can just as easily use proper adjectives in their speech. Was it you that called a perfect stranger “a piece of shit”? No. It wasn’t you. It was Clay that did that and that’s what I was objecting to. I couldn’t give a darn what people post here. That’s their prerogative. Some choose to take the high road. Some the low. But they don’t have a right to personally attack another on this forum. There’s no need for that. That IS a cowardly act from behind a keyboard. As I replied to Chuck, if we can’t even be civil with each other here then what chance do we have if an EOTW situation actually happens in our lifetime. And I have no interest in “shutting you up”. In fact I welcome your opinions, as long as we can have a reasonable conversation. I refuse to deal with unreasonable people. Usually they’re dysfunctional in some manner. You’ve misunderstood this whole thing. It was never about you. It was about one person unnecessarily attacking another on this forum. And don’t ever underestimate me just because I don’t come across as a raving lunatic. There are some that have done that in the past and have lived to regret it.
Armin I think you are right about most of what you said and I like your thinking and agree with most everything you have said. But one of the things that I disagree with is your thought that I was being defensive, and the other is that you thought I was underestimating you. First, I was not being defensive, I was merely being honest. Second, What would make you think I was underestimating you? I never underestimate anyone and that is why I can assure you that it would be a very hard road, maybe for both.
Anyway, I do like talking with intelligent people like you. People that I don’t like talking with are those that are so stupid to make statements that they will just take what others have if they want or need it. They don’t know how ridiculous they sound and those that think they are superior and so much smarter and are above everyone else.
Then we’ve come to an understanding, Ferd, and I’m glad that we have. I dislike arguing with people as it’s a waste of time and energy for all concerned. I appreciate your honesty and look forward to many more enjoyable discussions with you and others of like mind. I don’t want to appear elitist or superior in any way to others because I’m not. In the greater scheme of things I know nothing and am nothing and all that I have learned or that I have or that I am is due solely to the grace of god. And I give thanks every day and am grateful for what I do have because I feel that I am truly blessed. Not special in any way just blessed. I don’t know if there really are any “stupid” people. Maybe just people that are forced to walk a path strewn with bigger rocks than most and if we were really doing our job we would help them to navigate that path around their own personal obstacles. Take care. I sincerely wish you all the best and look forward to many more lively discussions with you. God bless.
A personal attack like that is totally unnecessary, Clay, and serves no useful purpose. You’ll find that if you read some of the other posts of LeftCoastChuck on some other of Claude’s pages you’ll find he’s a pretty smart cookie and has a lot going on for an octogenarian. A person to be respected not derided.
This was my first thought also. Basically if you won’t give it to me I’ll take it was what they said. This person is a Gimedat and just doesn’t want to admit it.
Clay…. That’s not very nice.
When the SHTF peoples brains are going to turn to jello and run out their ears. This itself will be one of the greatest enemies we face.
Don’t let yours run out prematurely.
Respect others. You don’t have to agree, but at least give others the right to a differing opinion.
I’m going to have to agree with you, HH. That certainly will be one of the biggest problems if the “big” one ever does happen. Fear and panic, en masse, will be one of the biggest problems we’ll have to face. To say that people will not be themselves is a gross understatement. We’re really going to have to expect the unexpected from people. It will be chaos. It will be panic. It will be madness. It will be people at their worst. There will be moments of brief clarity in the beginning but few and far between. It chills my soul to think about that scenario. Most have never been through that kind of experience and I don’t think most realize how bad it can actually get. Many war vets have gotten close to it and many have also been so traumatized by the experience that they’re changed forever. I hope to god that common sense and rational thought win out in the end. BEFORE someone has a really bad day and decides to push that big red button.
Hey Armin … Lets hope and pray the BIG one never happens. I don’t know your situation, but my plate is full as it is with just the every day routine of my little homestead. I love what I do, and I’d rather not see a turn for the worse.
Agreed, HH. I hope and pray every day that some small degree of sanity returns to the world before we CAN’T step back from the brink. The doomsday clock keeps inching forward. Not a good sign.
So if I don’t want to trade with you, you think you will just take it from me? I’ll send you to hell for trying. I guarantee it.
Thank you. That was my thought also.
A burglar cased a house for days. One weekend, the family left for the night. Perfect opportunity! He broke in and found the safe behind a picture.
A voice said, “Jesus is watchin’ you.”
Scared, he looks around but there was only a parrot sitting in a cage. He went back to trying to open the safe.
“Jesus is watchin’ you!”
He turns to the parrot and said, “Yeah? How do you know Jesus is watching me?”
“‘Cause I’m John the Baptist.”
The burglar laughs and said, “who kind of an idiot would name a parrot John the Baptist?”
“the same iriot who named the Rottweiler Jesus.”
You got the right attitude. Niio!
Love your story, Red! Got to remember that one.
I agree with most of what you have to say, Labienus, and you do come across as a very practical and in your own way as a compassionate person. Not much more I can add to what you have to say and I think for the most part a good blueprint for survival. The first three points should be absolutely adhered to. Kill only when absolutely necessary or for food. NO WANTON VIOLENCE! INVIOLATE RULE! Waste of time, energy and resources. Family MUST always come first but as no one entity or group is an island you might want to consider forging alliances for mutual survival with like-minded people or groups as the crisis progresses. One stick or a few sticks are fairly easily broken but a whole handful of even small sticks are pretty difficult to break and as the “situation” deepens” you will need the support of others around you to help grow the new society. Even on the most basic level new children will have to come into the world. You can’t father babies with your own family. And if the next SHTF situation is a real world killer, maybe even with radiation and other toxins around for years, there won’t be many of us left and we need a certain size of gene pool so that the human race can have any hopes of growing again. I do take exception to one thing you say and that is your idea of barter. Please don’t take this as a personal attack. It isn’t. I just don’t think your idea of barter is good as a long term strategy. Barter will be a necessity for us all to have any chance at survival. Money will obviously be worthless. And you say you are willing to barter for goods but if the other party doesn’t want to you are willing to take that which THEY have by force. What’s to stop this cycle from continuing and then where will this get us? To an evolutionary dead end. The next time you want to barter in this manner you’ll meet someone who’s better armed or a little faster and has the same idea as you. That which you can’t barter for can be taken by force. What kind of a world will that leave us? The ultimate predator standing alone on their lonely hill overlooking a ravaged and torn wasteland? We can’t survive alone. Eventually we WILL need the help of others. I do appreciate your honesty and your forthrightness.
Armin, am I understanding you right? To keep the human race from dying out you would feel it would be okay to rape my 18 yr old daughter? Not for your own pleasure of course. I sure hope I misunderstood you because that is a vile thought & worthy of a death sentence if you tried it.
No, Linda, you’re not and I have no idea where you did get that idea. I am totally against rape on so many, many levels. In one of my earlier posts I said something to the effect that rape, even in the best of times (peace time) is an abhorrent crime. I never, ever, ever advocated rape any time, any where. I have no idea where you got that idea and I’m sorry if in some small way you I gave you the impression that I was pro rape. I am a gentleman and never in my life would I ever think of taking a woman by force. Rape is not about sex. It is about control and I can decidedly assure you that I am NOT any kind of psychopath. I am not perfect and I have my faults but never in a million years would I ever think about taking a woman by force. The men that do that are less than human. They’re animals. My god, Linda, how can you think so little of me after reading some of my previous posts? You must have gotten some sense of the type of person that I am. I am not a rapist and never will be. And I totally agree with you that rape deserves the death penalty and if it were actually put into practice potential rapists would think twice and thrice before going through with their plans. If the EOTW scenario ever does play out I have previously stated that if I were out foraging, and I would obviously be armed, and I came across a group of men gang raping a woman I would have absolutely no problem killing all the men on the spot without a second thought. I am not a killer by nature but there are some things that I couldn’t let go and rape is one of them. The only thing I consider more vile and despicable than rapists are pedophiles. I am not violent by nature, Linda, but I think that if I came across someone that I knew was a pedophile I think that I might “lose” it and beat that person to death. Unfortunately I’d end up in jail. Pedophiles are less than pond scum and even to say that, is to insult the pond scum. Labienus sounded like he was going to try and make it on his own and I don’t think that would work as a long term strategy. What I was trying to say in my response to Labienus, Linda, was that it might be in his best interest, at some time, after things have calmed down a little bit, to try and become part of a larger group or community because at some point they will have to think about starting to re-populate the earth and you obviously can’t father children with your OWN children. That is a given unless you want problems on down the road and I don’t know of any father that would even contemplate something as distasteful as that. And I don’t want to get into a discussion about child sexual abuse. This is not the time nor place. Once he had become part of a larger group/community romantic relationships would naturally develop and people would start to pair off to raise families. Never, ever, ever did I hint at the possibility that rape would be part of that process. And if anyone, being part of the small growing community, would ever commit that kind of violent crime they would instantly be either killed or expelled which would be a death sentence on its own. Never, ever, ever did I mention anything about rape being part of that process and I have no idea how you could come to that conclusion. You went off into a very dark direction without any help from me and maybe you should ask yourself why. I would no more rape a woman than I would rape a man. They’re both people and no one has any right to exercise that kind of control over another. And I would certainly not advocate rape as a means to grow the population. Not ALL men are total pigs, Linda, and I’d like to think that even at 70 I still have some few small sensibilities left. I now hope you understand where I am coming from. I really am sorry for any misunderstandings. They were totally unintentional. I do sincerely wish you all the best.
Armin: I went back and re-read all your posts on this list and I could find no instance where I got the least hing that you were considering forcible sex. I too am confused how Linda S got that inference from your posts. They say reasonable minds can differ. I can’t think of a wider divergence of opinion about written comments than this.
I thank you for that, Chuck. I have absolutely no idea where Linda got that idea and that’s why I went to the trouble and effort to make it quite clear that I was most definitely against rape. I wasn’t offended by what she said just absolutely flabbergasted that she could think something like that about me. When people post more often on this page you do get some sense of what kind of a person they are and unless they’re a psychopath you get a pretty clear picture of whom you’re talking with. I’m pretty sure I’m not a psychopath. Like I say, Chuck, the men that do commit rape are less than human and if most countries had the death penalty for conviction on a rape charge I’m sure the incidence of rape would drop. For whatever reason and based on I don’t know what Linda jumped to the wrong conclusion. Maybe something terrible happened in her life connected with sexual abuse. I don’t know but she obviously cares very much about her children and worries about them for the future. I don’t blame her for it nor do I judge her for it as I don’t know what’s happened in her life to make her think like that. Another case of don’t judge another until you’ve walked a mile in THEIR shoes. In my own small way I do try and understand people and where they’re coming from. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. We all have our own personal challenges to overcome.
Agreed, Armin. I don’t know how anything you have ever said got (mis)interpreted like that. You sound like you have spent most of your life sorting things out ethically and morally. It comes through.
Thank you, Lucy. It’s very much appreciated.
Hell, you are no better than a looter by your own definition.
I hope I am the first person you run into needing something. Id love to eliminate people like you from the human gene pool.
And because you feel that way, it means many others probably do too. Thus, the old saying from the Southeast Asia war games (Vietman) “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” If someone approaches with a flag of truce for a parlay, fine I can be civil. Approach under arms, or attempt to breach my perimeter……
I hate being a killjoy but even with that you have to be careful, Cry Havoc. Starving people will come up with VERY creative ideas to get at your stuff and your family. Even things like white flags can’t be taken at face value in an EOTW situation. Could very easily be a trap. NOTHING can be taken for granted. EVERYTHING is suspect.
I’m not too worried about individuals like Labienus. Rambos like him will be weeded out really quickly. At the very least he will be branded a thief and a looter. More likely, he will be shot in the back running away. Feel sorry for his family.
Make a list of all your “friends” and put a check next to the ones you would trust with your life. When your oldest and best friend has to decide between you and his children who do you suppose he will choose?
In the scenarios discussed here there can be no blind trust only survival.
“Kill them all, and let God sort them out.” was first uttered for the record by a French cardinal while he was supervising massacres of religious dissidents (Cathars in that instance).
He gave that directive to Simon de Montfort, who had questioned the cardinal’s policy of murdering entire villages in southern France during Medieval times. De Montfort was no namby-pamby but was himself a hardened killer, yet even he protested that some such villages must contain at least some Christians.
That cardinal’s callous dictu has been repeated from time to time, so a Vietnam-era call unsurprising. See My Lai (by no means the only such). Played right into the hands of the Communists, who despite their own very bad example, could charge hypocrisy to American ‘liberators’.
And I will meet you with equal orvsuperior force.
Sigh. Yeah, labienus, I’ve heard that from others, usually they are athiests. So by your own definition, you’re a potential human predator and a murderer, because you would cross the line into unprovoked violence to take what you want, by lethal force, from others.
We are assuming a complete break down on a nation wide level, like an EMP, that would make regular law enforcement unlikely for years. So I would gather together with as many other law abiding and life respecting members of my community that are available, hunt you down and try to take you into custody. If you weren’t killed in the attempt, we would give you a quick trial, by a citizen committy if nothing else, make sure the evidence of your depredations were in fact without question, then pass the death sentence.
You see labienus, murder is still murder, regardless of your rationalizations, no matter how hungry you might be. And there is only one penalty for murder, that is the death penalty.
Libelanus… You may come, but.. You forgot about our two snipers, so… Might wanna be sure that Family of yours knows how to get along without ya, cuz, I highly doubt I’m the Only one who isn’t simply going to fall for such ruse.. Pretty sure most anyone ‘left’ out there will be Well Prepared for ‘contingencies’ like your attitude, so.. Might wanna rethink yer strategy, Chief.. ‘No Man (or Family, for that matter..) Is An Island’…
Most don’t like what you have to say because it’s appalling. You think you’re entitled to rob others by force just because you need what belongs to them? I guess you approve of communism, then.
Your more dangerous than the system
” If you won’t accept a trade, I’ll take it from you. By force, if needed. ”
Oh, is that so?
” I’m not evil and I am not cruel.”
This latter sentence proves the utter hypocrisy of the former.
” I will do my utmost to ensure my family and I survive. Now if that means I wipe out a group, I will. ”
And if that group is a family, just like yours?
“You are an obstacle at this point.”
And so are you to their well-being.
“Either help us survive, and we will get along, or get in my way and be destroyed. ”
Or be destroyed yourself if they happen to be as well prepared or dictatorial and looting as you are.
You say you can’t be forced to cooperate with someone, yet you advocate forcing someone to cooperate with you, even moreso if said someone is weaker than you.
This is the vilest form of double-standard.
Me thinks your either a CEO or a big business man with the morals you listed. They are the are same as do what ever you can to get what you want. That is the reason we are in the shape we are in now with rising inflation and low incomes.
The thing is, it may take a little more work on your part to feed a child or a family that is willing to work to help you and it may take a little longer to get what ever it is you need but I think you will find that it would be easier just to wait. Think about what you said.
“You will barter but if you can’t deal you will take it.” Well now you might succeed in taking it but the person you took it from might just have kin folk or friends that will come after you.
See Karma is a bitch to those she don’t like but she is a lady to those she likes and gifts them greatly and she will not like you.
Now I will not feed anyone that is not willing to work for their food. There is always work around that needs doing and you can barter a little food for that work to be done such as plowing a field or help in harvesting.
I do believe that God wants you to help those who are willing to work.
But your way is the wrong way and will get you killed a lot faster.
See if I am the one your taking from, if you don’t kill me I will be coming after you and if your family gets in the way then they will die too and if I die some of my people will be coming after you and with the same out come.
You might need to rethink your moral standards.
My Morals no matter if society exists or not are:
Don’t do anything you would not want done to you.
This means not stealing, raping, killing other unless in self protection and helping others when you can. Simple but effective rules to live by and karma does return a lot for me because I follow these rules.
Do any of us truly know how we’ll act when the SHTF? We can say we won’t do this or that but, when the chips are down, are we certain of what our actions will be?
I don’t mind helping someone out. I just don’t like being taken advantage of or being forced to help someone.
Sherry, I agree with you on this. I will bend over backwards to help people, share what food and provisions I have with others who are less fortunate, but I think it will be important for them and for me that they expend some energy for whatever I provide, i.e. do some weeding, help collect wood, you name it. Even in SHTF scenarios, people need to learn the value of hard work and be empowered.
That’s a very good attitude, JaneDough. Love the name! Love of baking? If someone comes to you asking for help and they have nothing to offer in return they CAN barter their time for food. There ALWAYS has to be an exchange of energy. Nothing is free. On another one of Claude’s pages someone made the observation that there might be many people wandering around for food in a real disaster scenario. If someone was considerate enough to knock on your door asking for help you might give them something to help tide them over, especially of it’s a woman alone and children, but make it VERY clear to them that this is a one time deal. Your supplies aren’t limitless and every person coming to you for help will have to be assessed on an individual basis. And not everyone will knock. And you’ll have to be careful that the word doesn’t get around that you do have supplies stashed away. Tough questions to answer. Even tougher decisions to make if it comes down to it. Eventually every one will have to decide for themselves what strategy they use for the people that will be wandering the countryside scavenging for food.
I am reminded of stories my grandfather told of knocking on doors and working for others in exchange for a meal or a place to sleep, and following the crops to harvest during the Dust Bowl days and the Great Depression, when he and a whole lot of others rode the rails as hobos. He told of how he preferred to sleep on the ground with a flat rock for a pillow rather than risk the savagery [not his word, mine] in the “hobo jungles.”
Definitely a different time, Lucy. And millions were in the same boat as your grandfather. People still had respect for each other back then and if someone did knock on your door asking for help or a bite to eat you didn’t have to worry much about them hurting you or killing you and taking your stuff by force. No one had very much anyways. I’m sure that there must have been some crime, as you mention in the hobo jungles, but for the most part you didn’t have to worry about that person coming to your door like we do today. Just to illustrate. I’m almost 70 and 50 years ago people thought nothing much of hitchhiking. I don’t recall hearing much about hitchhikers ever being sexually assaulted or killed back then. Even if I still were a young man today I wouldn’t hitchhike for love or money. Had to do some shopping today and while waiting to cross at the lights the cars opposite had an advanced green. The first car, driven by a youngish woman was just a little bit slow starting off. Maybe 1 or 2 seconds. Then the person behind her, a young man starts frantically blowing his horn and screaming at her at the top of his voice. This very afternoon another van plowed through a crowd of people in the big city south of me. What has happened to people? The world has changed and not for the better and I don’t know why or how. Are people really that stressed out today that civility, mutual respect, kindness and patience have gone completely out the window? Or are so many people just afraid today because usually anger comes from fear. And if so what is it that they are all afraid of? I’m not afraid, Lucy. And that’s not just some stupid macho talk. I really am not afraid. I can’t give you a lot of details right now because this post will just go on for hours and hours and it’s your choice whether to believe me or not but I have been in some very dire straits in my life. Health related. I have almost died maybe a dozen times and I found that I wasn’t afraid. I was ready to accept my fate and accept whatever some kind of ultimate entity had in store for me. If it was my time to go then so be it. Whether I pass away now or another 30 years from now is totally irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. I would like to make it to about 90, however, but none of us knows when or how it will happen. I have publically stated, Lucy, that I’m not particularly religious but that doesn’t make me a jerk. I try and treat everyone the same. With kindness, respect and compassion. I don’t need religion to teach me what to me is obvious. And you would be very surprised how far a little kindness and a smile go these days. Somewhere else here I’ve said I don’t have a car. I could afford one but I just don’t need the aggravation so I take the bus everywhere. I have no problems starting up a conversation with a perfect stranger and Canadians love to complain about our weather. I think it’s the national pastime. But it’s also a great icebreaker and nobody can accuse another of one person coming on to another. Just 2 people having a friendly conversation. And it’s amazing the wonderful things that happen when you get people to open up to you. You cannot go by looks and the most ordinary looking people have the most amazing stories and by doing that we pass the time most pleasantly on the bus and I’ve actually made some friends like that. But I find, that for the most part, the younger generation doesn’t have that skill. They’d rather be plugged into their electronic devices, completely cut off from the real world, unaware of the amazing experience they’re missing out on. And lastly, Lucy, I’d like to thank you again for your kind words. They are appreciated. But I’ve always been like that and I truly believe you are born with certain attributes and they really don’t change that much if you remain true to yourself. I’ve not had an easy life and most of it has been a real struggle for me but just because life hasn’t been easy doesn’t mean that I’ve turned into some kind of a crazed maniac. I really have been through the school of hard knocks. And I compare it to the making of a sword. If the initial composition of the sword is flawed then it doesn’t matter how much you temper that weapon it will still end up being a very poor instrument. But if the basic ingredients are proper and true and in the proper proportion and you temper it properly then you end up with a fine weapon indeed. And I don’t want people to get the wrong idea, Lucy. I’m not saying I’m better than any one else. I’m not. I’m just an ordinary schmuck like everybody else. And in the greater scheme of things I really am irrelevant. What can we really accomplish in our hundred years? Will people like Henry Ford or Elon Musk or Bill Gates be remembered in a hundred years? In a million? To us that’s a great deal of time but in the history of the earth barely a wink of an eye. We think, in our hubris and egotism, that all we do here is sooooo very important. Is it? And then the obvious question. If I’m so ready to meet my maker why bother with all these preparations? I suppose that’s also something that’s always been in me. Or maybe just common sense trying to prepare for the unexpected or a basic distrust of authority and not having much faith in their plans for us. When it comes down to it the only ones we can really trust are ourselves. And I would at least like to enjoy a little of the time left to me. If we have a little extra food and water and money on hand then that provides a little extra security for me for an uncertain future. Those that don’t plan for the future aren’t able to ride out the little bumps that life may throw our way from time to time.
Thoughtful words, Armin. It doesn’t seem contradictory to me to both not fear death, and at the same time prepare to live. At the very least, there is a comfort in knowing that we don’t have to procure the food, water, medications tomorrow if there’s something else we’d rather do, or need to do. An ease, a lessening of duty. Also, related to the difference between stockpiling and hoarding: Stockpiling in a time of plenty for an uncertain future takes pressure off others who need to prepare later. Hoarding is competing in times of dearth for those limited resources. So our preparations are easing survival for others later. Leveling out some of the bumps!
(And I know what you mean about the pleasures of riding the bus in amiable conversation! Besides, driving a car is such an isolating experience, the opposite of companionable. Small unities, but significant, long term.)(Buses are also kinder to our environment than cars.)
Homesteader
your are completely right with that question. I have asked it several times on different sites. We ALL will have to make hard decisions and all we can REALLY hope is that we make the right ones
The best plans fall apart after the first shot.
I am sure because death is not the end for me. I believe and live by Gods law and if I die then it will be my time.
Now I am not saying I will not fight if I have to but I will not rape, murder or steal. I will help those willing to help themselves if I can.
Like everyone I want to live as long as I can but you should think about several other things that have not been mentioned.
What quality of life will you have. I know it will not be a bed of roses.
You will be dirty most of the time because bathing is a luxury.
You will be cold in winter and hot in summer.
You will always have cuts and bruises. If you work the land or hunt.
So does life after sh@t hits the fan look appealing to you?
Don’t use alcohol as a painkiller if the wounded person is bleeding, they will only bleed out faster.
There are some herbal compounds that were traditionally used for pain that might be worth researching now before they’re needed. If you chose to do so, check with a pharmacist or a registered herbal practitioner for any drug interactions. You also need to realize that herbals can vary a great deal in strength – unlike commercially produced drugs there is no way to guarantee a uniform result. Also, like commercially produced drugs, herbals can cause allergic reactions and side effects. In a shtf situation, though, they surely can help. Knowledge is everything!
That’s actually some pretty good advice, Miss Kitty. It might be in our best interests for all of us to start researching herbs. I’ll start people off with 6 of them. Maybe others can add to the list. I’ve also heard of wild lettuce, I think it was, having morphine-like qualities. As the EOTW situation progresses teeth problems are sure to begin cropping up. Even something as simple as pulling a tooth without painkillers is a son of a gun. And when teeth are pulled in an emergency situation it might be well worth the while to consider taking some kind of an antibiotic at the same time. The bacteria that cause teeth problems also cause heart problems. Maybe also consider herbs to boost your immune system. My first six. Some don’t naturally grow here but there must be substitutes that do. I’m just not aware of them. White willow bark, Boswellia (frankincense), Devil’s claw, Bromelain, Turmeric, Ginger.
There’s a lot of excellent reference books out there on the subject. One of the most exhaustive is “Native American Ethnobotany” by Daniel E. Moerman on Timber Press. Lists medical, food, ceremonial etc uses for all kinds of plants growing wild and cultivated in N.Am. and S. Am. It’s a huge book and a bit pricey but a great resource. There’s also The Herb Book by John Lust and Peterson’s field guides are worth their weight in gold. Those are my go tos. Hope you have a chance to check them out. Also, willow bark is the original source for salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, so if you have an allergy to aspirin don’t use willow.
Whew! That certainly is a mouthful isn’t it? You’ve reminded me that I have to put that one more thing on my list. Better in book form than on a hard drive for obvious reasons. Thank you for the reminder.
Search out Claude’s own videos on making such ‘alt-meds’, ie: Wild Lettuce / Opium Lettuce, for one.. Yarrow and Plantain (plant, not the ‘banana’.. Mullein, Elderberry, Cayenne, Cinnamon, Raw Honey.. and on and on.. NOW is the time to learn / grow / practice making such ‘poltices’ – while you can Get the stuff / have such freedom.. And, Stock up on raw materials / seeds / dried, etc, etc.. Fwiw..
Thank you. Good advice.
I would add astragalus to your list, Armin. It’s one of the few herbs that are used without compounding in the Chinese pharmacopeia. It’s a support for the immune system, and, used judiciously, it perks you up without keeping you awake all night. It grows in fairly northern climes, unlike ginger and turmeric.
Thank you. Lucy. I’ll definitely look that one up. I’ve never heard of that one before.
Just took the time to look that up and it’s a very interesting plant. It is a legume so it’s a “nitrogen fixer”. It also included plants in the family like milkvetch, locoweed and goats-thorn so you’d have to know what you’re doing when picking this in the wild. Obviously better to grow a known variant in your garden. You can make a natural gum from several species of astragalus. That sounds pretty cool. In traditional Chinese medicine it can be used to reinforce chi and strengthen the superficial resistance, and promote the discharge of pus and the growth of new tissue. Thank you for that, Lucy.
i am simular to Labienus in my morals. i inherited a sum of money and spent it wisely. i have booby trapped my supplies, if i do not do a certain action, someone entering my stash will be crushed under tons of concrete. you may be driving down to my home and if i flip the switch your vehicle will drop into a hole designed so you cant get out of your vehicle. get too close and compressed air will shred you with the broken glass from tv and computer monitors. eat from the wrong can and you will most certainly die!!
i will not go out to take from others unless they have tried to take what is mine. some of the vegitables in my garden are poisoned because i use to grow in a community garden and people would steal my stuff from time to time because they thought they could.
i decided then that if someone tries to take what is mine i will take everything from them including their life and use their corpse to my advantage, and leave no witnesses. if i catch someone in my house they will vanish from the face of the earth. if their family tries to claim the person was trying to steal from me and never seen again, they too will vanish!! and if SHTF ever happens my morals will not change! my siblings are not welcome at my place and i do not talk to them because they tried to steal from me. ill use their corpse to my advantage if they ever show up where i am! i danced on the news of the death of the cunt that bore me! and told her years ago to never contact me again and refused to ever have anything to do with her!
F T W if they are not genuine friend. if i give something to someone it is mine to give and i do that often! but i choose who to give to and who not to give to. if threatened by my wife and children being held hostage ill wipe their whole linage from the face of the earth!
You said your morals will not change?!? You have no morals. You deserve whatever happens to you.
i left the USA in 2015 for a long amount of time. i had bartered with my landlord and my rent on the house i lived in was paid for 4 months in advance. i had several friends who were to finish taking the remaining property from my rental to the local auction as i had run out of time before my booked flight had come. i was told that 4 days after i left the landlord changed the locks on the house and claimed all remaining property as his. this is actually a felony theft because but i chalked it up to the cost of doing business and said good riddance to the whole town that was full of druggies etc… i had decided previously to live in the new country for several years when my passport was stolen by a friend of a friend who was buying some of my furniture, my so called friend needed furniture as he had none and since i was selling my furnature claimed he had a friend that would buy some of the things i was selling. yes, leaving the passport out was stupid but my flight was leaving the next day after 11pm so my things were packed and ready for the trip and i was only leaving for 2 months. but when the passport was discovered to be missing the police would not even get a warrant to go search the persons apartment. i had caught that person trying to not pay for a small oil lamp she had taken and put in her car while i was doing some searching for an item my friend was looking for. i got my lamp back and told the person to never come back again! i was trying to be nice and not burn the persons house down in the middle of the night while they were sleeping, when i called the cops to report the stolen passport. so instead of going to marry my fiancee and living there for 2 months before coming back to USA i decided to go and live there for at least 12 months.
prevoiusly i had given freely anything i had to anyone who needed something as i had lots of items from estate sales packed into not only my home but also 3 large storage rooms and a building that had been burned.
well the passport theft was the straw that broke the camels back! i decided from then on, no one was going to just take what was mine, and when i got that very large sum of money i came back to USA with my wife and i bought property and built on it doing the work myself so only my wife and i knew certain things such as which cans of food had been poisoned with a poison that there is no antidote to, and which switches to flip to make certain rooms safe to enter. i also taught her that if SHTF and i get killed that she might need to pretend she is willing to do things that someone else wanted her to do until the opportunity to retaliate presented itself. this means you cant rape the willing etc…
we live in an area where it will take a long time for the looters to get here from a big city and i collect items to take to a location where food is handed out and give those items away. these items are sometimes brand new with the price tags still on them but would go to a land fill if i did not take them, and i donate some produce to the food shelf once my stockpile is complete to hold us over until the next years harvest.
but it is I or my wife who decides what we give away, we sometimes give money to those in need.
although my morals are different than most peoples morals, i do have morals, and they are based on old and new testament scripture. like “the avenger of blood” and leaving the edges and corners of your crop lands for the orphans and widows. but if someone tries to come and take what is mine, even if they kill the both of us, they will end up dead before they start to pillage!
i scavenge almost daily already but i ask the owner before i dig in a dumpster etc…
we live debt free and drive 1 of 4 old 4×4 trucks or suv’s and look like we are not wealthy. but i bet i have more cash on hand than 80% of those that look down at us. i just took $15,000 cash out of the bank today to put away for a rainy day! we look like poor white trash, but i like that people think we are poor!
..Can’t say I can endorse All of your expressions / diatribes (apparently..) about your family (siblings and.. Mom (??) yeesh..) but then again, I certainly can ‘cast no stones’, as I have NOT ‘walked in Your shoes’, so.. God will sort things out with you, relative to all that, but… Do have to give you props for your ‘booby traps’ – Really, whence SHTF.. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF ‘SUBTERFUGE’!! As you say ‘lure’ a would-be ‘rapist’ into a Trap.. and then Eviscerate him. One thing we plan on, at the Far-end of the property (where there’s really the only good ‘driving-access’ road.. all other ‘entrances’ will require ATVs (and getting thru Insane amounts of blackberry-thorns..) is Make a – Very realistic – ‘dummy’, nailed at least 20′ up on a corner-tree, decapitated, and Very ‘bloody’ (pigs blood works great..) with a ‘Cross-sign’ that very legibly reads “TRESPASSER”.. Won’t be a Real corpse, mind you (since animals / decay, etc would Eventually make that less effective, as ‘parts start falling off’, etc..) but.. will LOOK real, and – hopefully – ‘send a message’ to THINK TWICE about pressing forward… Just one idea..
To insanecandycane, please do not cite the Bible to support your beliefs, they just don’t match up. You sound angry and filled with bitterness. Sorry for all who have hurt you through the years. It’s hard to swallow those who are supposed to love you have hurt so many times. I encourage you to try to be forgiving. It makes living on this earth much more pleasant. The example has already been given to all of us, forgiveness from Jesus Christ. When we realize what we have been forgiven for, then it helps us to forgive others. You may not reconcile relationships, but at least you will have a lot more peace and will see hate, anger, and bitterness diminish. Hope this helps. By the way, I don’t say these things looking through rose colored glasses. Life is tough enough without us adding trouble to it with hate in our hearts. Anyway, nuff said.
Wow. Your name is appropriate.
Should be insaneinthemembrane! LMAO
In Texas you had better steal the crop in daylight (currently).
TX Sec 9.42 DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY
Texas penal code (2017)
Chapter 9. Justifications excluding Criminal Responsibility
Sub. Ch. D. Protection of Property
Sec.9.42. Deadly Force to Protect Property
A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect protect land or tangible, movable property:
(1) If he would be justified in using force against another under Sec. 941; and
(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:
(A) to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson,
burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the
nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime;or
(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after
committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or
theft during the nighttime from escaping with the
property the property; and
(3) he reasonably believes that:
(A) the land or property cannot be protected or
recovered by any other means ; or
(B) the use of force other than deadly force to protect
or recover the land or property would expose the
actor or another to a substantial risk of death or
serious bodily injury.
In a SHTF scenario, I can visualise the being extended to the daytime. The “moral” justification for the use of deadly
force is already codified in Texas law.
I think many of us have pondered these ideas long and hard.
In the end, I believe it’s our duty and responsibility to protect young children. After all, what is the purpose of of all these years of preparations, if not to ensure the survival of another generation? Certainly not just to keep old people alive.
In the end, children are fragile and just so vulnerable. They need and deserve our protection.
This is what being human and a Christian means.
So are you saying because I am not a christian I am not human or would not help people? Moral responsibility has NOTHING to do with religion or there would not be so many pedophiles, adulterers, thieves ect that hide behind it. Please don’t push your religious belief on others or judge them by theirs
SSSSOOOOOOOO, it’s o.k. for you to judge and push your non-believes on others?
Never said I didn’t believe Sheepherder . Said I was not or don’t identify as a christian. This doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God or a higher power I just don’t like the fact that some think only a christian can make the right decisions. I really don’t see in my comment where I pushed anything just asked a question.
Agreed. I didn’t see anywhere where you tried to push anything on others. Human beings are incredibly complex. Sometimes they reach a conclusion based on a non-sequitor. We all do it do it from time to time especially when a touchy subject such as religion is discussed.
Moral responsibility has everything to do with religion.
OK Phred so you are saying that since the Muslim religion says it is ok to stone woman to death for showing their face that is a moral decision? or that killing innocent people to further your own agenda is a moral decision? Or are you saying that only whatever religion YOU believe in makes the right moral choices.
I see your point. I thought about this after I posted. I used the word ” religion “. My mistake. I am a Christian. Therefore I base my thinking on my Christian beliefs.
Sorry for the confusion.
Not a problem Phred. We are all here to discus and state our opinion. I am not here or anywhere to start a fight. And I completely understand your comment. I am just not a fan of any organized religion as they unfortunately are run by man and usually have their own agenda at some point and mostly the revolve around money. I am willing to bet we have the same beliefs.
I would tend to agree with you, poorman. And I know that these comments are going to get people all up in arms but that’s not my intent by posting these things. The most that I can hope for is to open people’s eyes. Hopefully they will no more see as through a glass darkly. Indoctrination and programming are very hard to overcome. By definition every religion is a cult. I am not a religious person per se and view religion as dogma designed to control and imprison. Moral responsibility doesn’t come from religion although I do think there is some merit to the ten commandments as a guide to help us live some kind of moral, honourable life but at their very core they are just common sense and respect for others and their property. I’m not any kind of expert, by any means, but logic tells me before you can have respect for others, firstly you need to have respect for yourself. And I know this is going to set off a whole bunch of Roman Catholics but the history of religion, especially the history of the Roman Catholic church, is rife with pedophiles, sexual abuse, homosexuality at the highest levels. And how many people have been killed or murdered in the name of religion over the ages? I have no numbers to back me up but again I would tend to think that the numbers of people killed, murdered and tortured in the name of religion would approach the numbers killed in the two great wars. What kind of a system is religion if it tells it’s followers it’s ok to kill others if they don’t follow the same religion? Can people not see how foolish that is? And for every religion to say that God should have a different name is totally lunacy.That’s just another divisive tactic employed by those in power. If God does indeed exist and God is supposed to be the ultimate being of all time and space and of all the multiverses in existence, a particular name of God is totally irrelevant. If God does truly exist then God would have all names and no name. If you wanted to call God “Bob’s your uncle” that would just be as relevant and valid as any other name. And for people to unwaveringly believe in the bible without applying critical thinking to it is just wrong. Most of the bible is written as a metaphor or allegory and can’t be taken literally. Do people really believe that humanity was created a mere 7,000 years ago by some mystical being performing surgery on the first man to create his opposite? There ARE many good things in the bible but for the most part it is a fairy tale and designed as another instrument of control of the masses. The movie, “The Matrix”, may have contained some very important messages for the greater mass of the people. It’s up to us to gather the will to break out of our programming. But first we need to realize we do live in a prison. If you don’t realize you’re imprisoned then you have no will to escape. Question EVERYTHING. Believe nothing. Come to the realization that what you read, see and hear is possible. Not necessarily true. Anything that we as humans can imagine is possible but how probable is it? We all need to sharpen our faculties of critical thinking and then we’re able to see things as they truly are. First as through a glass darkly and then the clouds start to part and we can see clearly. As kind and respectful as I try to be on this forum I have no allusions as to the nature of this reality I’m living in.
I couldn’t have said it better Armin. People are still being killed everyday in the name of 1 god or another.
As far as getting married if there is no one to issue a license, well remember that the only reason we have licenses is so the government gets money. If I am not mistaken the first licenses were issued in Las Vegas, Nv because of all the people wanting to get married quickly and so the locals decided to take advantage and get extra money.
Yes, in earlier centuries there was no license to get married for poor folks. If you were royalty, you needed permission to get married from the king who might have arranged your marriage for you and ordered you to marry whatshisname. However in this country for a long time marriage were sanctified by a man of religion in front of witnesses who were capable of testifying to the ceremony should questions of inheritance come into play. That was extremely important in an age without life insurance for surviving widows.
Marriage as we’ve come to know it was originally a form of barter (give us 5 goats and 10 bushels of wheat and we’ll give you a woman to bear your children) and a way to solidify tribal alliances. Prior to that it was waaayyy more casual. Just “do you like each other? Ok” and they moved in together. Kinda like what we have now.
Except for the marriage contract. Handfasting is still legal in many states. I was married via the old terms, we shared a fire, a bed, and a meal. There is still the contract so women and her children are protected, or the man cast out of town to starve, or at least make a change of attitude. We don’t see much of that today.
Hope fully my morals won’t change, self defense is a given ! I might share to some degree I do that now ! I know I know how to survive and I will, it not might be how I like but I can make it with GOD’s help. What else can I say !
We have no idea what we can and will do when we are in survival starvation mode! !
That’s a very valid question, Claude, and honestly I don’t know. I’ve never been thrown into the kind of situation where that question has been tested to its limits. I truly don’t know what I’m capable of if it does come down to a SHTF situation. I know what others are capable of listening to some of the news reports and sometimes I wonder if SOME people are more like animals than human beings. I’d like to think that I have SOME kind of moral standards and also think that the ten commandments provide some excellent guidelines to live our life by but that may go out the window if we’re all forced to scramble for our survival. It may come down to what we can live with taking into account that at some point order WILL be restored and we will all be held accountable for our actions in the intervening crisis. In any war or conflict there are always two ways to act and it is up to us to decide which path we choose. Even under the most horrible conditions we can choose to act in an honourable manner or dishonourable manner and I would tend to think that those that choose the latter would soon become the pariahs of their peers and whatever is left of civilization at that point. Gary Cooper comes to mind while I’m writing this. Modest and unpretentious even with all his wealth and fame. Came across in some of his movies like Sergeant York. Again very modest and unassuming but having the gumption to do what was necessary when the situation called for it. I think that Labienus is spot on in a survival situation AND absolutely pragmatic and realistic in his assessment. Don’t do anything that you can’t live with and have your head on straight and your priorities set. Use your weapon only when and if you need to. On a practical level bullets will be in short supply at that point. You also don’t want to get a reputation as some kind of psychopathic terminator. You will be hunted down and killed. Rape is an abhorrent crime even in the best of times and totally unnecessary in a survival situation. If people are found guilty of that crime in a survival situation justice should be swift. A bullet through the head. I agree totally with Labienus. I KNOW I’m not evil or unnecessarily cruel and certainly not a killer but I would have no problem ending the lives of those engaged in something like a gang rape of a woman if I came upon them in a SHTF situation. Family ALWAYS has to come first. They are your rock and more importantly the ones you can trust the most and that mean the most to you.
This topic was touched on at considerable length in an earlier discussion about scavenging from abandoned vehicles.
The law contemplates abandoned property. In all states there is what is called escheat. If you have financial instruments that you don’t keep active, a bank account, a deposit with a utility company, stocks and other financial instruments, after a period of inactivity the state will seize them and add them to the state’s treasury. Every state has a tedious process to regain possession of the property. You can lose your home and lands if you don’t pay the taxes on them. You can lose your car if it is unlicensed and parked on a public street. You can also lose your home under forfeiture laws presently although I have serious doubts as to their legality under the Constitution. I believe one of these days the Supremes will strike down the forfeiture laws that are presently being used to enrich law enforcement authorities.
There are also provisions for private individuals to gain title to privately owned property under the laws of abandonment. If I leave my car on your property and disappear. You can’t find me. You make an honest attempt to locate me, after some period of time which varies depending upon the laws of the state where the property is abandoned you can claim title to that property. You see it all the time with storage lockers. There was even a television program about it.
So there is provision in the law for taking property that belongs to others. What makes that taking legitimate under the eyes of the law depends on the circumstances. Would a reasonable man (the mythical reasonable man under the law) consider that the property has been abandoned by the lawful owner? I talked about that at length in the other article and responses. Some thought that it was unacceptable under any circumstances and some saw the reasoning and logic behind the abandoned property laws.
While it may seem impossible for laws to be reasonable, the old common laws displayed a great deal of logic and common sense back when it was more common than seems to be the case today.
As for punishment for taking other’s property. There is a case in California Reporter, the official chronicles of the California Supreme Court from the mid 1800s wherein a criminal stole a barrel of flour. He was tried and sentenced to death for stealing a barrel of flour on Wednesday and hung that following Saturday. The California Supreme Court, yes, that supreme court, didn’t have a problem with the trial and sentence. They did comment on the haste in carrying out the sentence but didn’t find that it violated the laws at that time.
In a EOTW situation if you catch someone stealing food or other vital supplies, you won’t have the luxury of boarding him and feeding him or her, as we do these days. You won’t even have the ability to put him to work as a slave to work off his crime. Everyone will be busily engaged in the daily struggle to survive. The only recourse may be the death penalty. You can’t just let the thief go. You have to protect yourself and your loved ones from his depredations. What he steals may well mean that you don’t have sufficient for your family. That doesn’t leave you many alternatives. At one point in the history of mankind the death penalty was the penalty for a lot longer list of crimes than today. It may go full circle and once again the death penalty and its immediate application may be the solution to a much wider variety of crimes than is acceptable today. You certainly won’t have the case of a man finally executed 39 years after his crime as occurred just this week.
Whenever you post like this, Chuck, you give me so much food for thought. I don’t know you personally but just from what and how you write I have a great deal of respect for you. Very practical advice. You’re a very smart guy and able to convey the info to us in an easily understood manner. Almost like you might have been a teacher at some point. As much as we would like to help others in a true shtf situation it just may not be possible nor practical and may actually decrease our own chances for survival. As unpalatable as some of the choices are going to be that we might have to make we may have no other choice if we want to keep our loved ones safe. Having to kill that first person to safeguard my own life will be one of the most difficult things I will ever have to do. And I know at some point it will come down to it. And I hope that having to kill that 2nd or 3rd person, if it comes down to it, will be just as difficult as the first time. As “enjoyable” as it is to blow stuff up and mow your enemies down in a video game real life will be MUCH more difficult and there the consequences are final. There is no respawn in real life and we will have to live with the knowledge of having been forced to take a human life. No matter how altruistic the reasons. No matter how well-intentioned or for what greater good we were forced to take another’s life. We do not come away from that unscathed. Only a psychopath delights in the taking of human life.
Morals are not based on how bad or how good things are, that is known as situational ethics. Morals are based on our core beliefs. Laws are passed to keep a civil morality that applies to all. Our laws under the constitution are based on the Ten Commandments. Morals are not made up by man they are delegated by God for all of mankind to obey. These laws are mentioned in the Bible and are beneficial for anyone who follows them. Our nature goes against being regulated by morals because we want to live how we want to live. So today abortion is legal, drugs are becoming more legal, sex outside of marriage is the norm, adultery, personal responsibility to kids born out of wed lock, love and respect for fellow human beings, helping those truly in need, don’t steal, and the list goes on. Get away from morals equals lawlessness, chaos, anarchy. As you can tell the morals I strive to follow are written in the Bible. Don’t stray from it no matter the situation. So, do you follow morals or situational ethics?
As to working for food, it is my intention to not give away anything in an EOTW scenario. If I have extra food and you need it, you can work for it. Fire wood will always be needed. Gathering wood and making it suitable for use is an ongoing labor. That can be exchanged for food. Fresh water will be in constant demand in many areas. That can be gathered and exchanged for food. Many people possess skills that can be exchanged for food. There is no reason to just hand out food. Even children can gather kindling and break it up for firewood. As far as I am concerned the days of begging will be gone. If you come begging and won’t put in a day’s work for food, get off my property before I put an end to your misery in a way you won’t like. Welfare ends the day the ballon goes up. For me it is a no brainer. Work or starve.
If I want a day’s work for a day’s food but you only want to give an hour’s work. If I have the food, unfortunately for you, I am in a position of strength. If I have the food and you want it and I require a day’s work for a day’s food, your choice is to accept my deal or walk away. Should you attempt to use force because you don’t like my offer of trade, it will be met with what I feel is sufficient force to protect myself and my goods. If that sufficient forcer results in your death, well it was your choice to use force in lieu of trade.
If SHIF in a big way like nuke war or something else that take up half or more of the world population. You will have to kill almost all you see. Lets say you see someone walking around looking for food. hasn’t eaten in two or three days and you let them go. Well tonight when your son our daughter is standing guard. This person sneaks into you camp. Takes a few cans of food and kill you son or daughter (at their post) to get that food. Well would it be your fault for not taking care of matters when you had the chance Or live with your loss and let the next one at night kill your other child. I think anyone that your not willing to have join your camp would have to die. Unless you have an army of people But then there’s the food problem the more people you have the more food you need. how many is to many and how little is to little. With the needs of protection and food supply
I was just thinking that, Allen, as I was responding to another person. It may be that as much as we would like to be compassionate and helps others in an EOTW situation it just may not be possible. It may be something like the hobo or itinerant scavenger problem. Once you help one person they tell others where they can find food. And then the attacks keep coming. A starving person doesn’t care who has it just that there is some food to be had. And if the situation ever gets that bad I would also think that you won’t have people wandering around by themselves. You’ll have gangs wandering around. They’ll band together just like a pack of dogs but much more dangerous. They’ve made apocalyptic movies ad nauseam. I am NOT looking forward to killing my first person no matter how dire the reasons. And if I’m forced to do it more often I hope it NEVER becomes “easy”. If it does I’ll know I’ve lost something very irreplaceable. Then I’ll have become less than human.
It’s not a matter of becoming easy to kill. Do it enough times it does happen. Trust me on that. Vet. It’s how you deal with it afterwards. Some people put a religion in there thou should not kill and ignore the war aspect in the bible let there be no survives nor mother, son or daughter. Some just can’t deal with it at all every time they close their eyes. And others never bothered them at all. Never dream about it worry about it. just go about their life as it never happen. And then there is the one that enjoyed it that’s the one to watch out for. Being it you or someone else.
Recently saw the movie Shenandoah with Jimmy Stuart as the head of a family who tried not to get involved in the American Civil War. It didn’t work. If you haven’t seen it I would recommend checking it out because it addresses a lot of the discussions we’ve been having here. Sometimes doing what we think is the right thing doesn’t work.
I appreciate your comments, Miss Kitty. I’ll have to re-visit Shenandoah again. Jimmy Stewart made some great movies. This is a little off subject and I didn’t realize it. He was a World War 2 and Vietnam War veteran. He attained the rank the rank of Brigadier General. Had no idea. Remember his movie “Harvey”. Certainly different. As I was writing some of this I started thinking about Gary Cooper and some of his movies. In most of his westerns he always seemed to come off as a very honourable person. There was one that made a particular impression. Have forgotten the name. Somehow he ended up on a ranch working with a woman on her own out in the middle of nowhere. He worked his butt off for her and ALWAYS treated her with the utmost respect. He was with her quite a while and never once tried to force himself on her. I think eventually they fell in love. Great movie. Wish I knew the name. It really is about mutual respect and I’m trying to make people aware of it. Some just don’t get the idea. It really is very simple and for me comes from the ten commandments although I don’t believe in the Bible for the most part as I think most of it is really a fairy tale written as dogma to keep us controlled and imprisoned. And I know I’m going to get a lot of flack for those last comments. For me what the ten commandments mean at their core is to have respect for yourself and others and at the highest level that means unconditional love. UNCONDITIONAL! Most people don’t realize what that entails and very difficult to attain in this present reality. At it’s most basic, just treat others like you want to be treated. Get rid of the ego. Start co-operating more with people instead of constantly competing with them although there is a time and place for competition. In an EOTW situation everything we know and love will be upside down. We’ll be forced to do things we normally wouldn’t. We’ll be forced to make some very difficult decisions. And we’ll be forced to act in ways completely contrary to our nature. As long as we remain true to ourselves and never lose our humanity.
The greatest act of unconditional love was the death of Jesus on the cross that we could be forgiven and go to heaven. I can’t imagine the pain of the beating before the cross or being punched in the face or having a bloody back from a horrific beating. I love Jesus. He has blessed me in so many ways. Especially with happiness and a wonderful family. Jesus is the greatest of the great. He is the gentleman of all gentlemen. He drank the cup in the Garden of Gethsemane with all the wickedness the had or ever would commit. I respectfully ask that you not discount the place of scripture and faith that will help a person now and in the future. Most of the post are helpful and interesting to read. Blessings to all from one who has lived almost 70 years.
Miss Kitty Along with the movie , “Shanendoah”, also include ” Friendly Persuasion ” with Gary Cooper. It has great moral undertones. Wish we could get back to making movies like those. Real entertainment
I’ll have to check that out. Thanks for the tip!
Shenandoah is a very good movie. If you care to watch something inspiring and helpful go to YouTube and watch the videos about farming in the Philippines. The daily lives of these people is making due with what you have.
There WERE a lot of great movies back then, Bill. Cooper made a lot of good movies. Where I was living, married at the time, about 40 or more so years ago every Saturday night they played two back to back “older” movies. Absolutely fabulous! Watched them religiously every Saturday and even recorded some of them on VHS. Still have the tapes. It was on public television. Some may even know it. It was called, Saturday Night at the Movies with Elwy Yost. Those movies were amazing. Even the detail they built into the sets. Nothing like them today. I’m trying to pick a movie to go and see in a theatre but 99% of the stuff out there today is total crap and not worth my time. If I find a movie that I think is worth watching I’ll get the DVD or Blu Ray and watch it at home.
Lot of crazies waiting for WTSHTF. This will stretch our moral fibre to the limit. Many believe crisis creates “open season.” Problematic that notion. People behave very oddly and especially unpredictably under duress. Keep your powder dry. While others around you go bananas, do not lose your morality. Good time to hunker down and lay low. Hopefully the crazies will eliminate each other, or get a grip. Predators will try to advantage themselves in any crisis. They see catastrophe as an “opportunity.” Actually, the Old Testament of the Holy Bible gives us insight into the capitalistic behavior of many after sieges. Following the destruction of Jerusalem, other people groups that did not fight, came in and plundered. God still held that against them: that they took booty from their brothers. These were not simple “recycler’s, repurposer’s. It was out of malice and envy.l So, the answer to the question is that I understand that in the eyes of Almighty God, catastrophe is not and excuse for lowering my moral standards. Remember, our Founding Fathers originally built this nation on a concept of “self rule.”
I like what you say, John, and I absolutely support the concept of self rule. But who has the wisdom these days to rule wisely and justly?
What you were saying twigged something in the back of my mind, John. With apologies to Rudyard Kipling.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
A good book that gives justification for protecting yourself and your family from a Biblical point of view is “A Time To Kill” by Greg Hopkins…. has scriptures to back up your actions…
Gasseous
Sounds downright scary, Gasseous. LOL! Will see if I can find it. THANKS!
I hope we’ll never be put to the test, because a few of the responses have been downright disturbing. I plan to be far enough off the beaten path to not encounter a real problem, but if the situation merits a lethal response I have no qualms. Better you than me. But poisoning “bait” supplies or produce in your garden where little kids might get into it is psychotic – sorry, but true. Get professional help NOW while you can or you’ll likely get hunted down like a rabid dog especially after due process is suspended.
I think some of the replies are wishful thinking and don’t reflect real life. They may reflect what the writer would like to do. Perhaps they have been reading too many doomsday novels. A couple of the replies do seem to border on some kind of mental aberration. There are a lot of folks who on medication for mental problems and probably an equal number who should be on medication for mental problems. Unfortunately, the mentally ill have become the lepers of the 20th and 21st century. They received better treatment at the hands of society in the 19th century. I have read that we have by actual number, significantly fewer beds in mental health facilities than were available in the 1880s, even though our population is considerably larger than it was 140 years ago.
People like to blame various politicians for the mental health facilities being closed, especially Reagan. He signed the bill in California but the bill was a bi-partisan bill that was introduced as a result of a ruling first by the California Supreme court and then by the U.S. Supreme Court. I am very familiar with the case in California as I was working in court in the county where the case originated and personally knew the Public Defender who argued the case before the California Supreme Court. He considered it the hallmark of his legal career. I wonder what he would think now seeing the results of his success? He has, of course, since passed away as he was a couple of decades older than I.
I agree to a point Chuck, but mental health treatment in the 18th and 19th centuries much of the time was brutal. Water “treatment”was more like waterboarding. Patients were often chained in cage-like cells with maybe a blanket and left to sit in their filth. Rich people could get a guided tour of the facilities and laugh at the inmates for a fee. Bad as things are we’ve made some small progress in that at least. I do feel that there are too many violent mentally ill out on the streets now, but no one wants to pay to see them housed (incarcerated) and given the drugs they need to function. Classic case of nimbyism with a side of nwmm.
I agree, Miss Kitty that mental health treatment in the 19th and prior centuries was fairly brutal but so was the practice of medicine in general. President Garfield was killed by the physician who probed his wound with an unwashed finger while Garfield lay wounded on the railroad station floor. Yes, Guitreau (I think that’s how he spelled his name sometimes) pulled the trigger but Garfield died of massive overwhelming infection. That was in the late 19th century. Surgeons wore bloody dusters in surgery. The stiffer and bloodier the duster the more successful the surgeon was reputed to be. Even when bacteria and the connection between bacteria and infection was scientifically established some doctors refused to give up their old practices. Lister was castigated by the medical profession as a charlatan.
So it isn’t surprising that mentally ill were poorly treated. At least they were being treated the best the doctors knew at the time. They had shelter, food and for the times, a clean place to live. Instead of trying to improve conditions, we threw almost the whole system out.
That’s a real problem the “sane” folks are going to have in an EOTW situation when people who are maintaining on their medication now can’t get the medication, plus the folks who already are living on the edge. With everyone living on the edge of survival they are not going to have the time nor resources to deal with the mentally ill who are having a psychotic episode. Even now, what happens to the mentally ill is that many times they either wind up in prison or killed by the police. I am sure Dick Erwin, the Public Defender who argued the case of Hop Louie vs The State of California before the California Supreme Court would be much chagrined at what his “victory” obtained.
So what are you, the stressed out prepper, trying to protect his family going to do with a person who is having a psychotic break and is yelling and screaming in the middle of the street waving a big knife or a gun? He clearly is mentally ill. It doesn’t take a PhD in psychiatry to see that. Do you risk life and limb to try to calm him down or do you just blow him away?
There is a moral problem to wrestle with tonight as you try to get to sleep. Don’t ask me. I can’t give you an answer. I can only pose the dilemma. What about a family member who has tuberculosis? That is a disease entity that we are not accustomed to facing today. Once things start sliding to hell it will rear its ugly head again. It’s highly infectious. Do you abandon them? Do you euthanize them? Do you keep them around and endanger the other members of your family? The old treatment called for quarantine. People infected with tuberculosis were confined in state hospitals. When I lived in San Bernardino, Patton State Hospital for tubercular patients was across a big field from my house. It now houses the really, really mentally ill. The ones who are homicidal, suicidal or catatonic. Glad I don’t live there now.
You’re quite right about the disgusting hygiene and practices of the medical field in the not so distant past, and equally right about the threat of communicable disease in a shtf situation. There will be a significant threat anytime “outsiders” approach or you find yourself in an area where the water supply may be compromised. An early form of germ warfare was to drop a dead animal ( or person) down the village well or hurl it over the town wall. Or as was discussed in another post send in contaminated trade goods or sick people. What do we do? Let them die outside our gates? Try to help at the risk of our families? Much to ponder and no easy answers.
This discussion has raised such thorny moral dilemmas that it’s making my head pound but I’m glad we’re able to have this kind of discussion because it makes us think about the possibilities, Chuck. Your point about the crazy running down the street. I don’t think we’ll have a choice. I don’t think it will come down to morals or ethics or anything like that. It’ll come down to practicality, as cold as that sounds. As much as I would like to extend compassion and understanding to everyone equally it just won’t work in an EOTW situation. To be a little cold and maybe blunt about the whole thing; if something like that happens, then at that moment that crazy running down the street becomes a liability to myself, my family and my friends and in some ways we may be doing that person a kindness by ending their life in a fairly humane manner. We do not know what personal demons that person has to wrestle with. We WILL have to become hard as diamonds because we WILL have to make the hard decisions daily. And in that kind of situation it may come down to a very quick assessment in some instances where we have to decide very quickly if that person running at us, foaming at the mouth, screaming incoherently and wildly brandishing a weapon is going to be a liability or an asset. Some of the choices are pretty clear cut. Some not so much. If we do take that person in, vital resources will have to be expended that we may not have and then that person does become a true liability. Who will stand up to end that life that we have been trying to nurse back to health? I compare this to a strategy that armies might use in the field. It’s better to wound your opponent so that your enemy HAS to expend precious resources to heal that soldier. And then perhaps send them home. If you kill your opponent, they’re buried and life pretty much goes on as normal. If we can call that normal. Your enemy doesn’t have to use up many resources to bury the soldier. So for me it’s not much of a choice, Chuck. Crazy running down the street. Bullet through the head. Now to take it a little further. I’m sure if the unthinkable comes to pass, there will be times when there will be more than one crazy running down the street or a whole gang of starving people intent on taking our lives for what they potentially think we have. At that point I really hope that my neighbours are standing firm in their resolve beside me with weapons at the ready committed to protecting our little corner of paradise. I don’t even know how to start THAT discussion with my neighbours. As much as I would like to I can see it opening up a whole Pandora’s Box of problems. And I think the next has been touched on in other posts. Maybe not on this page though. The greater problem may come from inside and maybe not so much from outside. There are many families living on my street. Some have 2 kids. Some 3. Typical suburbia and I’ve known some of these people for over 20 years. They’re my friends. What do I tell them when they come to my door and tell me their kids are starving with tears in their eyes and if I could spare a little food for them? How do I tell THEM no? What wouldn’t a parent do for their child? Then I become the enemy. And after all is said and done I then become the pariah. The outcast. Shunned by all. Loved by none. Unless they burn my house down first. Not that any of my neighbours have ANY idea of what I’m up to. I can’t afford the luxury of confiding in them even as much as I would like to. Even my best friends of 30 or 40 years don’t know. In that way the people preparing for the worst carry a very heavy burden. As far as they’re concerned I’m just some poor old guy in failing health. Barely able to make ends meet. Not many resources to draw on. Not much money in the bank. Unable to afford a car. I’m ok with that. As long as they think I’m a simple fool they should leave me alone. While I’m thinking about money in the bank always have some cash reserves on hand. If an emp goes off the banks will close their doors and the ATM’s will be useless. Back to the problem at hand. I don’t see an easy solution to this particular dilemma. I don’t have endless supplies of “stuff” and depending on how long the grid is down there’s a good possibility I could also run out. I do have a pretty good garden going and have been gardening for many years so I’m no stranger to the soil. Just wish I could have chickens where I am but I can’t. Because I’ve started down this path I may have no choice but to move to a MUCH smaller community where the people are still much more self reliant and where I know everyone and they know me as far away from the major centres as possible but not entirely out in the boonies. Too much to get ready. To little time.
Very good Armin. People here are generally posting based on life in the present. Most seem to have similar values. However we all need to consider a different existence and perhaps new priorities. Several people have mentioned how they would do their best to help someone coming to their door. If that stranger had nothing to trade they would allow the stranger an opportunity to trade work for food.
These people need to consider what they are really doing. If you feed the stranger you are telling him that you have an abundance of food. If you take in the stranger you are trusting him with your life and the lives of your family. Who’s to say that the nice stranger isn’t just the front man for the other 10 bad guys waiting for the right opportunity.
Lets take it a step farther… Who comes first? you and your family or your sister, her husband and their family. Do people really think that good brother-in-law Jim is going to tell you to go ahead and feed your family while Jim’s family goes without?
I consider myself a very moral person in the present world but I am also realistic about how things could change in world wide catastrophe.
You’re spot on, Jake, and as I was writing some of this stuff I was thinking about what you say here. It WILL be a different reality. Everything will be upside down and everyday present norms won’t apply. We’ll probably end up hating ourselves for some of the choices that we’ll have to make but they HAVE to be made. It’s ok in peacetime to help the “hobo” that may occasionally come to your door and ask for a handout. You do it out of compassion and humanitarian reasons. But as I understand it once you help out one of these wanderers they leave some kind of a symbol on your property telling others that you’re basically an easy mark. As horrible as it makes me sound I REFUSE to give money to people coming to my door. Not that I can’t. I just won’t do it. I don’t know them. I don’t know what they’re going to do with the money. I don’t know if they’ll tell others. The same thing will happen in an EOTW situation. Inevitably, people will arrive at your door asking for food (if they do ask) and you’ll have no choice but to politely but FIRMLY turn them away. With a weapon in your hand. You mean business. You don’t have to be a jerk about it. We can still be civil to each other. If you don’t turn that first person away then you’ll have an endless line coming to your door asking for handouts. And make no mistake about it, they will tell others. As you alluded to they may even be the forward scout for their little gang. And if they don’t want to go away after being told to leave then firmer measures will have to be taken by you. And I wouldn’t outright kill someone for that but instead would tell them that they had 5 seconds to get off my property or I would shoot them in a non-lethal part of their body and follow up with action if they didn’t believe me. The first time I responded to the same kind of post on this page I thought about it and realized the flaw in my logic. Compassion is all fine and well in peace time but in war time it can get you killed very quickly. And you’re absolutely right. We will have to have our head on straight and our priorities straight. Who’s more important? The strangers coming to our door which will just help to deplete our finite resources that much quicker or our friends and family? Now that I understand a little more a no-brainer for me. Obviously the latter. It makes us sound like monsters even now but that’s how it HAS to be. It’s going to be a very trying time for us all if it ever comes to pass in our respective lifetimes. THOMAS PAINE. Apologies to Mr. Paine. I changed one little thing in his quote. “THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their countrymen; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Man’s innate nature, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated”
My plans also, Miss Kitty. I’ve already picked out where I want to end up. Just getting there is going to be a little………. tricky. I want to be part of a very small community. I want to be able to breath the air and drink the water without getting sick. I want a lake close by so that if “you-know-what happens” I can catch fish for dinner. Somewhere where I can still have a few acres of land. For a reasonable price. Looked through a real estate paper today. Some of the prices are appalling. Just a few miles south of where I am there are properties listed for over 25 MILLION dollars. And they aren’t that great. Not much acreage. I just about fell off my chair.
One thing I’ve learned about moving into a small community is that it takes a while to be accepted as a member of that community. I’ve lived in small towns and villages all over this country and they’re all pretty close in the same attitude to strangers moving in. Where I live now, and I’ve been here for ten years, I was called “that person from Kentucky” for the first few years before they started calling me by name. If they don’t like someone here, the “locals” make life very unpleasant for them to try to push them out. It has worked on many occasions. I bought my place from a couple who were despised by nearly everyone in the area so that gave me a couple of points in my favor in the beginning.
If you want to move to a very small community, the time is now. Moving into such an area at the time of an SHTF event could make you look like an interloper to those who already live there and that doesn’t make life very easy.
You make a very good point, Homesteader, and I have thought and heard about that problem. It does take a while for people to get to know you and accept you. Same thing happens on the street where I now live. The houses are changing owners pretty quickly around me. I’ve been here for about 20 years. When someone new moves in close to me I do try and make a real effort to at least say hello and introduce myself and welcome them to the neighbourhood. My handshake is firm and my hands strong and callused from work and exercise. When I talk with people I look them in the eye. When they talk I listen carefully and contribute to the conversation. I try and extend the hand of friendship to everyone. Sometimes it’s accepted. Sometimes swatted away and sometimes I even get bitten. But that’s the chance you take. But it takes a while to really get to know people and even then they might surprise you. I’m pretty easy going and as a rule most people intuitively like me. I try and treat everyone the same. With courtesy, respect, compassion and humour. If I meet someone younger than myself and we’re having a conversation and I don’t know their name I have no problem addressing them as “sir” or “ma’am” I’ll extend the hand of friendship to everyone. Respect and trust, however, are earned. And that takes time. When I’m talking with someone I try my best to show them that I can at least string a simple sentence together and not come across as a complete fool. I’m more or less a generalist and do know quite a bit and have a deeper understanding of a few subjects. Jack of all trades, master of none. I can pretty well talk with most anyone about anything and hold my own in most conversations. I talk just as easily with the most abject homeless person on the street as I do with the CEO of a company. I treat them both the same. As people. And I have done so. I’m not impressed nor intimidated by titles. We all have to put our pants on the same way. I can pretty well cobble anything together. And fix anything. Very self-reliant and self-confident and not afraid to take on challenges. I’m not too worried about people not accepting me if I move into a new community. And if for whatever reason people decide to avoid me (which I don’t think they will) then that will be both our losses and we’ll all be poorer for the experience or maybe more correctly the non-experience. LOL! I appreciate you reminding me of the mindset of a smaller community.
So many times on sites like this one, I’ve seen posts where people plan on bugging out to very rural areas where they are not known. I just try to warn people that such places are not always friendly to strangers, and it will be more so during times of trouble.
I completely understand your point, Homesteader, and agree with it. Human nature. But from my point of view I’m also trying to show that I’m not the worst person in the world and as a general rule people do tend to take to me. As long as I can get there BEFORE SHTF I don’t see a lot of problems. The community where I eventually want to end up living has a population of about 4,000 or so. Not THE smallest community that I could end up in. My priorities are a hospital and police near by and it has both. It’s also situated on a fairly good-sized lake. And I DO understand the problems that CAN be encountered by a person moving to a new community. That’s why I’m trying to do everything I can right now to move there before the times of trouble overwhelm us all. And I can see you being absolutely right. After SHTF even getting there might be problematic and if I were able to, then trying to be accepted be them would be so much more difficult if not darn near impossible. Limited resources, increased paranoia, fear.
I don’t think anything would change for me. I am alone and intend to stay that way. The only people that would be welcome would be my kids but they would have to produce to stay. I would do what I can for children but even that has limits. I have no sympathy for the adults that did not prepare for hard times. As I have said before, An adult that does not prepare for difficult times, be it SHTF, tornado or massive blizzard, is just irresponsible and deserves nothing. Trust is my biggest issue with people at the door or being part of a group. My immediate family are the only people I would even begin to trust, everyone else is just a stranger waiting for an opportunity.
I would do what I have to do to survive.
I hear you, Jake. I can relate. I’m in a similar situation to yours. On my own. While it has many advantages I miss someone to talk to. That’s what I miss the most. Both parents are gone and all my relatives are over in Europe. No wife. No kids. And I am slowly becoming an old curmudgeon. I am not aging gracefully. As weird as it sounds I also have trust issues. Treated everyone as a human being and there were some that took advantage of my kind nature and I got screwed over one time too many. No more. Agree with you about those not planning for the future and thinking that everything will go on forever as it is now. Even our recent ancestors planned for the bad times by simple things like canning and putting away a little extra for the lean times. There isn’t going to be a great harvest EVERY year and those that don’t plan for the future are fools. I too have zero sympathy for them. I’ve always tried to plan a little for the future. Got that from my parents. They had to make it through the depression and the 2nd world war. They knew about lean times and basically kept everything thinking that at some time in the future it would come in handy. LOL! People don’t always need to prepare for the ultimate EOTW scenario but just if the electricity goes out for a few days or a week. Especially if it happens in the winter. If they live in a flood-prone area. They should prepare for that or move if they can! LOL! And on and on. Just as a matter of course make it your priority to always have a little extra on hand and some way to defend it. You never know what’s around the corner and life can change in an instant either way. What I live by is hope for the best but prepare (or be prepared) for the worst and you can’t go wrong. A hopeful attitude but also pragmatic.
Sounds like our situation are quite similar Armin. I was married however my wife died several years ago. I have 3 sons who are the only people I would trust but I doubt I would want to partner even in a crisis. They are very independent and 1 is in Afghanistan as a post Army contractor. I actually prefer my solitude now and don’t think that will change.
Yes, pretty close, Jake. I also went through the marriage thing. I value my independence and freedom very much and don’t know if I ever also would want to pair up with another woman again. I don’t want to end up with the “wrong” woman because that is hell on earth and finding the “right” woman is one heck of a chore at my age. But I do miss having someone to talk to. That’s what I miss the most. Appreciate your input.
This article, together with the article regarding scavenging from homes and autos has raised some interesting ethical questions that we, each of us, need to address and wrestle with. I know that rather than shooting everyone I run across, I would attempt to help them resolve their immediate problems without resorting to violence, but I would do that by offering suggestions and advice as opposed to offering material goods. Material goods need to be exchanged on a mutually agreeable basis. If you come to my door looking for a handout, you might as well save yourself the effort. On the other hand if you have an honest offer of goods or services that we can exchange on agreeable terms, then you are welcome.
That is the plan now. Someone once said, “The plan goes to hell the minute the first round cracks overhead.” Realizing that is probably a battle-tested truism, I think there is a strong possibility my plan may go to hell very quickly.
But, I think it was George S. Patton who said, “A poor plan vigorously prosecuted is better than no plan at all.”
So whether it is a good plan or a very poor plan remains to be seen but at least I have a plan. I will have short shrift for those who step outside the basic laws with regard to each other or who practice gratuitous violence.
Left Coast Chuck;
There will come a time in each persons life when they feel the need to act on a situation. The difficulty is each person will act in a different way, so it will be to our advantage to evaluate those actions if they will benefit me or harm me. That will dictate my reaction
Hey, Chuck. I’m not trying to be a jerk but Patton’s quote didn’t sound quite right to me. I had heard something like it many years ago. Just couldn’t remember it. Forgive me for correcting but the proper quote is, ” A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” Hope this helps.
Wow!! Morals in a SHFT… This seems to be a hot topic…
I submit that we have no idea how we are going to react, short of our basic nature.
Take for instance the recent false missile alert in Hawaii. People were trying to stuff their children down sewer drains. Can’t blame them, I can’t say what I would do, other than what I have thought about, using various scenarios. We can’t be prepared for everything down to the last detail. I think it is a word the Marines use often, “Improvise;” but by using a number of pretrained actions.
I thought I had everything together until I joined a brother and nephew fishing on the lower Columbia river. Rough, rough water, got thrown all over the boat,, and fish skunked. Caught some keeper crab. Boiled them and gave them away.
6 days later, I’m fighting for my life, attacked by the Flesh Eating Disease, “Necrotizing Factiitus.” only about 2000 people in the whole U.S. catch this a YEAR; 50 to 70% don’t survive. I am grateful to survive, sorta.
Now 10 years later, my Bride and I are being warehoused in a retirement facility. I can function maybe 6 hours a day, with rest. SHFT hits, we won’t survive long. But, but, I will do what I can to extend the lives of those around me for as long as possible.
I have had the Great fortune to have 15 years of experience as a missionary to Haiti. Observing and interacting with a society that exists on virtually nothing has been a Great education. I found that the experiences I lived through growing up on a post-depression wheat farm were the greatest value. I learned to USE MY MIND. Think out of the box, because there was NO box. We had to learn to make it work.
In a SHFT, we WILL revert to tribes, tribal lands and tribal morals. If we are fortunate, we will land in a tribe that fits our basic nature. If we can’t adapt, we will be pushed out of the tribe, if we are lucky; or parish.
It has been my experience, both in Haiti and from studying about similar issues to use in Haiti; that tribes will form very quickly.
But, but, even in the most dire situations, people will combine efforts to help for the common good. Some will become militant and others will just resign to their fate.
As for Me and my house, We will serve the Lord. This served Joshua, thousands of years ago; it will serve me during the coming SHFT.
LoneJack, your sane and humane response is humbling. Thank you and blessings of health and happiness to you and yours.
I agree with this after my years of work in many tribal societies around this globe I agree with you. I am still young enough and in the process of building a tribe now where I am. I pray our tribe is the largest and strongest in the area. And I read the scripture and pray that if we find favor in the sight of the LORD that He will be our Rock and Strong tower that when those who would seek to destroy us come in one way we will drive the out Seven ways…..the battle belongs to the LORD.
Preppers like to think of themselves as independent survivors, I have lived quite a while and it seems to me there are two kinds of people, leaders and followers, and maybe 10,000 followers for each leader. People will survive in groups, and I don’t think morals will matter much. Look at all the stupid disastrous wars we’ve fought in my lifetime, these are great moral atrocities but where is the moral American protest movement. If the boss says rob, kill, destroy, burn their crops and sow the earth with salt, you will.
I enjoyed reading the responses to this article. (except for Clays)
Wouldn’t it be great if when the SHTF we could all just mind our own business and work with our neighbors? I believe it would make getting through a tough situation a little easier.
Yes Hoosier but we can’t live that way now. There are to many people who believe you should live your life the way THEY want. I think it will be even worse with in SHTF.
Hey, Jake. In an SHTF situation we may be forced to work together with our neighbours if we want to have any chance to survive. In most disasters I see people coming together to help each other. I hope that instinct still holds true when people start starving. I don’t even know how many people own guns in my neighbourhood. Up in Canada it’s a different gun mentality. And I don’t even know how to broach the subject with people without giving myself away. Once they know I have supplies stashed away I’m screwed if a SHTF actually happens. I don’t have a warehouse full of stuff. I have some modest supplies put away. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.
Yes Armin we may in fact have to share some of the burden with others. As independent as I like to be even I may have to occasionally work with others. My point was that people should not blindly trust ANYONE. My 1st priority would be to survive. I suspect that everyone else has the same priority for themselves and their families. My neighbor or my best friend or my brother is not going to put my safety and security ahead of their safety and security. People who believe we will come together in small socialist communes could be in for an awakening when food is running out or the arguments start about who contributes more to the group.
As for me. I have kept my preparations to myself. As time goes on I my find a few people I can discuss it with but I will never totally trust them. I tell the neighbor and he tells someone else and so on. These people may not give it a second thought until they find they are out of food or ammo or water, then you can bet they will remember that casual conversation.
You’re very wise, Jake. You’re right. We cannot trust ANYONE blindly when it comes to our survival. Not our best friends. Not our neighbours. Not even our brothers or sisters. They don’t call humans the apex predator for nothing. Just look at how loving siblings become the most bitter of enemies when it comes time to divide up a will. And all that’s about is just dirty paper we call money. I don’t see that we have much of a choice knowing how people could turn on you once their personal situation starts to get dicey and their children begin to starve. As horrible and selfish as it sounds we have no choice but to keep our plans to ourselves. And I don’t know about you but for me it’s a very heavy burden to bear. So there’s always an inner conflict going on. I want to confide in my friends but I know I can’t. I dare tell no one. I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking about the neighbour dilemma. As far as I KNOW none of them are thinking or planning about the future to the extent that all of us on this page are. Most have a good sized lot but most don’t have a garden or fruit trees or anything like that. But then they may surprise me when the SDHTF. But I can’t count on that. When it comes down to it I can only count on myself. Most on this page by now know I’m not a particularly religious person but that doesn’t mean that I’m a complete a-hole or that I don’t have empathy or compassion or respect for my fellow human beings. After all we are all in the same “boat” sailing through the cosmos. I have nothing against religion. It is what it is. And I respect other people’s beliefs and opinions. They are after all your beliefs and I have no right to judge or criticize. I say this because I get the feeling after just casually “talking” with some of my neighbours that in a real crisis most are not prepared and put their faith in God to make an appearance and save them. That’s all fine and well as far as it goes but it doesn’t address the practicalities of the situation. Will their faith still hold when they are down to half their original body weight and their children are nothing but skin and bones? I’ll never call myself a Christian but if I get “stuck” in this neighbourhood when the “big” one goes down I’ll have no choice but to share my supplies with my neighbours from both a humanitarian and practical point of view. And for that I put myself in their shoes. If it were turned around. If we get into an extended grid down situation and it’s me that hasn’t prepared and it’s my friends and neighbours that have. And when it happens they say well too bad. You were too stupid to see it coming and that’s just too bad for you. We’re not sharing any of our stuff with you. Too bad for you. We have our own families to think about. At that point they stop being my friends and the resentment starts to build. Even without prepping I would still have a little food on hand for a short time. They say the best time to attack another country is just before the harvest starts. Destroy the food supply. And shortly after that up here in Canada the cold weather starts to set in. A very bad situation for all concerned. No heat. No food. A double whammy. Once I, as the hypothetical non-prepper, begin to starve, desperation sets in and with the lack of co-operation from my former friends and neighbours and resentment building even further I think that I would be capable of taking my weapon and trying to take their food from them by force. After all, at that point I have nothing further left to lose. After that it all goes to hell and we have a small civil (very uncivil) war in our neighbourhood which goes very badly for everyone. So as to the question about sharing food (but not my present prep plans in case I am able to move before IT happens) I would have no choice but to share and ration out my supplies to my neighbours even though it might mean potential starvation for myself. There’s no hope of me fighting off all the roaming scavengers by myself. Hopefully they can bring something of their own to the table. Especially weapons. But nothing is free and people are going to say I’m a horrible person and not charitable and all the rest. NOTHING IS FREE. And they will owe me. And after law and order is restored I will make sure that they pay their debts. But people have very short memories once their bellies are full again so I’ll have to think of some kind of system to “remind” them. There always has to be some kind of an exchange of energy. But nothing salacious or licentious. I’m not that kind of person. Strictly business. I don’t want their first born or anything like that. But if I’m the only one prepping in my whole neighbourhood and the worst happens I will literally have saved the lives of them and their children and I expect payment in kind at some point. At the moment that’s the best compromise I can come up with. If I don’t share with my neighbours I’m signing my own death warrant. And if I don’t share and they don’t retaliate against me then once law and order is restored I WILL be the pariah. The outcast. And that will be just as bad. I’ll be forced to move. I’ll never be able to look any of them in the eye again.
JTP, you’re right. “We”, as a society, can’t live that way now; I was commenting based on my way of life where I live. I’m fortunate. I have great neighbors, and I’d like to believe that even in dire situations, we could work together.
Also, JTP, I live about 30 minutes from nowhere
That, I’m sure has a profound effect on the way people think in my neck of the woods.
Now, if I lived in a big city like Indy, or Fort Wayne, ….forget it!!! I’d be OUTA THERE!!!
Well I hope that works out for Hoosier. I really do. Run a few scenarios through you head and see if you still think so.
Food is scarce. A month ago you were all ave great meals together and everyone was satisfied. Now much of the food has gone bad. Foraging turns up nothing. Even after rationing the kids in the group are hungry and it is not getting better. You were a good parent and prepared for a crisis and your supply could have lasted your family several months more but you are sharing with the neighbors now. ………………………………
GOOD food for thought, Jake. My food stores are a private matter, as it should always be. When I talk about “working together”, I’m referring to things like the use of tools, security, special skills, etc. … As with you, my family comes first.
I don’t want to seem to have a Pollyanna attitude about life, HH, because I’ve been kicked in the teeth enough times to know better. The phrase, “the end of the innocence” applies here. I really hope and pray that you’re right or there is no hope for us all. I’m very lucky where I live. We don’t have the disasters happening that we seem to hear about so much in the states. I don’t have to worry much about hurricanes, or tornadoes, or flooding or earthquakes or anything like that. I live on what’s called the Canadian shield which is a pretty stable landmass so earthquakes are not a worry for me. We did have hurricane Hazel in the early fifties which WAS pretty bad but those kinds of events are few and far between up here. Mostly we have problems with ice like the Quebec (I’m in Ontario) ice storm of ’98 which did take out a good portion of the electrical grid in Quebec. But they don’t happen that often either, on that scale. When I think of dire events I think of something like New Orleans when hurricane Katrina hit or more recently Harvey in Texas. I don’t know how you guys manage down there but I have nothing but respect for the resilience and strength of the American people. From what I remember, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the situation in New Orleans very quickly went from bad to worse. Up here we kept hearing about all the looting and things going on down there. And I’m also sure that there must have been instances of personal heroism happening right alongside all the bad stuff. But as bad as these events were they were still fairly local occurrences. But if some maniac manages to set off an emp over the United States that will be a continent-wide event and then all bets will be off the table. We’ve never experienced anything like that. There will be those that want to make a go of it on their own and some may actually succeed but it will be a joyless existence for them. People need people no matter how much of a lone wolf type you think you are. In the beginning I would tend to think that friends and neighbours will band together tor mutual protection. I think that’s just a natural survival instinct that most have. But then the problem will be the lack of food and widespread starvation depending upon how long the grid stays down. How will people react then? Will those fragile alliances still hold through the worst of those times? In some ways those of you south of the 49th parallel may be luckier than those of us up here as regards the growing season as long as you still have sunlight and not a nuclear winter. I know I said emp but none of us know how it’ll play out if and when it becomes a real shooting war. You’ll have the benefit of a longer growing season down south and as long as most of your seeds germinate you should be able to supplement your precious supplies with produce from your own gardens and eventually will have to depend on your gardens entirely. Up here the growing season sucks and even this late in April there’s still plenty of ice and snow around. And I’m only about an hour away from one of the biggest cities and Lake Ontario. It’s not like I’m living up in the Arctic. So up here weather is a real factor as far as growing food is concerned. Again, HH, I hope and pray you’re right and that it never comes down to it. It will be one of the worst experiences that a great many people will be forced to live through and I’m sure that things will happen that NONE of us could ever have prepared for. Just as an aside. I’m listening to the radio as I’m typing this and just heard this on the news. Some maniac has just plowed through a group of people with his van in the big city south of me. What is WRONG with people? And this is supposed to be peacetime? I don’t want to imagine what’ll happen if we have 100 million, or 200 million starving, desperate people. I really do shudder at the thought and really don’t want to consider that scenario.
I agree Armin – things are so bad now I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when things really go south. In a very general sense there’s no love for your fellow man anymore. No sense of community. No scruples. No religious beliefs to guide our actions. Not everyone of course, but too many are just out for number one. It’s sad. It’s scary as hell. I really hope I’m wrong about this. I’m afraid I’m not though.
I really don’t want to, Miss kitty, but I’m afraid I have to agree with you. Circumstances seem to speak for themselves. And right now they’re shouting very loudly.
Armin, I’ve learned that if you show kindness to someone, they’ll return it. I know, not all people are like that, and we have to be watching for them. My first instinct is to be friendly. I can’t recall a time when this backfired on me; its been decades. All I can do, is be as ready as I can for the unthinkable, and be kind to my neighbor. As I said earlier, getting along can help make a hard situation a little easier.
I tend to do the same thing, HH. A smile and a firm handshake go a long way these days. You get what you give.
http://www.biblicalselfdefense.com/
God takes the shedding of blood very seriously.
Hey, Phred. Each and every one of US should take the shedding of someone else’s blood VERY seriously. It’s no small thing to take another’s life and should not be entered into lightly or cavalierly.
3 But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people!
Yeah….
2 Timothy 3
Thanks thought I had copied and pasted that in
Sigh. Yeah, labienus, I’ve heard that from others, usually they are athiests. So by your own definition, you’re a potential human predator and a murderer, because you would cross the line into unprovoked violence to take what you want, by lethal force, from others.
We are assuming a complete break down on a nation wide level, like an EMP, that would make regular law enforcement unlikely for years. So I would gather together with as many other law abiding and life respecting members of my community that are available, hunt you down and try to take you into custody. If you weren’t killed in the attempt, we would give you a quick trial, by a citizen committy if nothing else, make sure the evidence of your depredations were in fact without question, then pass the death sentence.
You see labienus, murder is still murder, regardless of your rationalizations, no matter how hungry you might be. And there is only one penalty for murder, that is the death penalty.
Hmmmm something to keep in mind when you face the choice between shooting someone and letting them kill you are your kids.
It’s like the righteous politicians who say waterboarding is wrong. Yeah I guess it is until it can save your life or the lives of your family or maybe an entire city.
Well, Claude, if your purpose was to stir discussion, you succeeded in spades.
I think it served a very useful purpose in getting people to consider how they might react in dire situations. We have seen a spread of ideas across a wide spectrum. I certainly hope those who contributed and those who just read and didn’t contribute will ponder the moral questions posed here and give serious thought with an open mind to all the various thought processes that were exposed.
10 Commandments will always work. The basic rules for all people, regardless of religion.
I ask you to consider this, Randolph. I also believe in the ten commandments as far as they advise us to have respect for others and their property. Not to steal. Not to kill. Not to commit adultery. Actually some basic common sense rules when dealing with other people. But these “rules” are only effective if people follow them. And not just for an hour on Sunday each week. And how many people these days even know of the ten commandments, Randolph? And if they do, how many dismiss them out of hand? How many even know of the Lord’s Prayer? When I was going to school we still recited the Lord’s prayer each morning before starting class. Didn’t do us any harm as far as I can tell. The world has turned upside down and the politicians keep catering to special interest groups. The politicians themselves have lost their common sense. Now it’s politically incorrect to have religious practice before class just in case there’s a Muslim, or Hindu, or Jew in the group that might be offended. When did it become ok to change things just because a special interest group complained loudly enough and the politicians have become so gutless that they want to please everyone? Especially when money talks. Why was it ok to change the name of a cherished European Christmas song from “Oh, Tannenbaum” to “Oh, Christmas Tree” just because someone complained. Some of the ancient texts say that the earth continually goes through four stages or eras called yugas and it could be possible that’s how it works. The first era is the most spiritual and the least material. It lasts the longest. Each succeeding era is shorter, less spiritual and more material and we are in the last era. The shortest, most material and least spiritual. The worst one and by all accounts these ancient texts could be right. Somewhere in the bible it says something like if these times were not shortened then no one would survive. I’m obviously paraphrasing but the basic idea is there.
Decalogue practical; yes.
Whenever & so long as Israel honored Mosaic Law, its people did better than survive – they prospered.
“Devil take the hindmost” a formula for societal defeat in detail.
However, Apostle Paul was clear: “Let him who doesn’t want to work, also not eat.” Recall the Pilgrim Colony trying to have ‘Christian Socialism’, and they very nearly starved to death before they awoke to its impracticality.
It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
Romans 14:11 NIV
Labienus says he is moral???? So he would kill others because of his lack of preparing. I will definitely remember your name and you will not be given the chance to take from my family for your lack of caring for your own.
Sorry to say but what I have observed of people. You will find both types when SHTF Those that will help others with all and those that will take. Bad thing those that helped to this point of time had other help on the way thus giving up half or more of what you had you’d still make it until help arrived. The looters and abusers such as paying $10.00 + for a gallon of water will pay for it when things are back to somewhat norm. But in a real SHTF nation wide or global there is no help coming give up what you have well tough shit on you and your family. Even most of the good in mind people will change their mind frame just to stay alive. those loners that try to make it on their own. Unless they are somewhere where no one will find them. They most likely not make it. They may stop one or two hunger radis maybe even a dozen but in the long run they will lose. Most places and situation you will need help and a fair amount. That causes another problem the bigger your group the more supplies you need. How many is to many in a world that has NO MORE resources to call on. And the big question how many/much is not enough backup. Unless civilization starts rebuilding it’s self fast. Looters will be on the incline, and within weeks will kill you and your family late at night for a can of anything. So morality now is do I let that person live that is just wondering around while I have the chance to make a clean kill or do I shoot now, so he/she don’t sneak into my camp and hurt someone maybe even kill them for food. I think at first some will be let go but after a few incidents you see someone shot ask questions later. All that under the pretense that civilization and farming take a back door to just staying alive.
So many thoughts stirred by this conversation. So many feelings. How can we really know what we will do in a situation? Maybe others know themselves better than I.
I offer an unnerving personal example to illustrate my point. One gloomy February rush hour many years ago, an acquaintance and I strolled down the street in NYC, two slightly-built women speaking a foreign language. I felt a gentle tug on the purse I had hung over my shoulder and tucked into my armpit. Without seeing who was doing it, without saying a word, I spun around, grabbed the man by the throat, whipped him around and slammed him up against the plastic bus enclosure, kicked him in the crotch so hard I felt his pelvis crack. I punched him repeatedly in the face with my free hand until a hysterical Brigitta pulled me away into a taxi stopped at the light. I learned what it meant to “see red,” and to be “blind with rage.” And deaf. And berserk. I probably would have killed that hapless man without her intervention. I would never have dreamt I would have, could have, behaved like that. I did not know the person who did that, nor who might still live inside this person I have been striving to be. My behavior was not commensurate with his crime. Had I killed him, I would not be writing this. I was not thinking about killing him. I was not thinking anything at all.
Would such a rage explode in some of us, most of us, all of us in a SHTF scenario?
Was that an animal survival instinct? Did anyone else read “The Mountain People,” by Colin Turnbull, about the unraveling of the dispossessed tribe in northern Uganda? Would that happen to us? Or would we band together for mutual support and survival as so many did during that huge ice storm and months-long power outage of 1998 in northern New York and New England and southeastern Canada? Or steal furniture from neighbors’ houses to fuel our woodstoves as some others in that storm did?
What if some pandemic kills off 70% of us, as has happened several times, with the 3 outbreaks of bubonic plague, as nearly happened with SARS, as might have happened with Ebola, as the peoples of the Americas were reduced, some anthropologists estimate, by 90% when exposed to the measles, chickenpox, smallpox, et al., unintended gifts of the European explorers? Would the reduced population give us more breathing space, and make us more inclined to cooperate for survival? Would we drink the poison Kool-Aid, as Jim Jones’ followers did?
And if we were seriously reduced in numbers, would even the almost innate and almost universal prohibition against incest be less as it was when Genesis 19 tells us about Lot’s sleeping with his daughters, so the population would increase?
Such a deeply thought-provoking topic, Claude. We need to face these hard, hard issues.
We don’t, Lucy. Until we get there. None of us has any knowledge of what a real EOTW situation is going to be like. I hate being negative but my feeling is that a true continent-wide grid-down situation is going to be much, much worse than anything we can imagine. I’ve also experienced what you describe and it was downright scary because I lost control and at that moment was fully capable of killing the other person. They tell me my face went completely white in an instant and I think I was looking through a white-hot haze. And I was VERY strong back then. At the last moment I realized what was happening and was able to pull back. If I hadn’t I may very well have gone to prison for murder or manslaughter. Took me quite a while to calm down again. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. It’s not a “good” feeling. These days I may a real concerted effort to try and remain as calm as possible in all situations. I have a very real fear of letting that particular demon out of its cage again. I know it’s still there. It’s some kind of “berserker rage”. Something similar to what happens when a slightly-built woman can rip the doors off of a burning car to save her child. Or when a stranger comes along and can lift a car off another trapped underneath. There is much, much more to us human beings than is readily apparent. And we are much, much more than just the sum of our parts. I’ve come across that phenomenon before. I knew I had heard of this somewhere before and have experienced it myself. It is downright scary. You become a force of nature. Invulnerable. All powerful. But there IS a loss of control and in that state it IS very easy to kill or maim another. Perhaps called temporary insanity in modern parlance? This from Wikipedia and if you want to read more about it just type in, “berserker”. There are legends of it occurring amongst the Norse warriors. “In battle, the berserkers were subject to fits of frenzy. They would howl like wild beasts, foamed at the mouth, and gnawed the iron rim of their shields. According to belief, during these fits they were immune to steel and fire, and made great havoc in the ranks of the enemy. When the fever abated they were weak and tame. Accounts can be found in the sagas.
To “go berserk” was to “hamask”, which translates as “change form”, in this case, as with the sense “enter a state of wild fury”. One who could transform as a berserker was typically thought of as “hamrammr” or “shapestrong”. For example, the band of men that go with Skallagrim in Egil’s Saga to see King Harald about his brother Thorolf’s murder are described as “the hardest of men, with a touch of the uncanny about a number of them…they [were] built and shaped more like trolls than human beings”. This has sometimes been interpreted as the band of men being “hamrammr”, though there is no major consensus”. You’re way more dangerous than you think, Lucy. I LIKE that! I want you on my team or I’ll join yours if there’s still a spot available. LOL! Thanks for sharing.
On incest, it’s today a much more serious problem than formerly, due to generations of evermore isolated, focused, and damaged genes.
That’s why it was a serious mistake via Moses to allow first cousins to marry. Ashkenazim have more genetic syndromes than ordinarily due their ghetto and consanguinity histories.
Asian brides may cause Jewish mothers-in-law consternation, but genetically it’s a good thing.
Having been there, it may bear mentioning that, while hunger may make people desperate, starvation makes people weak. So it’s the hungry hordes to fear, not the starving ones. Which means, the beginning of famine or time of scarcity is the most potentially threatening.
The important thing is that you survived, Lucy. Probably made you tough as nails. Some very important distinctions between the two which I hadn’t realized. Had to look it up. Starvation is a very horrible way to die and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes the average fairly healthy person anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks to completely starve to death. Not only weak but as it progresses also apathetic. Eventually too weak to even move or eat. Even swallowing becomes painful. My dad ended up in a Russian POW camp after the 2nd world war. They finally released him after 5 years. Can’t imagine how he survived. When he arrived home he literally WAS skin and bones.
I wonder if things really got so bad that food and water was all that really matters anymore. How many people would starve to death rather than eat their pet dog or cat. That is if nothing else was available, and you already gone 4 or 5 days with nothing to eat. I know of stories where an animal survived by eating it’s master after he died. Thus he didn’t eat his pet. Just wonder how many would die of hunger rather than eat their pet.
lraude
Up until this point in American history, around the 1920’s, there was no such thing as a marriage license. The states invented them as a way to dictate who could and could not get married for the purpose of making sure blacks, whites, Asians and Indians didn’t mix. That’s right. Marriage licenses were invented as a way to stop white people from marrying black people. Because they couldn’t get a license, interracial couples who would have been considered married before the marriage license was available, ceased to be married. They lost inheritance rights, medical rights and all other benefits of common law marriage. The issuers of marriage licenses were considered the gate keepers, charged with keeping the white race pure.
Laws against interracial marriage persisted long after segregation was deemed unconstitutional in 1957. It wasn’t until 1967 that anti-miscegenation laws were wiped off the books in the southern states. Alabama didn’t bother to take it off the books until 2000. Thanks for that Alabama, appreciate it. In fact, I live in Florida, where until 1967 an interracial marriage could get you 10 years in prison. Thank goodness for Alabama I guess.
The seminal case in interracial marriages was Loving vs. Virginia, a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional. In fact just a couple of years ago there was a movie made about that case. I think it probably was the 50th anniversary of the decision.
Part of my duties In the Marine Corps included advising Marines who were contemplating marrying “indigenous personnel” which was military speak for local women in foreign countries, regarding the laws pertaining interracial marriages in their home of record states. This came into play in countries such as Japan, Okinawa (which at that time was a protectorate of the U.S.) Korea, Formosa (Taiwan) Philippines and, later, Vietnam, Thailand and everywhere else that U.S. forces were stationed where the local women were “non-whte”.
I think there were 14 states that had laws against “miscegenation” as interracial marriages were characterized. They were divided into two categories, active laws against interracial marriage and passive laws against interracial marriage.
Passive laws forbad marriage between certain races but if you got married in a state where it was legal, the states with passive laws would recognize the marriage as valid.
Active laws not only forbad marriage in the state but declared such marriages null and void in the active law state no matter where the marriage ceremony was performed. A couple states even had laws against co-habiting. I believe Virginia was an active state and also had statutes forbidding co-habiting.
How the laws were further divided was also very interesting. All the states with anti-miscegenation laws forbad marriage between whites and Indians. Southern states also forbad marriage between whites and negroes but said nothing about marriage between whites and asians. Western states forbad marriage between whites and asians but some were silent on marriage between whites and negroes. At this late date, I can’t remember which were which. I know Virginia had such laws until Loving v Virginia and it was a very late state to have its laws struck down.
I realize that my terminology does not meet present day standards for political correctness. I think the term miscegenation might have even passed into the dustbin of history. But that was the language that was used in the statutes themselves and that’s why I chose to use it in this post. I do not intend to insult anyone nor cast an aspersions. I had great feelings of sympathy for the service personnel who were rowing against the mighty stream of military disapproval in order to make their relationships with local women legitimate.
James Michener’s book “Sayonara” which was made into a movie starring Marlon Brando, Miiko Taka, James Gardner, Red Buttons, Nancy Umeki and I can’t remember the others dealt with the topic of the military attitude toward marriage with indigenous personnel.
Michener himself married a Japanese-American woman in 1955 when a lot of anti-Japanese feelings were still prevalent in the country. Some feel that his book was semi-autobiographical. By 1955 some anti-miscegenation laws had started to be stricken from the books by state supreme courts.
Proper when discussing legal matters to use the terminology of the time(s) when said laws got promulgated and enforced.
Constitutional originalism is a good thing. Political Correctness is a very nasty & imposing sort of hypocrisy – should never be tolerated.
Negro simply an Iberian word for ‘black’. Aside from hypocritical New England merchants (Triangle Trade), soi-disant ‘Christian’ Spanish and Portuguese were involved for centuries in parts of the chattel-slave trade.
So were certain African tribes. Which bad behavior led to an sardonic denouement for one African queen; her tribe had been raiding neighbors and selling survivors to slaver caravans. Neighbors finally allied to end her ‘family business’. Queen was driven into a corner, killed, and her younger sisters sold into – slavery. Rapes nigh certain. Don’t know if they survived their Atlantic trips…
“Without God, all [bad] things become possible..” – The Brothers Karamazov.
All this morality and religious aspect when it comes down to it in an all out SHTF. I’m talking most of human race gone the few left is all there is. At that stage you have either learned to kill in order to survive or you dead. morality, religion and any other mental attitudes you have, will have to stay in the back of your mind When there’s only your supply of food left within who knows how many miles. it’s do or die. MEAN SIMPLE but at that stage a fact. if your worried about all that other stuff if it ever gets that bad then expect to die and if you can’t pull the trigger again expect to die. But on the bright side if it don’t get that bad, Share but even that up to a point.
Implicit in the original question is the notion that morality is counter-survival. Not precisely correct. Prior generations had, and acted (sometimes) according to, moral principles and imperatives, and survived crises. Better to ascertain which moral principles and actions are pro-survival, and strive to enact those.
There are different crisis scenarios, varying from that still ongoing on Puerto Rico to a Coronal Mass Ejection (one which envelops Terra) to a asteroid strike (like that alleged to kill off all large dinosaurs) to a super-volcano like that beneath the western USA to a high-latency form of Ebola. Something ordinarily invisible could kill all, or most of, the animate species of Terra. Moral conduct, such as eradicating all hemorrhagic microbes, could eliminate at least one danger.
Successive hurricanes or an Indian Ocean tsunami are survivable, granted people simply avoid such known historic hazards. Historically, hurricane and earthquake victims rarely descend to Mad Max behaviors, but instead mostly co-operate. Thereby more survive. Plus, in such cases, folk likely recall who behaved well and reasonably, and who didn’t. A merchant who suddenly triples prices for potable water unlikely to have a future in such a zone. Sad thing to have a lethal house-fire just when the entire fire department is off attending to other matters…
Some crises are survivable with minimal preparation. Although, if people don’t live in the zones/paths of known hazards, then an event becomes merely an exciting nature-program curiosity.
Due some events in that above litany of planet-altering disasters, nobody survives. In the CME or asteroid cases, Terra’s human population falls within months (or days) from circa 8 billion to a billion – or to zero. Yet, generating a list of known historic crises, and the principles and methods by which prior populations survived, is useful. So, before panicking and rushing around to expensively ‘prep’, better to decide for which scenarios you and yours may rationally prepare.
Once again, if the Tunguska Event had occurred over New Jerk City, there would be millions of dead, among them persons whose preparations would have been meaningless.
I’m a dead duck with little or no chance of survival. Older, illnesses, poor. However, it gives me hope that my suffering will be short lived, all I have to do is ask for help and some of you will put an end to me. I won’t blame you either, suicide by preppers will be common. Go ahead and kill me with the first bullet, I’d hate to see you waste ammo.
Don’t be in a great hurry to ‘check out’. Aged and tested experience possibly a community asset. Depending on the sorts of illness and syndromes.
Might look into diet change, such as becoming a ‘meat vegetarian’. Very little meat, mostly for favoring, but lots of fresh greens and veggies (such as beets). Asian poor-persons’ diet.
Rather than burdening others, people can do as the Inuit / Eskimo had with someone unable to go on. In Winter, sit down outside and freeze to death.
If so, take a book with you. A Bible, or Proust’s ‘À la recherche du temps perdu’ or any Victor Hugo novel (in translation)…
I started prepping, bug out bag in car with other supplies in case I could remain in car, bug out bag in the house, food dehydrated, freeze dried, plus regular foods. I’m a diabetic and syndromes that go along with it, runs on both sides of the family. I have been eating a plant based diet mostly and lost 35 pounds. I’m hoping this will help. I can see that in a couple of years I will no longer be able to afford my home so I’m getting rid of what I own and will sell my house. I’ve bought a used t@b travel trailer (cashed out financial investment) and will go out west and live the nomad life. I’m mostly donating things to a charity that helps the poor but does not charge them. I’ll take what I can of my survival goods. I’m doing what I can to survive on a regular daily basis. I guess that my point is some of us are trying but have many limitations. I had many injuries when walking across the street and was hit by a drunk driver and even though I’ve improved over these last several years I still struggle. I have 2 guns I’m selling along with the safe. I can’t hit a target very well and don’t want to travel through many states and try to figure out all their laws. Thanks for reminding me that I can/could be of help to a group in many ways. Perhaps in my travels I’ll connect with people who are like minded. We all need each other. My pastor asked me would I feed a starving person and what if it was a child. I told him I’d have to make that decision when the time came, but I do keep thinking about that issue. As for freezing to death, that is cruel. I’m not afraid to be dead, but I’m particular on how to die.
I’m told that freezing is painless, but have heard no personal testimonials.
No longer able to afford: Yeah, Americans awaken too late to the fact that the USA is actually a feudal (not a free) society. July 4th celebrations a sick joke. Rah-rah crap on FOX SoLittleNEWs nauseates. Yet their cable competition is far worse…
It’s not just that mercantile-imperial economic system (forcing folk into the callous clutches of bankers) which oppresses, but also in sum all those local and state taxes and ‘fees’. Some government is necessary, thus sales taxes are credible.
But taxing and harassing elderly folk from their homes? The industrialization thus urbanization of America has enabled collectivist and fascist monsters.
Via a Boston Tea Party, and all those mortal struggles, people rebelled against a paltry taxation. Yet if that founding generation could see into which dire straits American have voted selves, and what has been imposed via forever wars (including ‘wars’ on drugs, terror, etc.), likely they wouldn’t have risked anything in 1776, much less battlefield deaths and slow ugly ones by dysentery.
What you describe seems prudent, except a nomadic life can be hard on someone with many / serious health problems. Any general idea about what region(s) you may travel?
There are ‘caravan people’ who follow the seasons from one KOA to another, North in Summer, South in Winter. Electronic and ATM banking enable this without carrying much dangerous cash. (Cash is ‘guilty’ to the uniformed bandits.)
Long firearms such as shotguns stored in a trailer generally of no interest to said bandits/reeves. (Except in nightmare places like New Jersey.)
I have read that freezing to death is a horrid thing. You don’t just lay down in the snow and die peacefully. Not according to an article I read years ago.
I’m amazed when I think about all the taxes on just what I’m aware of not to mention those others.
U-tube has lots of info on being a Nomad and I think I’ll be in Arizona winters and travel to higher elevations summers. So eventually I’ll get up to Montana, Idaho and even in Oregon. I may start with a caravan connected with cheaprvliving u-tube group. I can help others so it is not just for me. The more I research the more ideas I get. There are places I can volunteer to help out with others like SDA and Methodist etc. I am looking forward to my new life. As for my health problems I’ll have them at home or on the road. It will take some planning on how to get a doctor in a location where I can be seen for check-ups. My insurance (health) is good in all the states which is great. The big draw back to me is that I won’t be able to garden and prep. and being able to have safe water. I’ll miss my friends and will make new ones.
In short, I will have a full and useful life as long as I can.
This morning as I read and studied the bible I came upon the story of the rich man Jesus told to sell all he had and follow him (Jesus). I realized that giving my good things to the poor and having a heart to share the love of God with people is a blessed way to live. So now I am going to pack up more things to give away because Wednesday a couple from church are taking another truck load to donate to a center that does not charge people which I like very much.
Thank the liberals for taxes to give to people that will vote for them. It is another way to bankrupt this country so socialism can e instituted before going to one world government. Read the 1963 Communist Goals, the communist Manifesto and the book “Rules for Radicals” by an Obama mentor, Sal Alinsky.
Account where Iesous (KJV – Jesus) told the rich young man to sell/give away all his physical goods is about the importance of seizing that opportunity to travel with and learn of iesous. Wealthy youth failed to fully understand.
Understandable attitude; Schlomo (Solomon) wrote that money is protective like wisdom, so an educated Jew would remember Ecclesiastes. Yet selling all possessions and banking proceeds, so as to follow Iesous, likely the better option; might always return to retrieve funds later… On the other hand, many of Iesous’ leading disciples wound up getting killed, yet nobody but Iesous knew what was coming for certain.
Divestiture: A useful rule is to retain nothing which you’ve not actually used in an entire year. Or two years – your rule to decide. Obvious exceptions – legal records, certificates, family pictures, wall decorations, memorabilia, etc. Much of which should go into conditioned storage
But bric-a-brac which must be dusted and by which spiders spin their webs, most kitchen stuff, and furniture, all candidates for disposal to charity – a best first option.
Your old home friends might enjoy ‘following’ your peregrinations via emails with pictures. You might even set up a blog, with a free / low-cost (ie. Weebly) provider, and post stuff there. GoDaddy is one full-service provider, so you could have photo albums, calendar(s), blog pages, other digital stuff – all accessible from anywhere. (Not endorsing GoDaddy.)
Since your health insurance portable, real issue is having good providers along chosen routes. At minimum, someone for Winter quarters, someone midpoint, and someone at Summer grounds. Older folk generally prefer dealing with experienced persons, yet best to choose those likely to outlive you or not retire during your expected lifetime.
Place where you’ll have most leisure time is Winter quarters; finding a garden spot there maybe feasible. A shared community garden, so it would be cared for while you’re gone North between late Spring and early Autumn.
Safer water may be arranged via using best available filters. Important to filter water going into a trailer’s tank. Plus a Zero (brand) filter which again filters dispensed water. A truly cautious person drinks only teas and coffee – water is boiled.
Different varieties of E. Coli everywhere, including USA and Canada, and any massive ingestion thereof proves exceedingly painful. Had a memorable episode in New Zealand due some bug picked up at a Tonga feast…
Enigma, thank you for your comments. It is important to get new ideas.
Jesus told his follower, sell you cloak and buy a sword. Paul defended himself on the road. Native Americans, who used to be so strictly loral they thought Puritan women were tsitsila (little birds, loose women) had no trouble overcoming troubles with force. Nor do we tend today to suffer PTSD. It all goes back to God in all circumstance. Remember that, that God demands good government–and approved the Revolutionary War or we would have failed. And, He demands we uphold family ahead of all others. Without good government, the family suffers. Without the family, the government fails. Niio.
I’ve seen the remarks. Trade with me don’t trade with me take by force. I’m not a mean person but mess with me and my family. And many more. But after being in the military and seeing people for the first time in do or die situation their are many that if not for the veteran would have died. Pulling that trigger the first time to shot someone even when your being shot at. I’ve seen delays long enough to be fatal if not for fellow troops. Luckily not with all of them. The same will hold true here that first time may be your last time
in a shtf scenario…..my morals would stay intact, of course just like the author’s morals:dont rape etc. but if someone else is stealing something,they’re dead. even in shtf i’d be willing to give an ear of corn, or something else small like that but otherwise i’ll just put the poor mom and kids out of their misery.and some may call me scum for that but i dont care what makes me “scum” to some easily offended goody two shoes,of course even in shtf you shouldnt be a total asshole (excuse my language) but if someone is messing with my family,im going to end their lives.
Where there is life, there is hope. Not to fear, I’m sure that at least for the first few months, there’ll be plenty of, ah, longpig remains around to keep people like that going. Basics: We may lose the grid and therefore computers. But, if they’re going to go that far, then it’s likely Washington’s Black Clouds prophecy will come to pass. Total invasion from North Africa and Asia. China controls much of Africa today, and China is getting desperate to control her population in the light of a financial depression caused by dnc greed. You walk in beauty! Keep being injun. It’s a man’s duty to always stand between Woman and her enemies. Woman is born to life, we say, and man but to die, but to die well, for her and the children. Live and thrive, OK?!
In response to the last part of your statement. “It’s a man’s duty to always stand between Women and her enemies.”That morality has left this country. Women now take care of men. If we got rid of all the men without dignity or the morality between a man and woman we would lose over half the nations men. I was in the military during the time it was mostly a man’s service. With that type of respect. I fought for Freedom, The American way, And apple pie. I fought for My fellow soldier, my wife, and kids, my daughters safety and your wife or girlfriend and kids son and daughter. Then the 80’s came women getting in the battle field. More and more each year. When my time was up for reenlistment I saw the things I would have been fighting for back home was in the fox hole next to me. So what am I fighting for NOW. It’s not back there safe because I put my life on the line for my wife, girlfriend and daughter but instead they are shoulder to shoulder with me on the battle line. Again what was my reason for being there.Battle over buried my best friends wife. Someone else daughter. He stayed at home with 3 kids that now grown up mother less with no one to make the Apple Pie. He got in a fight over it with a man down the street and you saw why he stayed at home after the first punch he feel to the floor crying and begging not to be hit again. The only reason I put that part in there even thou not common is because I’ve seen it. House holds where the woman’s balls was 10 X bigger than the man’s So if we ever do have a SHTF in this country who is going to stand up for the remainders. Women and children or our ever growing sissy men. That care more about looking good and saying the right things. For so long that they forgot Honor, Dignity, Truth and Purpose. Note as to not get many hate letters here I don’t see this in every man just a few here and there. But what I do see is their numbers getting bigger each passing year. I won’t last till the year 2050 already to old but would like to see the quality of most men then.
You might be surprised. Once things are more normal, and SHFT is more normal than the PC today, men will stand up and act like men. Women have always been on the battlefield. It’s harder to stay home than to fight. But, I don’t like seeing them in a war. But, as well, mine have a tradition of men on the circle, women inside, all armed and deadly. Yet, it used to be women went on raids as a sort of honeymoon, as well. Women are to defend the children and home, and more women today are willing to do that, but only if some hormone-driven ape isn’t there to do it.
Niio.
Plant enough for the thieves and birds as well.
the birds are chubby enough. We had a good winter and the seed crop was heavy. They just don’t want to take a chance with a coyote or eagle out there. I don’t mind garden raids. We used to do it, a sport. One year I lost every watermelon, even the green ones (they can be pickled), so next year, that family lost all their rhubarb. But, generous me, I did give them some out of out rhubarb patch Some things are sacrosanct, like garlic and onions. Those are medicinal foods and no one would steal that. niio
a long time ago i use to think about using a watermelon patch as bait for the hoards to find, simple to inject compound 1080 into each watermelon when they are young and small, then forget about them. plant them several miles from my location.
i lived in town 1 time and planted my area in a community garden, ONLY FOR 1 YEAR too many thieves and didnt have a good poison at the time.
Why do I receive comments, but not the article?.
My morals and ethics will cease to exist. My goal and singular focus will be survival for myself and my family and nothing will get in the way of that. Nothing. To ensure success, I already have the mental mindset as well as the tools to aid me in that goal.
Living in town has one set of rules as opposed to living in the country. Town = more folks to be leery of, country not so much. Each situation would have to be considered at the time. I would help as much as possible but if people find out you have supplies they might gang up and take what you have. I would love to live so far out the majority of people wouldn’t/couldn’t go that far to steal. Unfortunately I don’t.
I have no morals that is why I live on a 15 Acre farm in the middle of nowhere surrounded by corn Fields! if you come to my property its by invitation only. other than that you are taking your own risk!
i was looking threw some old emails and found a someone replied email.
the last reply here was 4 years ago by IRONRHINO.
ARMIN AND OTHERS SEEM TO BE HAVING AN ARGUMENT AND I GOT BORED OF READING THE ENTIRE LIST OF COMMENTS.
first off, im most likely the PSYCHOPATH that Armin said he ran across on another post.
i say that because I WAS DIAGNOSED A PSYCHOPATH BACK IN 1974! let me say that if anyone actually reads this, they have already witnessed the absolutely insane way “society ” acted during the pandemic!!! think about just how much crazier it is going to be if SHTF ?
i spent 10 years of my life in PRISON, my 3rd day in, i had to fight a guy doing LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE, IN A 200 MAN BARRACKS over a roll your own cigarette, the morning after they handed out 2 bags of tobacco to each inmate. i was rolling my cigarettes over a newspaper early sunday morning, he told me to give him one and when i told him no, he hit me. from that day forward, NO ONE GETS AWAY WITH ANY DISRESPECT TO ME!!!
society is a group of strong people that sacrifice of themselves to protect and take care of the weak.
i have a cousin that i have NOT talked to since preteen years, and im 65 now. her husband killed a 20 something year old guy and his 15 year old girlfriend in arkansas, the girl was missing, but he raped and killed her. then he picked up a girl having car trouble in littlerock, who jumped out of his truck on a bridge, he hit her in the head with a pipe wrench as she escaped. it was the MAYORS DAUGHTER! well he went home and painted his truck, he was NEVER CAUGHT. but that inner voice most people have ate him up so he was NOT A PSYCHOPATH and ended up going to the county sheriff (ray byrd) and told him every thing!!!
i DO NOT HAVE SUCH A VOICE IN MY HEAD, i can kill you and sit down and finish your supper, and never miss a second of sleep!!!
ive been in the survival mind set and been learning since child hood, and was raised hunting, fishing and gardening, raising animals. the only family i have is my wife and my child, wife is 36 and child is 5. i didnt even speak to my mom for 20 years, when she died i danced a jig!! as the first child in a 4 child family i use to think i was adopted or born out of wedlock. i use to study my birth certificate , that is how different i felt i was treated than the other 3. i later found out that my mom got pregnant with me in an attempt to hold on to my dad. she was 18 and he was 19.
she left me a 1/4 share of her trust, so i got almost $200,000. my siblings conspired with my step dad (the trustee) to steal money from me that was in the trust. my own father told me lies about it to cover up their theft. one sister made threats when i hired a lawyer and they were forced to pay up! my wife talked me into hiring a lawyer instead of killing the lot of them, the first day we were back in America in 2016! she knew no one here but me, she was on a transit visa and we were changing planes in houston texas, so we walked right out of the airport, the last stop before houston i read an email from the trustee, telling me that he was NOT going to ABIDE BY THE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT THAT HE SENT ME TO SIGN, THINKING I WAS STILL IN THE PHILIPPINES!! the sister made the threats later. the whole family was told that if i so much as see them anywhere in the state that i live in, their whole families, even the grand kids will die!!!
enough of that.
yes, im crazy, but im very smart and well read. ever hear of COMPOUND 1080? it was banned in the USA where it was injected into carcasses to poison predators, but it even killed the animals that drank the water a poisoned animal fell into and died!! no color, taste or smell, AND NO ANTIDOTE! well i use to own land in MONTANA so i got me some of that shit!!! i also put it in a certain amount of my STOCKPILE! so if anyone takes my shit, they are as good as dead men! i gave my wife a note that is put away that tells her how to tell the good from the deadly food, and ammo too.
the MOST LOW PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD ARE PEDOPHILES!! i watch the sex offender list every week and keep a list with their photos, if one sees my child fall, he better run the other way and not dare to help my child get up!!!!!!!!!!!! or ill be selling videos on the dark web. i learned liquid cremation as a child by reading books, and i know for a fact that the technique works.
i actually hate “society” !!! RESPECT IS EARNED AND NOT BASED ON YOUR POSITION IN LIFE OR WHAT GROUP YOU BELONG TO!
that said, i went to prison the FIRST TIME just after my 20th birthday, actually turned 20 in the county jail waiting to go to prison. i wore great big SS LIGHTNING BOLTS ON MY NECK and WHITE PRIDE down my tricepts!! in 98 i spent $12,000 and underwent 2 years of very PAINFUL LASER SURGERY to get my tattoos removed.
i can now be in a group of people and NO ONE can see me, i blend in. BUT IN MY COMMUNITY I TELL EVERYONE MY PAST AND THAT IM A PSYCHOPATH. this is to give them all the information they need to know THAT THEY BETTER NOT HURT ME OR MY FAMILY IN ANY WAY, OR STEAL FROM ME!! you see society as these rules that everyone is expected to obey. my thoughts are that IF SOMEONE CAN CHOOSE TO THINK THAT ONE OF THOSE RULES DOES NOT APPLY TO THEM, THEN IM FREE TO SAY THAT NONE OF THE RULES APPLY TO ME! example: you think the rule against drunk driving does not apply to you. and you hit my car. YOU JUST ASSAULTED ME WITH A 5000 POUND DEADLY WEAPON, YOUR NOT GOING TO SURVIVE THAT WRECK EVEN AT 5 MILES AN HOUR!!
preppers DID NOT cause the chaos during the pandemic, it was those that did NOT prepare long ahead of time! you see it every time there is a hurricane !!! etc…
so if people leave their homes and come into my area, and ask me for food, ill ask what they have that might be a value to me. it might be a son that can split wood. in that case i might give them several days of food and send them away, WITHOUT THAT SON. he would have a job of splitting wood, and for that work get room and board in exchange, but he would NOT BE TRUSTED! maybe all they had was a daughter. if so she would be allowed to stay and work off her room and board HOW EVER I SAW FIT! I FUCKING HATE PEDOS!!! and ill admit that i have liquefied several of them!!! ive liquified others too!
i told you that i got a large amount of money at 1 time, and im bat shit crazy according to most folks . now here is the kicker. at 10 years old the FBI scared the shit out of me, KNOWING that i had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BOMBING ACROSS THE STREET, I MEAN THEY HAD EYE WITNESSES!! then at 17, the first job i applied for (i had spent 3 1/2 years as an A+ student in vocational school for half a day every school day) i was told that I WAS THE WRONG COLOR! BECAUSE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAD PASSED “QUOTA” SYSTEM LAWS AND I WAS WHITE! i was molested by a COCK GOBBLER that molested every boy in the neighborhood and a 7 year old boy ran to inform him that we were headed to the prosecutors office, so he hopped a bus and left! that i alone was OSTRACIZED OVER IT! that if you steal from me, and then try to hide behind your family, they get just 1 chance to hand you over to me, or they all die!!
i have absolutely no responsibility to provide assistance to anyone in any situation. EXCEPT if we have agreed to a mutual understanding LONG before you need the help! if my son becomes a cock gobbler before i die, he is UNWELCOME IN MY HOME, IN MY LIFE ETC…
i got STAPH A in 2019, it has changed my life in lots of ways, one is my life expectancy !! i died 2 times on the operating table, and i have just 1 years worth of insulin right now. i became insulin dependent as a result of that illness! so i only have 1 year to live on any given day, so THE THREAT OF LIFE IN PRISON, IS A JOKE TO ME! AND THE DEATH PENALTY TOO!! so when the shit hits the fan, people best not even come around me or my family. i DO NOT OWE ANYONE EVEN THE TIME OF DAY! AND IM GOING TO HANG ANY BODIES ON THE FENCES AS A WARNING.
it will also help that i have some rotted meat in a chest freezer, some old clothes and human bones from scientific skeletons that ill place in the yard as a warning to everyone!!
ALLEN, what war did you fight in? my step brother volunteered for Nam was forward observer in marines.
now the gooberment admits that the GULF OF TONKIN incident NEVER HAPPENED! anyone that fought or enlisted in THAT war , FOUGHT TO MAKE CORPORATIONS RICHER AND MORE POWERFUL!
THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 INCIDENT WAS A GOOBERMENT OPERATION.
IRAQ DID NOTHING TO HARM US! LIE AFTER WAS TOLD AS THE EXCUSE TO INVADE, WHEN ONE PROVED TO BE FALSE THEY CAME UP WITH ANOTHER ONE!!
if you actually believed that you were fighting for the freedoms of American Citizens, then you were lied to and believed that lie.
i hope you see the truth now.
there is NOTHING WRONG WITH BELIEVING A LIE, it is just that, A LIE! CORPORATIONS ARE NOT American Citizens, THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO THE RESOURCES IN OTHER COUNTRIES. JUST LIKE THE UKRAINE WAR GOING ON TODAY, THE GOOBERMENT IS LIEING TO US AND STEALING OUR MONEY TO GIVE TO THE CORPORATIONS KNOWN AS THE WAR MACHINES!!! THEY MAKE AND SELL WEAPONS, ETC…. AND NO WAR MEANS NO CUSTOMERS TO BUY THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES!!