Posted on 12/05/2010 10:28:56 PM PST by djf
We all have to admit there has been increasing talk of doom and gloom. Danger lurks around every corner.
America has, for the most part, enjoyed fairly tranquil at-home circumstances. Hopefully, that will continue.
But what if it doesn't? What types of breakdowns do FReepers think are possible/likely?
The power grid going offline? No more welfare checks causing disruptions? Food inflation/unavailability?
And what do you do under these circumstances?
Part of the reason I ask is that I have a pretty good food/fuel supply. But driving around this afternoon, I was amazed at all the subdivisions that have sprung up all around me. Even if fifty percent of these folks were prepared for hard times, that would leave many thousands of very, very desperate individuals.
Could society recover? Could law and order be maintained?
FReepers are, in general, some of the most thoughtful, insightful and creative people on the planet, so I thought this was a good discussion thread.
We have evacuated twice from Houston suburbs in the last five years because of hurricanes. It didn’t take more than a few hours before everything fell apart. Way too many people tried to leave town with no gas in their cars, no food, no water. If you didn’t take care of these basic necessities at least one day before, you were SOL as everything was shut down, including the ATM’s. People are not prepared, even in hurricane prone coastal communities. The population has increased so much in our area in the last two years that I hate to even think about how bad it might be.
There are already carbon sequestration plants in operation. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of these plants is that no matter how much carbon dioxide they pull out of the air, the actual CO2 content of the air will not change much. That's because most carbon is locked up in living organisms. Removing CO2 from the air prevents it from being used by plants to make all the other carbon compounds; the plants that need higher levels of CO2 will die off, with their carbon returning to the air through decomposition. There will have to be a huge loss of biomass before we see any significant drop of CO2 through sequestration efforts.
It’s good to have all the bills paid, and to have a place to store up food. It’s good to know how to hunt, fish and garden, which means it’s good to have firearms you know how to use, with plenty of ammo. It helps to have some good neighbors or family for support, but most of all, and this is where you have to start and end, know that all things work together for the good for those who love the Lord. No matter how bad things get, continue being generous and kind, helping others however you can.
i’m just rolling in clover the fanatic global warmers have been taken down a notch including Al Gore- haven’t heard from him in a while have we?
just one thing less off of my mind
The problem is the number of people who will be unprepared to live without a steady flow of supplies and income or government aid. These people will be desperate and will do anything to eat. Not only will they be desperate, they will be angry at everyone that isn’t desperate and out for revenge. The government will also be desperate and it’s only recourse will be RE-ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES. this will mean confiscating things and distributing it among the desperate people in attempt to defuse the emergency.
If you are prepared you will have two enemies. the unprepared and the government. staying out of the big cities will somewhat protect you from the unprepared mobs, but not from the greedy government.
Good point.....The drugging of Americans (and their children) is a conspiracy, in my estimation. It is a big part of their plan. Notice the marketing of drugs 24/7 on tv, etc., and all the laws changed so they can market (and convince people of their sickness).
My advice: Get healthy....Vitamin D has been totally ignored by FDA and levels are way to low. Depression, insomnia...a host of problems are caused by lack of this vital vitamin.
So—make sure your levels are up and you get daily exercise!!! Let’s get really healthy—dump the pills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are not necessary if you are taking care of diet and exercise!!!! I’m getting a gun or two and lots of ammo. (My relatives have lots of guns cuz they are hunters and were in the army!!!! I have a cop in my immediate family too.
PS. There are a lot of good cops out there...they are not all corrupt although they are being used and made into useful idiots by our government.....not all fall for their lies though.
We got to clean up the bench.....that is where the corruption started.
Check out the survivalblog.com website. The short answer is that as written in Gods word, Isaiah 25.
I think you are right.
Our society has had many failings starting with the family and its values.Failings in our original moral fabric. We have also had malcontents, your van jones, the chip on the shoulder blacks, black panthers, brotherhood and a handful of communists who combined might want to make a issue but that would be short lived. If you look at the mal contents they have the greatest failings in family and adjusting to societal life and the social contract. If we have steady state, level heads will prevail.
Foreign threats? Mid eastern terrorists coming here to agitate a perceived frailty in America? I think that is a higher threat than anything else. America used to be an island to itself and perhaps needs to return to that.
the guy who has something... which is the majority will fight to keep and preserve his stuff.
America will work its way through this as we are unlike all the other countries globally. We have had peace here while many others have had civil wars and rewritten their constitutions many times. We have had a continuity of peace for many, many years. the best predicator of the future is the past. And we have a huge stability index. HUGE relative to the rest of the world.
I think you missed my point.
Assume for just a second that you were the character Q [from Star Trek], the omnipotent being who can change the universe in a little flash. Now imagine instantaneously removing all carbon-dioxide from the planet Earth... what happens to all the plants?
Just because the current uptake of all the plants isn’t going to impact the total levels of carbon-dioxide much doesn’t mean that there won’t be a “technological solution” to the ‘problem’ of having Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. We’re talking about a group of people who see Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant; not sane at all when you consider that the complete removal of Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere (because it is a pollutant) would kill off all* the plant life on Earth.
*Actually that might not be strictly true, if you were to instantly remove all the carbon dioxide from the air then then considering that the plants would ‘starve’ at different rates and decompose, and that animal-life expels carbon-dioxide, there might be some survivors in the plant-kingdom. {It’s really an application of the problem in math/physics with the water flowing into the tank and the water flowing out of the tank, which could be complicated even more by altering flow-rates based on the volume contained in the tank: will the tank overflow, will the tank empty, will it reach a stable point?}
They will get along pretty well regardless of how much CO2 is sequestered.
Running out of atmospheric CO2 is one thing we definitely don't have to worry about.
The only problem we should worry about with regard to CO2 sequestration, besides it being a complete waste of money and energy, is that it might also pollute the water supply.
If it really “devolves” to the colorful scenarios of the above freepers, there’s no reason the gov wouldn’t send in the Army to restore order at any means in the big cities.
I doubt the US gov would ever lose control entirely. It would just put its boot on everyone’s neck until it figured something out.
assistant: “Barack what do we do? The people are rioting and the cities are being destroyed!”
Barry: “I...’m glad you asked that. I’m going to go play basketball and think about it.”
assistant: “Sir, what’s that whistling sound?”
Barry: “Somebody passing by that thinks I’m sexy, of course.”
assistant 2: “Sir, N. Korea just fired a missile from the Pacific coast near San Diego! We weren’t paying attention because you said that made us look mean and suspicious!”
Barry: “That’s the whistling sound, then. Alright, we got a few minutes. Somebody throw the tipoff— or do you want to play horse?”
What if we just get to a situation where a very large percentage of the people are desperate to keep their jobs and/or income streams?
There are a lot of Freepers, myself included, who work for companies that are generally OK, but require us to do things that we just don't agree with. For example, about once a year I am required to fill out a form stating what I believe my race to be. If I leave it blank, then the person giving me the form fills in 'Caucasian'. This policy goes against my belief (shared by MLK Jr.) that our nation should be color blind.
These are currently only minor annoyances. But as jobs get harder to get, and more dearer to keep, more and more of us will be put in positions where we are expected to violate more and more of our principles or try to make it on our own.
Only so many people can go out to the forest and hunt and fish for survival before the forest is hunted and fished out.
I think that the doom and gloom has some justification. Shortages are a realistic possibility. Prices are rising for food and more food is being turned into fuel. The dollar is being devalued due to the Fed printing money we don’t have.
I think any societal breakdown will affect the political elites because they are primarily the author of these problems. People on fixed incomes are already struggling and things will only get worse if the tax problems are not corrected next year. I don’t buy the sci-fi flicks that promote the absolute breakdown of our society, but I do think that ANY disruption is rife with danger because it opens the door for any number of attacks by outside hate groups and inside anarchists.
I think your point was that these idiots will happily make the Earth unlivable in the name of making it "green." I completely agree.
What is debatable is whether they fully understand the consequences of carbon sequestration (assuming it is possible to develop a method of sequestering millions of tons of CO2) and choose to do it anyway, or if they are blithering idiots who, seeing little change in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (even as the biomass shrinks), redouble their efforts because they aren't doing enough.
There's a reference in my profile: some scientists estimate that life will go extinct in 100 million to a billion years from now, because there just won't be enough free CO2 around to support it any more. Natural processes have been sequestering CO2 ever since the Earth had an atmosphere.
{Its really an application of the problem in math/physics with the water flowing into the tank and the water flowing out of the tank, which could be complicated even more by altering flow-rates based on the volume contained in the tank: will the tank overflow, will the tank empty, will it reach a stable point?}
Good luck in trying to explain the physics/calculus to the average warmist. ;-)
[ In the later stages there will be food aid handed out by troops to people with the proper government vouchers...similar to the way food aid is distributed in third world nations with emergencies. Government will confiscate personal property that is deemed essential. You wont get paid for it. ]
They will also confiscate “hoarded food” so all you Mormons out there expect to be paid a visit by the stormtroopers for your year’s worth pantry of food, as it will be forfeit. They will probably have martial law orders in effect to either punish of kill so called “hoarders” (people who actually prepared ahead of time, no good deed unpunished and in martial law this is maximum truth).
I recommend you store half you floor in an easily accessible place, and the other half in a very secret place behind a false wall etc. Let you neighbors know where your “not hidden” stock of food is shortly after things fall apart. When they come to confiscate your food hand over the “in plain sight” food stocks willingly bus semi-grudgingly, and beg for them to “leave some for you” remember to act desperate, if they think they are taking the last of your food they may let you keep a little bit of it. If you are too easy going about them taking your food it may tip them to the fact you have more food squirreled away in a hidden hiding place. The idea of letting your neighbors know is that the trooper will be using your neighbors as an information resource. If your neighbors know about your “top secret food stash” the people carrying out the martial law orders will learn about it too.
Hmmm . . . we would have to agree on the starting time of any event. Of course, if I lose, you will have to collect in person.
;~)
[ In our nation alone, youll see around 25+ million people suddenly unable to procure their antidepressant meds. And hungry. ]
I saw that on TV last night, it was this show called “The Walking Dead”.
Something about Zombies.
[ The problem is the number of people who will be unprepared to live without a steady flow of supplies and income or government aid. These people will be desperate and will do anything to eat. Not only will they be desperate, they will be angry at everyone that isnt desperate and out for revenge. The government will also be desperate and its only recourse will be RE-ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES. this will mean confiscating things and distributing it among the desperate people in attempt to defuse the emergency.
If you are prepared you will have two enemies. the unprepared and the government. staying out of the big cities will somewhat protect you from the unprepared mobs, but not from the greedy government. ]
I live in the city, but at the edge of it suburbs, only a few miles till I run into gravel country roads. I know the back way to get back to the farmstead I grew up on. If things break down completely I am prepared to take my stocks of food, drive in the middle of the night to the farmstead and hide my food I bring in various nooks and crannies on the farm.
When stuff degrades to a certain point you must give the government something, but keep your own stashes completely safe and secret to give yourself an edge. Let the government think you are just another doofus who didn’t prepare. Stretch what food you saved in secret as long as you can and use it a supplement to the government provided crap.
one more number-#9 my paraphrase on Nancy Pelosi—”receipt of a unemplyment check creates jobs”
Thanks for the ping.
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