10,000BC - Do you still want to be part of a group??

[Mortblanc]

These shows thrive on conflict and have no audience draw without it.

In the year 1607 a cross section group of Englishmen much like you are viewing landed on the shores of North America and had the exact same problem.

Fortunately their military leader, a mercenary named Captain John Smith, took the leadership role, backed up by his shaphance musket, and declared that anyone who did not work would not eat. He also instituted health and sanitation rules, which had been lax until that moment, causing much illness.

That solved the problem for a while, until Smith had to leave. Then chaos, confusion and eventually cannibalism broke out among the ranks and half of them ate the other half before supply ships arrived a year latter.

The American frontiersmen quickly found that moving groups of people into new frontier country required some prior planning. Far from the concept of lone wolf settlers living in isolated cabins, most frontier settlements were groups of people moving into new areas and establishing new governments or living under contracts that spelled out expected behavior and mutual support.

The Mayflower compact, the Watauga compact and the Cumberland Compact are a few examples. You can google them and see some of the hardships involved.

The Cumberland Compact is the example I am most familiar with. It specified the law and government of the original settlers of Nashville, Tennessee. 250 men signed the contract. Within one year half of them were dead, but the compact worked even through the most harsh times because it established leadership and standards of behavior.

From those examples has come the American tendency to elect leaders and prescribe rules in advance. It is often said that if three Americans were to crash an airplane into the ocean near a deserted island they would have a president, vice president and treasurer elected before they could swim ashore.

Leadership is a MUST !! That leadership can rise from within, be elected, appointed or enforced, but it is necessary among any group of people.

Leadership does not have to batter all in the immediate area, and it should not, but some one absolutely has to have the authority to demand that necessary functions take place, assign that responsibility and enforce the agreed upon rules.

I have not heard anyone suggest that "members" of a group should agree on and sign a contract before being allowed sanctuary.

The greatest fear among preppers is their knowledge that they are not leaders, will not be identified as leaders by anyone around them, and will not be respected in that role if they attempt to seize it. Therefore they insist on going it alone as the only sensible course of action due to the stupid people around them.