"Trade the sports car for a truck" STEP AWAY FROM THE ROADSTER, WINGNUT...

"Get bikes, dogs and CATS." ...AND TAKE YOUR HAIRBALL WITH YOU.

What is this guy, some kind of Commie hippie? 200 million people aren't going to move to the boonies and take up a yeoman's lifestyle; that's just nuts.

Every social activity listed above tends to mark you a crank, not a role model. Try instead

* learn to make a good martini
* build a repertoire of instructive jokes and stories
* teach the opposition's kids to become conservatives
* embarass lefties in public at every opportunity
* run over some cats with your sports car

Mike you forgot; Have your money and your sports car devalued and then seized by Marxists.

"* run over some cats with your sports car"

I had a friend once who made his own bumper sticker: "I Speed Up For Cats."

One thing you might want to consider is getting an old car that doesn't have a lot of electronic components. In case of a nuke attack, or more likely an EMP weapon, many modern cars simply won't work.

If a relatively small yield nuclear weapon such as North Korea's were to be exploded over the U.S. at a high altitude it would destroy a great deal of our infrastructure's computer controlled systems. No lights, no water, no groceries, no American Idol.

This isn't science-fiction, it's a very real possibility.

I have an old 4-wheel drive Bronco that would survive an EMP attack and it also can run on propane gas if regular unleaded is unavailable.
I don't keep it registered or insured, but if the stuff hits the fan, that missing paperwork will be the least of my worries.

I had a friend once who made his own bumper sticker: "I Speed Up For Cats."

I just might make me a bumper sticker that says: "I Speed Up for Cat Haters."

Askmom's post is a menu, not the 10 Commandments.

Whatever one's social / economic situation may be,

there are several suggestions that will apply to you.

The basic message is a good one:

Learn how to protect yourself and survive.

I think Askmom's list is spot on.

She's telling you to get involved in your community in small, but significant ways. Live what you preach. Put your money where your mouth is and get out from behind your keyboard, and the internet echo chambers you visit, if you want to make a difference right here, right now for your beliefs.

I tend to agree with Mr Anderson. I dunno where ask mom is from, but I'm going to guess it isn't near any major metropolitan area.

So the whole "let's go live an an Eric Sloane book" is a non-starter.

Now the other conceit in all these apocalypse scenarios is the idea that your average American town is going to turn into some version of mad-max Thunderdome or Somalia. Gerard amusingly uses the cover of the zombie survival guide for this post, but frankly, from what I've seen of disasters in this country and others, that just doesn't happen.

This is also predicated on the idea that the government will just cease to function, which it won't.

Now, if one really wants to change the society, you have to be fully engaged in, and you have to be a part of, society. Running for the hills is just another form of surrender. The people over at Big Hollywood have the right idea, which is to "take back" so to speak, popular culture.

If you're that paranoid about "Marxists" seizing your sports car, think about that for about 10 seconds. Who would actually do the deed? Police? IRS? FBI? whatever the agency, it then behooves one to then become a member of one of those organizations, to either subvert it, or to know who has to be dealt with, assuming y'all are actually wanting to pick up the gun. Which I don't think anybody reading this is.

What you're talking here is rebellion or revolution. THAT is some serious shit. The constitution specifically allows the federal government to suppress it. Be careful what you wish for.

Eric it would likely be the IRS seizing what's left of your money and the EPA essentially seizing your gas guzzler by forcing you to replace it with a green battery operated one. You know...For the Earth.

While I've heard of IRS agents raiding and seizing stuff, they generally do that with US Marshals, because IRS by itself does not have 'police' powers. Likewise the EPA.

So, like I said, who would actually do the deed? And there would be the organization that would have to be subverted, assuming that the rest of the government would actually do what it is told to do. Which is also not a given.

That's a good question.

We just watched as one branch of a respected US security organization allowed an avowed jihadi proselytizer be promoted through the ranks and the system has basically sprung to inaction after he had gunned down a dozen soldiers on their own military base that ended up relying on civilian law peace officers for basic force protection.

...All while special emphasis had been placed by the Department of Homeland Security to watch out for potential man-caused disaster doing veterans, Pro-life advocates, 2nd Amendment advocates, Constitutionalists, small government advocates, uppity Libertarians, 0bama dissenters, and Tea Party 'mobsters'. My god! They might protest the President's policies! They might even put suspicious bumper stickers on their cars!
NOTE: 1600 people a day are placed on the review list for the national man-caused disaster watch list.

Is that subverted enough?

I got a little news for you on Major Hasan. He's a doctor. Now, I know that sounds obvious, but let me clue you in on how the Army treats its doctors: Not like soldiers. And how do army doctors treat other army doctors? Not like soldiers. They're doctors. And shrinks to boot. The whole reason Hasan was at Ft Hood was likely that he was fobbed off to there because who ever his superiors at Walter Reed were didn't want him in their hair anymore.

And every military base depends on civilian cops to police the place. The same way you don't find military cooks anymore either. That stuff got outsourced decades ago. Go blame Reagan. I know because I was in the army at the time. And despite being in the infantry, my weapon was locked up in the company arms room 90% of the time.

1600 people a day are placed on the review list for the national man-caused disaster watch list.
Really? Let's do the math on that.
Days since Obama has been President: 297
297 x 1600 = 475,200.

You really think DHS is up to the task of reviewing/watching all those people?

With 1600 more added tomorrow? And the next day? and so on?

And where are they getting the names from in the first place? The phone book? C'mon.

You are scaring yourself.

You know what, I'm going to wait until the last minute on all of that stuff. Why? Because I'm a hedge fund manager. Well, not actually, but I live in the same ecosystem. I don't do cows, I do high tech computing around financial systems, and I'm not going to give up cosmopolitan sophistication and go all Rousseau noble savage just because some bobos are screwing the pooch. People say 'Wall Street' as if there's no difference between AIG and Marsh, Merrill and Stanford Bernstein. Hippies and people who still fret about Waco and Ruby Ridge are all in to the post-apocolyptic vision. Fuck em.

Instead, find out how to make radio internet relay. Hell, dig up old FIDOnet protocols. Hack squawk phones from Nextel, learn how to build a crystal radio. As a matter of fact, go play Fallout 3. That'll teach you something. While yahoos are out there composting and calling that liberty, I'll be relearning chemistry and electronics.

In the meantime, here's an fairly serious suggestion that I'll take. Remember Bill Whittle's Tribes? Let's just organize an email list of all the Greys. I'll email Bill and see what he says about it. Society doesn't devolve all at once, and smart people need to stay smart. Growing tomatoes ain't rocket science. If what you do today is useful, it'll probably be useful tomorrow. Even if you have to do it with simpler tools.

The important thing to remember in a crisis, I forgot to add, is to make communication work. Interdependency doesn't suddenly become useless. Hermetic culture would be a disaster.

Some of the critics of my post have assumed I want everyone to do everything thereon; such is certainly not the case. It is a menu of ideas, not a manifesto. And while I do believe people are healthier, happier AND more likely to survive in the country than in a huge metropolis, I'm not advocating abandoning cities, where I lived for many years. I just want people to look realistically at what their own situation might be in a crisis.

It is true that the hinterlands would be overwhelmed by the need for services if every person in every city immediately moved to the country. It is also true that a slow movement of the population to more rural living is completely possible and - in my mind - desirable. Current population per square mile is under 100, and hundreds of thousands of beautiful small town sites are awaiting the pioneers that will bring them to life.

Just as the super-centralization of the federal government and the power shift to it have hurt us politically, big cities have cost us in ways we don't often enough consider.

Suggesting that we become more self-sufficient does not preclude more civilized skills. A proper martini can be enjoyed on the penthouse roofdeck or the log cabin front porch equally well. Similary, the children of the heathen are everywhere available to subvert into the truth.

One thing I do take issue with. In a crisis, many sophisticated skills will be unused while basic skills are almost always needed. That's the reason they are known as "basic" skills. Further, for every computer genius, financial wizard, engineer, or doctor, we do and will continue to need a hundred people who can make the best possible meals from not much, do the phsyical repairs and cleaning, and teach the children with only the resources in their heads.

We need not suffer a total societal meltdown or nuclear attack to find this out. It is not paranoid right-wing nutcase fear of armegeddon, but the voice of experience telling us that fires, floods, acts of stupidity and large scale mechanical failures are inevitable. Not malicious, not conspiracies, but sure to occur all the same. The same precautions apply whether the mess is caused by freakish weather or Jihadi malice, and it is not isolationist delusion, but past mistakes that drive people like me to BE PREPARED.

Ask Mom.

So much wisdom from someone fairly young - I'm assuming. Either that or you've been blessed with an extraordinary constitution and good health.

My husband and I are in our sixties. I'd add one more item to your preparedness list: drugs.

At least a few months supply of the essentials.

Start a bookshelf. When the EMP goes off, wow, no internet access.

My first acquisition was How To Survive The End Of The World As We Know it by James Wesley Rawles. My next will be Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong (hasn't been released yet in the US)

Re DHS review list: Eric the point is that they are not up to the task.

Furthermore, the gun ban that essentially disarmed military personnel on their own bases became policy during the Clinton era. It was one of his [Clinton's] first acts upon assuming the Presidency.

Anyway, so 'fobbing off' -and promoting mind you- a proselytizing Islamist soldier, who merited scrutiny and had openly and positively identified with our active enemies because he was getting in someone's hair, is somehow not subversion?

Get real man.

I hear variations of the "you are scaring yourself" BS all the time. This sentiment is often spouted out by [superior] people who are apparently offended that some other person might see the prudence of preparing to not be a dependent zombie when/if things go tits up. For some reason these defenders of helpless dependence on fragile systems feel it's their duty to prevent 'the stupid' from daring to assume some personal responsibility for themselves and for those they hold dear.

There's a certain loud sort of atheist that acts out in much the same way; Instead of being content at snickering silently at all the unintelligent misguided proles and going about their merry Godless ways, they instead feel compelled to 'educate' said proles away from the error of their ways. That's faith without God for ya.

I'm going with prudence...
P.S. I buy insurance too. Gasp!

Eric Blair

"So, like I said, who would actually do the deed?"

You obviously don't visit England much these days. Here's just a small example of what happens to the police and the courts (not to mention the mind set of a docile proletariat that now comprises jury panels here these days, after twelve years of neo-Marxist government):

http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5539446/is-this-the-most-enraging-story-of-the-year-perhaps.thtml

It is amazing just how quickly Stasi methods catch on once the red flag comrades impose their will on pliant bureaucrats and police who have been through the brain-washers of our police colleges.
The Long March has now left its footprints on the corridors of power and all its institutions.

From my readings as an outsider who loves your country and am grateful for the umbrella you have provided for much of my life, I see the same footprints in the Oval Office. Watch their next step - and yours!

Eric

This might help you to concentrate, also:

http://dakotabeacon.com/entry/mark_steyn_jihad_and_the_scandal_of_the_tragedy_of_diversity/

I found the first two volumes of "How Things Work" and at least two volumes of "Foxfire" at our local Deseret Industries Thrift Stores...

I agree with Cobb.

We are going to stumble badly, but unless some power takes the opportunity to inject a strategic exchange of the NBC kind into the mix, it will be just that - a stumble.

So: no campfire discussions along the lines of "I never thought I'd say this, but "The Postman" got it right" are likely. We aren't going back to the caves. Switching capacity and redundancy may suffer some big hits, but Mad Max will happen here just so long as the Night Riders don't run into people like me. Then we'll get back to being "civilized", which means simply that we'll act a little less human in order to survive more comfortably than we would have otherwise.

Things are going to change hard and fast. But we have, literally at our fingertips if not ingrained in our cultural memory, the first principles necessary for a working constitutional Republic.

There's only so much mileage to be had in lining the avenues with gibbets filled with statists; the sun always comes up the next day, and the best way for that day to go is if things are able to work...

I apologize for the rambling nature of this comment, but the background "WTF???" associated with paying even the most scant attention to the Obama Road Show makes it hard to organize a single calm thought.

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