Is it possible we are all just kidding ourselves?

[bigpaul]

my philosophy on prepping is "its better in my stores than on the supermarket shelves", its no good in an emergency running low on stuff when the supermarket is 20+ miles away and the roads are blocked anyway.

[Skean Dhude]

I wouldn't worry about the spooks. Unless they do officially class preppers as terrorists, and you never know, they are not interested in what we do. A few items in stores puts about 80% of the country behind bars and only a few 'modern' men would make it. That would screw up the gene pool.

OPSEC is mainly for your neighbours. The spooks know a lot more about you than you think.

[Mortblanc]

Before they can class a "prepper" as a "terrorist" they are going to have to define the terms, both of them.

Pity is, most people that class themselves as "Preppers" might not make the government definition!

Two cans of beans under the floorboards, a Rambo knife and a pair of surplus camo pants in the drawer might not get you past the qualifications.

Imagine , spending all that time slipping about in the shadows, avoiding the record keepers, depriving oneself of internet and media connections, only to find out no one cared!

[Scythe13]

(24 July 2014, 16:13)Mortblanc Wrote: Two cans of beans under the floorboards, a Rambo knife and a pair of surplus camo pants in the drawer might not get you past the qualifications.

Imagine , spending all that time slipping about in the shadows, avoiding the record keepers, depriving oneself of internet and media connections, only to find out no one cared!

It's like training for 10 years for an Olympic event, but not qualifying...wasted 10 years.

I think the definition of prepper would be an interesting one.

[bigpaul]

define "wasted"!!! nothing in prepping is ever wasted.

[bigpaul]

anyone who thinks prepping is a waste of time is not a prepper, they are a sheeple.

[Spandex228]

It's strange isn't it, a lot of people think preppers are odd or eccentric but a lot of what we are prepping for has happened before, they really do never learn.

---

I think in some occasions we can over think, or over engineer things. What if a little goes a long way and by prepping on a small scale we do ourselves a massive benefit eg, our two week food supply ends up lasting a month, any prepping is a lot better than none !

[bigpaul]

well said Spandex, not all preppers are TEOTWAWKI type, most prep for unemployment, sickness and rising prices, look at the "fuel protests" of a few years ago, if you had enough food stored to be able to sit back and wait for it to end you were one up on most other people who by day 2 were panicking.

[Tezauzz]

It's human nature to want to survive, for whatever reason. Here in Somerset while I was away the floods ravished and cut a lot of people off, destroyed farmland and possibly livestock (I don't know the extent as I was bobbing about off the coast of Syria on a warship escorting chemical weapons for destruction at the time which wasn't fun. Carrying and practising wearing CBRNDC suits and respirators on a weekly basis).
That to me is the reason to prep. Doesn't have to be TEOTWAWKI. An unexpected change in lifestyle that causes stress and panic where the realisation that food and water are no longer available, regardless of duration.
Sheeple expect outside agencies to help them in times of crisis but there's only so many and so much they can do. And Somerset wasn't nearly as important during the floods as London was from what I saw on the news!!
I've seen the tragedy before with the bush fires and cyclones in Australia. People may not all survive but I know if I do I sure as hell want some skills, stores and security to make sure I stay that way

[Mortblanc]

One of the other forums I frequent has just been through a similar incident to the consideration here.

Recently one of the members was the victim of a wild fire that burned his house to the ground while he was away. That happens in our western states where population has extended into areas that should never have been inhabited and wildfire abound.

This person is a Veteran of several combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a member of the local SAR unit and is an EMT first responder by profession. He is a skilled wilderness technician with survival and SAR skills out the wazoo. He does this for a living.

He was also prepped for a year with food, water, meds, weapons and ammo.

It all burned to the ground!

Physically and mentally this man could operate with the best if the situation involved someone else and was presented to him as another person's emergency. He was ready for TEOTWAWKI beyond the realm almost any British prepper could imagine. But when it involved him and his possessions, leaving him with only the shirt on his back and a pickup truck, with no prior warning or work up, he went off the deep end.

Completely psycho!

This happened three weeks ago and this man is still addled, incoherent and intoxicated. He has required intervention by friends and a suicide watch and it appears he may never completely recover from the trauma.

And this was just a local wild-fire that burned only 13 homes.

If you can't handle the little stuff, or don't know how you would handle a local problem beyond hiding under the bed or running off to the woods, don't even start thinking about advising folks on a larger national and international situation!