- Jan 12, 2012
- 27,286
- 113
One thing of which we can rest assured is that when our now-conventional reality tanks, we will not be alone in a vacuum. Weathering out the SHTF tends to bring to many minds something along the lines of starting from nothing out in the wilderness with no one around on two legs. We also often harbor romanticized notions of what people are like which may or may not too closely resemble reality, and often don't adjust our thinking until we get slapped across the face with reality.
The first thing that bears being held up as a reminder is that an empty stomach knows no loyalty to any principle. There are a very few who would rather find their own way or do without, but with most people, we will see principle sacrificed much faster than fulfillment of needs/wants, and must be prepared to act accordingly. If it gets as bad as it could, we will see everything from attempts to 'appropriate' our supplies by means of brute force, to theft in the more conventional and clandestine sense of sneaking in to steal, to people pimping their children, to setting up pseudo-governments (often described as 'polities' in writings on dystopian future scenarios) which impose redistributive 'taxation' (read quasi-legalized theft). Dealing with any and all of these situations will require a strong measure of organization among a group of people who can be trusted. Unfortunately, in my experience, most of the people I feel comfortable to trust in this way are getting too old to take up arms or tools either one. That isn't to say I would abandon them for not being useful, but I realize that there are things they just can't do. I will emphasize, however, that imparting wisdom is a skill that is always in demand!
Focusing in on the organization, I learned a lot from losing my parents. Let me expand on this a bit in order for it to make sense. My parents divorced when I was 4 years old. I lost my mom to a heart attack (of which she dropped right in front of me with no warning 2 days after Christmas in 2011 and remained comatose for 8 days prior to the end). In fact, I became acquainted with INGO by meeting a member during that 8 day period looking at guns basically trying to get away from myself. I lost my dad in November of 2013. In both cases, I learned some hard lessons about reality not aligning with my expectations regarding some people I know, or at least thought I knew. When the going gets tough, the unfortunate truth is that you are very likely to have a Judas or three among the people you believe you can count on. Most recently, I learned this lesson with my brothers (well, half-brothers technically as I am the only child of a first marriage, although I don't consider the distinction important). Three out of the four of us can work together through anything and can trust each other without reservation, and had to perform some financial maneuvers in which at some point each of us was completely dependent on the honor of the other two for our financial well-being. Unfortunately the other brother, the one with whom I had always felt closest, was the one hell-bent on cashing out and would screw over anyone for a nickel. It was not only emotionally distressing, but also caused a number of practical problems. Now, we consider that if something like this can happen with a personal situation of very limited scope, just imagine what can go wrong on a societal level particularly regarding people who don't know you and don't care about you beyond what their system of belief, be it religious or a matter of secularly-derived values, leads them to assign to others as a matter of principle, and further expecting them to stick with the principles they at least nominally embrace.
The next challenge is building the community skill set. Again, looking back to my own experience, at the time we lost dad, all four of us depended on his company for our livelihood, three of us worked hard toward maintaining that, and one worked hard on taking as much as possible for doing as little as possible while fabricating his golden parachute. After reaching the point where those of us remaining were going the same direction, we were also left with a great deal of variety in our skill sets and general outlook on life, with one good bookkeeper, one good mechanic, and one good at attending to rough edges, filling in gaps, and serving more as mortar than brick. Oh, and of course two of us drive.
While I have leaned heavily on my personal experience for illustrating larger points, this brings us to where the rubber meets your road. Most of us have people we count among our friends and family with a variety of skills. We consider many of these people dependable. We realize that these people come in various degrees of readiness. In my case, my brothers are not so concerned as I am, but at the same time, they don't dismiss my concerns either. It just leaves me realizing that I am going to be the one doing the planning and preparing here, and I don't mind that one little bit, just like my brother doesn't mind being the one who has to do most of the thinking to run the company. In your case, you will also have similar variations in capability and inclination toward preparing for bad things to happen. It is also significant to understand that there are a lot of people around us who are not willing to deal with the general idea because they are psychologically dependent upon the belief that their idea of normal is permanent and when you bring up SHTF, you are engaging in a frontal assault on their personal sense of security to which they have become highly addicted. You also have to take this potential personal weakness to some other logical conclusions. Some people, when the SHTF, will not be capable of dealing with it. You will see suicide, people just flip out and stay flipped out, or permanently act like deer in headlights. I will also point out that with the few people I have known that committed suicide, they were people who appeared strong and not particularly inclined toward checking out, but apparently found their breaking point. You will also have your Judases. After you sort through all of this, hopefully, you will have a group of people left that you can work with, grow with, live with, and fight alongside.
I am also gong to include a warning about placing too much value on acceptance by association. I have learned the hard way that friends of your parents and grandparents, people who may have been in your life so long that you cannot remember not knowing them, may OR MAY NOT be your friends. I have examples going both ways. It is very important to be aware of this and not make assumptions that just because someone was your grandpa's best friend since George Patton was a mess cook, that you can expect to enjoy a similar level of personal loyalty, even with people with whom you may feel a strong attachment. I have also seen friends get burned by expecting the children of friends to behave in ways similar to their parents. Worse yet, many of us expect a higher level of conduct from the folks sitting up the pew from us. You will find all levels of maturity, dedication, and honesty at church, and being in church doesn't make a person upright any more than standing in the garage makes them an automobile. You will find all levels of personal honor, or lack thereof, and perhaps more dangerous, you will find an unusually strong adherence to the belief that the S cannot HTF within this particular aggregate of people in spite of the book clearly warning that it will happen in both localized and global forms. I am not suggesting a blanket rejection, just that you approach everyone with reasonable expectations in general and in context of the reminder that being found in a church does not exempt people from human nature. The same general caveat can be applied to most any organization for that matter. There are lots of Fudds in the NRA, so just because someone wears the hat and has the sticker on his pickup truck, that doesn't mean he is a reliable ally. You may have a good time with your friends at the Elks, Moose, Eagles, or Lame Ducks, but don't expect that to automatically translate into anything under different circumstances. From my grandpa who was a member of the Elks and also a Mason, I was left with an understanding that a social group and the Masons are very different organizations, but that is about as far as it goes. I will defer to those who know the inside in the latter case given that I really don't know what to expect there given that grandpa was very tight-lipped about it. My expectation is that your mileage may vary between individuals, but I am not going to engage in speculation given that I don't really understand the basic purpose of the organization, much less how it actually operates.
Speaking of organizations, we should also give some thought to our local emergency personnel. This will vary greatly depending on where you are and your social situation. Some are going to be your best friends when the going gets rough, some are going to disappear as they tend to their own families (which I would have a hard time criticizing), and others are going to be the first wave of bandits you have to fend off. All I can say is know your people and know what they are really like as opposed to making assumptions that they necessarily follow any certain pattern based on occupation and authority granted by the state.
So far, I have focused on the level of direct personal interaction with people you know or think you know. Now let's turn down the magnification and back out a little bit. Mayberry never existed, but there was a time when it was much closer to reality than it is now. I am well aware that when my grandparents were young, there were always those who you had to watch, but overall, the community standards of behavior and decency were higher than we now experience. Again, I am well aware that there has always been crime as evidenced by the ancient cultures operating prisons, and sin was not invented in 1965, but nevertheless, society is going the wrong direction at an alarming rate with progressively more people adopting the Chicago way of thinking where they seemingly have evolved from not caring that wrong-doing is wrong to not understanding that wrong-doing is wrong. In generations past, charity was based on the idea of doing the right thing because it is the right thing, as opposed to the socialist entitlement mentality based on taking forcibly rather than receiving what is voluntarily given, which has also come with a pushback against the takers. This will be very significant in a SHTF situation.
Let's stop for a recap. We have covered that we need to sort out the people we can trust, assemble these people into a working community both philosophically and geographically, arrange for mutual defense, and make sure we really know the people we think we know who we are likely to allow on the inside of the 'gate'. We have also covered some reasonable expectations regarding the people around us who may or may not be good neighbors. Now let's move on to displaced persons.
Any time things go sideways, you will have people who automatically assume that it is better someplace else without considering that especially in a time of widespread chaos, frequently the devil you know is a better alternative than the one you don't. That said, unless you live in one of the few places where people just aren't found, you are likely to have a reasonably steady stream of displaced persons drifting through and you will be very well advised to sort out how you are going to deal with them before they arrive. I am not going to address the tactical implications given that everyone's geography is going to be different and that is probably the most self-explanatory aspect to anyone sophisticated enough to consider the question. What I am going to focus on is the people and how to deal with them. First and foremost, under most circumstances, I am not going to encourage anyone to stay who does not bring something to the table. It may be as little as showing some aptitude and willingness to work and learn. On the other hand, you may win the sweepstakes and have someone turn up with a rare and valuable skill. Between knowing nothing and being veritable walking miracles, you will find the complete variety of personal values and integrity which are every bit as important. In any event, any stranger who turns up could be a good but unprepared person, a wolf that needs put down immediately, or anything in between. You will find parents who would know no morals when it comes to acquiring sustenance for their children, and you will encounter parents who know no indignity to which they wouldn't subject their children to acquire sustenance for themselves. Some people will be honestly lost, confused, and overwhelmed. Some will be the front for a malingering group of brigands. Some will be more than happy to take what you will give them and sell you out to the first person, group, or polity offering either a reward for informing or a threat for not informing. Having plenty of variety within your group of trusted people will do much to help sort this out. Just as with my brothers and I, there are things that one will notice that the others won't, in a healthy SHTF group, you will have the same thing which is very good when assessing strays.
In the end, you will be confronted with the dual challenges of operating in a manner making it possible to feed the people in your group and also defending your group and resources from outsiders intent on helping themselves to what is not theirs. One thing that will be guaranteed is that it won't be your grandpa's society, or even the society, pathetic as it is, that we know today.
The first thing that bears being held up as a reminder is that an empty stomach knows no loyalty to any principle. There are a very few who would rather find their own way or do without, but with most people, we will see principle sacrificed much faster than fulfillment of needs/wants, and must be prepared to act accordingly. If it gets as bad as it could, we will see everything from attempts to 'appropriate' our supplies by means of brute force, to theft in the more conventional and clandestine sense of sneaking in to steal, to people pimping their children, to setting up pseudo-governments (often described as 'polities' in writings on dystopian future scenarios) which impose redistributive 'taxation' (read quasi-legalized theft). Dealing with any and all of these situations will require a strong measure of organization among a group of people who can be trusted. Unfortunately, in my experience, most of the people I feel comfortable to trust in this way are getting too old to take up arms or tools either one. That isn't to say I would abandon them for not being useful, but I realize that there are things they just can't do. I will emphasize, however, that imparting wisdom is a skill that is always in demand!
Focusing in on the organization, I learned a lot from losing my parents. Let me expand on this a bit in order for it to make sense. My parents divorced when I was 4 years old. I lost my mom to a heart attack (of which she dropped right in front of me with no warning 2 days after Christmas in 2011 and remained comatose for 8 days prior to the end). In fact, I became acquainted with INGO by meeting a member during that 8 day period looking at guns basically trying to get away from myself. I lost my dad in November of 2013. In both cases, I learned some hard lessons about reality not aligning with my expectations regarding some people I know, or at least thought I knew. When the going gets tough, the unfortunate truth is that you are very likely to have a Judas or three among the people you believe you can count on. Most recently, I learned this lesson with my brothers (well, half-brothers technically as I am the only child of a first marriage, although I don't consider the distinction important). Three out of the four of us can work together through anything and can trust each other without reservation, and had to perform some financial maneuvers in which at some point each of us was completely dependent on the honor of the other two for our financial well-being. Unfortunately the other brother, the one with whom I had always felt closest, was the one hell-bent on cashing out and would screw over anyone for a nickel. It was not only emotionally distressing, but also caused a number of practical problems. Now, we consider that if something like this can happen with a personal situation of very limited scope, just imagine what can go wrong on a societal level particularly regarding people who don't know you and don't care about you beyond what their system of belief, be it religious or a matter of secularly-derived values, leads them to assign to others as a matter of principle, and further expecting them to stick with the principles they at least nominally embrace.
The next challenge is building the community skill set. Again, looking back to my own experience, at the time we lost dad, all four of us depended on his company for our livelihood, three of us worked hard toward maintaining that, and one worked hard on taking as much as possible for doing as little as possible while fabricating his golden parachute. After reaching the point where those of us remaining were going the same direction, we were also left with a great deal of variety in our skill sets and general outlook on life, with one good bookkeeper, one good mechanic, and one good at attending to rough edges, filling in gaps, and serving more as mortar than brick. Oh, and of course two of us drive.
While I have leaned heavily on my personal experience for illustrating larger points, this brings us to where the rubber meets your road. Most of us have people we count among our friends and family with a variety of skills. We consider many of these people dependable. We realize that these people come in various degrees of readiness. In my case, my brothers are not so concerned as I am, but at the same time, they don't dismiss my concerns either. It just leaves me realizing that I am going to be the one doing the planning and preparing here, and I don't mind that one little bit, just like my brother doesn't mind being the one who has to do most of the thinking to run the company. In your case, you will also have similar variations in capability and inclination toward preparing for bad things to happen. It is also significant to understand that there are a lot of people around us who are not willing to deal with the general idea because they are psychologically dependent upon the belief that their idea of normal is permanent and when you bring up SHTF, you are engaging in a frontal assault on their personal sense of security to which they have become highly addicted. You also have to take this potential personal weakness to some other logical conclusions. Some people, when the SHTF, will not be capable of dealing with it. You will see suicide, people just flip out and stay flipped out, or permanently act like deer in headlights. I will also point out that with the few people I have known that committed suicide, they were people who appeared strong and not particularly inclined toward checking out, but apparently found their breaking point. You will also have your Judases. After you sort through all of this, hopefully, you will have a group of people left that you can work with, grow with, live with, and fight alongside.
I am also gong to include a warning about placing too much value on acceptance by association. I have learned the hard way that friends of your parents and grandparents, people who may have been in your life so long that you cannot remember not knowing them, may OR MAY NOT be your friends. I have examples going both ways. It is very important to be aware of this and not make assumptions that just because someone was your grandpa's best friend since George Patton was a mess cook, that you can expect to enjoy a similar level of personal loyalty, even with people with whom you may feel a strong attachment. I have also seen friends get burned by expecting the children of friends to behave in ways similar to their parents. Worse yet, many of us expect a higher level of conduct from the folks sitting up the pew from us. You will find all levels of maturity, dedication, and honesty at church, and being in church doesn't make a person upright any more than standing in the garage makes them an automobile. You will find all levels of personal honor, or lack thereof, and perhaps more dangerous, you will find an unusually strong adherence to the belief that the S cannot HTF within this particular aggregate of people in spite of the book clearly warning that it will happen in both localized and global forms. I am not suggesting a blanket rejection, just that you approach everyone with reasonable expectations in general and in context of the reminder that being found in a church does not exempt people from human nature. The same general caveat can be applied to most any organization for that matter. There are lots of Fudds in the NRA, so just because someone wears the hat and has the sticker on his pickup truck, that doesn't mean he is a reliable ally. You may have a good time with your friends at the Elks, Moose, Eagles, or Lame Ducks, but don't expect that to automatically translate into anything under different circumstances. From my grandpa who was a member of the Elks and also a Mason, I was left with an understanding that a social group and the Masons are very different organizations, but that is about as far as it goes. I will defer to those who know the inside in the latter case given that I really don't know what to expect there given that grandpa was very tight-lipped about it. My expectation is that your mileage may vary between individuals, but I am not going to engage in speculation given that I don't really understand the basic purpose of the organization, much less how it actually operates.
Speaking of organizations, we should also give some thought to our local emergency personnel. This will vary greatly depending on where you are and your social situation. Some are going to be your best friends when the going gets rough, some are going to disappear as they tend to their own families (which I would have a hard time criticizing), and others are going to be the first wave of bandits you have to fend off. All I can say is know your people and know what they are really like as opposed to making assumptions that they necessarily follow any certain pattern based on occupation and authority granted by the state.
So far, I have focused on the level of direct personal interaction with people you know or think you know. Now let's turn down the magnification and back out a little bit. Mayberry never existed, but there was a time when it was much closer to reality than it is now. I am well aware that when my grandparents were young, there were always those who you had to watch, but overall, the community standards of behavior and decency were higher than we now experience. Again, I am well aware that there has always been crime as evidenced by the ancient cultures operating prisons, and sin was not invented in 1965, but nevertheless, society is going the wrong direction at an alarming rate with progressively more people adopting the Chicago way of thinking where they seemingly have evolved from not caring that wrong-doing is wrong to not understanding that wrong-doing is wrong. In generations past, charity was based on the idea of doing the right thing because it is the right thing, as opposed to the socialist entitlement mentality based on taking forcibly rather than receiving what is voluntarily given, which has also come with a pushback against the takers. This will be very significant in a SHTF situation.
Let's stop for a recap. We have covered that we need to sort out the people we can trust, assemble these people into a working community both philosophically and geographically, arrange for mutual defense, and make sure we really know the people we think we know who we are likely to allow on the inside of the 'gate'. We have also covered some reasonable expectations regarding the people around us who may or may not be good neighbors. Now let's move on to displaced persons.
Any time things go sideways, you will have people who automatically assume that it is better someplace else without considering that especially in a time of widespread chaos, frequently the devil you know is a better alternative than the one you don't. That said, unless you live in one of the few places where people just aren't found, you are likely to have a reasonably steady stream of displaced persons drifting through and you will be very well advised to sort out how you are going to deal with them before they arrive. I am not going to address the tactical implications given that everyone's geography is going to be different and that is probably the most self-explanatory aspect to anyone sophisticated enough to consider the question. What I am going to focus on is the people and how to deal with them. First and foremost, under most circumstances, I am not going to encourage anyone to stay who does not bring something to the table. It may be as little as showing some aptitude and willingness to work and learn. On the other hand, you may win the sweepstakes and have someone turn up with a rare and valuable skill. Between knowing nothing and being veritable walking miracles, you will find the complete variety of personal values and integrity which are every bit as important. In any event, any stranger who turns up could be a good but unprepared person, a wolf that needs put down immediately, or anything in between. You will find parents who would know no morals when it comes to acquiring sustenance for their children, and you will encounter parents who know no indignity to which they wouldn't subject their children to acquire sustenance for themselves. Some people will be honestly lost, confused, and overwhelmed. Some will be the front for a malingering group of brigands. Some will be more than happy to take what you will give them and sell you out to the first person, group, or polity offering either a reward for informing or a threat for not informing. Having plenty of variety within your group of trusted people will do much to help sort this out. Just as with my brothers and I, there are things that one will notice that the others won't, in a healthy SHTF group, you will have the same thing which is very good when assessing strays.
In the end, you will be confronted with the dual challenges of operating in a manner making it possible to feed the people in your group and also defending your group and resources from outsiders intent on helping themselves to what is not theirs. One thing that will be guaranteed is that it won't be your grandpa's society, or even the society, pathetic as it is, that we know today.
