What Will You Do?

I think I will become Catholic - this is not the subject of this post but sitting in church this morning I could not prevent my mind from running to other subjects. Why you may ask? Contemporary worship - everybody seems to think that is how it must be done. Since I am posted in the middle of nowhere I have only one protestant choice (well two I guess if I considered the Gospel service a real option). Perhaps more on this later...

I was thinking how little I like the term "survivalist" - it is too open ended in its possible meanings and too closed in its perceived meaning. The term in vogue in many places is "prepper" - that just sounds silly to me. I do not yet have an alternative to these terms but let it be noted I like neither and use them only as a frame of reference for anyone that my Google the topics I speak of.

The ideologies encompassing "survivalist" are many and diverse - almost religious in nature. To be certain the reason many become survivalist/preppers in the first place is based upon a religious viewpoint. I am not just talking about Mormons in this regard. There is a large New Age segment in the survivalist community, folks looking to avoid the pain of what they call the "quickening" (and all this time I thought that was something from a Highlander movie).

Of course many people do not become survivalist/prepper for religious reasons as well. We all "know" that America is the Lion and that we have a prime place in the coming end and that all Christians will be pulled out before things get bad. So why prepare for anything at all if one holds that sort of religious world view.

I have my opinions about all three groups listed above and will only say that I do not fall into any of those groups. I think if I had to apply a term to describe me it would be something like "Future Homesteader of America", or maybe more accurately "Pragmatic realist determined not to go hungry or cold a single day on account of massive government stupidity". Yeah that is me - that sums it up - do you think the term will catch on? Probably not.

Despite the ideological and religious differences that cause most people to prepare the benefit to the community as a whole is increased knowledge. There are a lot of people out there figuring out how to do certain things and also figuring out what does not work. This saves everyone money and time.

The thing is, everyone ought to be a "prepper" of some sort. Even if it is nothing more than the "I can live fairly comfortably for a week without power and no access to the grocery store". Of course we are not there and never will be there - but it seems to me that every family should at the least be that prepared.

If, on the other hand, you are interested in going further - just how far? First to put away a couple of images and then ask a few questions.

Up front and right now put away the images of a family or single individual living in a secure cabin in the woods on a southern exposed ravine. For now dismiss the images of you as the hero or a story yet to be written fighting off mobs of two-legged predators hell-bent on taking your food, raping your wife and carting off your children. Forget the images of you as Daniel Boone, bringing home game and skin for your wife to cook, clean and preserve. Put all that away because the reality is that most of you because of age, physical condition or skill-set know you will never be Robinson Crusoe/Rambo/Daniel Boone all wrapped into one. That is a realistic approach, but not a reason to dismiss survivalism altogether. (later we will talk about all those things but for now put them away - they many never apply to you)

Forget, for the moment, that becoming a survivalist means you have to stockpile enough weapons and ammunition to outfight a rifle company. My theory, based upon having been to two war zones more than one time each - a place where everyone has guns and food/water/medicine/government control are not always present - is this. For most people, the required use of a gun to defend their lives, the lives of their family or their property is on average at worst a once in a life-time event.

Hold the hate-mail.

I believe this is the average for a reasonable man even in a terrible situation. Should everyone own a gun, and reasonably know how to use it - darn right. My point is this, for most that might wish to survive most events most of the time the requirement to "gun up" is no greater than the ordinary common-sense requirement to defend one's home in regular times.

Starting from those two points then ask yourself, are you ready to survive most of the circumstances that might face you and your family most of the time (remember no plan is perfect and people die even with good planning - so for sanity and economical reasons we are looking at the "most situations most of the time survival goal").


I will address the rest of this to most of the population - not to the folks living in the country but those in large cities and in the surrounding suburbs. And that is for the next post.