Posted on 12/08/2012 7:07:43 PM PST by dynachrome
Last week on the website Emergency Management, there appeared a blog post written by an emergency manager named Valerie Lucus-McEwen in which she made a grave error in judgment. She called doomsday preppers “socially selfish.”
She based this startling conclusion on the National Geographic’s “The Doomsday Prepper” series and concluded that because the people featured in this show were spending their OWN time and their OWN money to stockpile their OWN resources in order to prepare their OWN families for whatever disastrous scenario they foresaw, they are selfish. Specifically, as another emergency manager phrased it, this is “a level of indulgence that is selfish and counter-productive to providing for the common good.”
snip
I, along with many in the prepping community, found this attitude disturbing to the point of creepy. It was exacerbated by the follow-up comments as she replied to reader questions. “It really doesn’t matter how much food you have or what you buy with your money,” she writes in a comment. “The tipping point is how you use it. … Is it something you are planning to hoard or are you working in your community to make sure everyone else is prepared also. I’m not sure how else to say it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
“Can’t agree with this comment at all.This economy has too many people scraping to stay afloat. It has nothing to do with stupidity in many cases.”
This economy didn’t come to a recession just in 2008. It was obvious more than 10 years ago in 2001 when the first crash happened, and people had means then, so why didn’t they take opportunity then? Why didn’t they secure their futures instead of wishing a downturn economy wouldn’t happen. Prepping isn’t about gather things, it is about being prepared for all issues. So, yes, it was stupidity to ignore what was happening over all these years.
“we’ll carve you grasshoppers up and spit you out.”
As one friend puts it: “Grasshoppers, the other dog food. My dogs won’t starve because there are plenty of stupid people that think they should.”
“I CANNOT be responsible for the rest of the crowd.”
I find there are two basic types of people that hate preppers: Those that think they will somehow take what the peppers have and are demonizing them now to drum up public support to attack them later, and those that are too lazy to do the same for themselves and are angry at themselves for being lazy but project their anger at preppers.
The fact is no one can feed their neighborhood for but a few days before all their food is gone. It simply takes massive tonnage of food and supplies to keep society going and no one is going to store that much by themselves. I know people that think they’ll store extra items and be good little citizens feeding the “needy” but they fail to realize just how needy everyone will be and that their provisions will be gone in hours or days and they get to starve too.
Anyone that starts prepping quickly realizes these things and their preps turn to weapons. People tell their families their plans only to hear, “Good to know, we’ll be coming to your place empty handed.” They try to talk to their neighbors about current events and maybe planning to be prepared only to hear, “Good to know, we’ll be coming to your place empty handed.” They hear others say, “Those people with stuff had better be prepared to share or else the only things I need to find food are my guns.”
Damned Straight! Another vermin type seems to be coming is the HOA President type. The type that lets such a silly title go to their heads and wants to proclaim that the community will create food bank for everyone and they’ll be coming around to collect everyone’s food stuffs. Yeah, I’ve read a few accounts of such proposals. It’s why I am a good aim.
“I’ve been told it’s foolish to think you can repel ALL the zombies.”
When the water stops and the food runs out many will die from dehydration and starvation. Many will die in the ensuing violence. Zombies have a way of reducing their own population counts.
‘Selfish’ first requires a responsibility to others and then that responsibility is not taken. However, with prepping, no one is responsible to feed others. Therefore, prepping is not selfish in any way. It is irresponsible not to prep.
Another definition of selfish: Needing to care for one’s self and failing to do so but demanding others do it for them. That’s selfish. These non-preppers are selfish.
Which was a monumental FAIL.
She never "walked back" anything. She merely attempted to distinguish between "disaster" prepping (hurricanses, power outages, etc.) from "doomsday" prepping (societal collapse, chaos, looting, anarchy). It seems to me that "doomsday" preppers are essentially extreme "disaster" preppers. And Valerie is simply another "it takes a village" communist. (The Ubama communists always give themselves away with their repeated overuse of the word "community" [= "commune - ity"].)
Anyway, I sure hope this moron Valerie's 15 minutes are up soon - - she's getting way more attention than she deserves.
Yep, my feelings exactly, with the single exception of Salvation Army.
“My charity now is personal, and given directly to those I have deemed deserving of same. ZERO general charity, and especially none to groups with “overhead”. . . .”
Dittos. I am in the same boat. I give to those that I know could use a handup but I will never give to “charities” when they give to those that vote to take more from me in taxes and their CEO rides around on private jets.
She made it sound as if you can’t save everyone then the human race should all perish together
It’s the communist creed - - everybody must be equally miserable (except, of course, for the political elite “leaders”).
In addition to that I’ve been eBaying what I would normally have donated. My kids’ clothes are going like hotcakes. In fact, with the sales of one lot of baby girl clothes and two lots of toddler boy clothes I’ve paid for thier Christmas gifts. I found more boxes last night and I just put those lots up on eBay. I think I’m going to get my husband and iPhone 4S with the money, with enough left over to cover a few phone bills. I’m eyeing up our library. In it there are a lot of books written by what we now know to be RINOs. I think a lot of books will be going up for auction by the end of the day.
Yep. The government won’t save you, but those preppers are selfish.
lol
Great words from the Bible. It gives me an idea for Christmas. A needle point or embroderied verse to go with the BOB or Auto Kit.
Maybe it would be more effective to give them some seeds and a scoop of compost? I might have to think on that.
Most communities do have disaster contingency planning groups at a local, regional, and state level. It is pretty advantageous to know what the local yokels are planning too! Probably should be part of every prepper’s game plan: Volunteer and Reconnoiter.
And, I say again, every single prepper does help the community, because that is one less person that the community has to worry about helping when an emergency hits.
I am agreeing with all the sentiments. Take care of your immediate family. Try to get everyone else to do something for themselves.
However, I do believe that now is the time to prepare yourself mentally. By now, you should have reconoitered around the neighborhood and become aquainted with your neighbors.
Some who are preparing may be useful particularly in resisting hoards from the cities, but are you really willing to shoot the others? Is there a neighbor or two that you just don’t think you could shoot? What about their kids? Can you really do it?
If you can’t, then you are going to have to plan a little differently to be able to retain your own supplies and avoid pulling the trigger.
Also, if there are people in the neighborhood who have skills you may need: Doctor, Nurse, Moonshiner(LOL), you may want to put a little away for them - just consider it barter preperation.
Very salient points. As my daughter was preparing for a trip to Haiti, I told her, “you are going to learn the true meaning of the word poor”.
It really opened her eyes. To this day, she can’t even talk about it without crying.
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