Another thoughtful article
written by J. Vanne.
FerFAL
Selfishness and
Preparedness
Recently, a small
firestorm was ignited by Valerie Lucus-McEwen, a government Emergency
Management employee, who had the temerity to accuse preparedness types
of “selfishness.” While your immediate reaction may be – as mine certainly was
– “Are people really and truly this thoughtless?” – this question does
deserve a proper answer, particularly as those who are easily influenced by the
leftist media, or who believe the state really and actually is the omniscient,
omnipotent savior of our personal and corporate lives, are actually
asking this question. So, let’s examine the issue:
First, many
preparedness types have, as part of their goal, the intent of helping neighbors and family who were
unable – or unwilling – to prepare. In my own case, part of what I have in mind
is assisting a large group of mentally retarded and Down’s syndrome children
that my church has taken under its wing. (A group the state would do no more
than “warehouse” if it were under their direction!). Not all preppers feel this
way, but I would bet my bottom can of stored tuna fish there is an exceedingly
large percentage of preparedness types who feel similarly.
The non-prepper
is, in my experience, generally of socialist orientation. The results of
this approach was tried – and found wanting - all the way back in the Pilgrim
era. Many of you are aware that when the Pilgrims first arrived, they worked
out of a communal system. The result was starvation and death. As this approach
did not work, they then “privatized” their system – and of course flourished.
You can easily research this history yourself, but if one has any experience
with human nature, it is immediately apparent why this didn’t – and has never
in history – worked. The issue is that human nature is imperfect and selfish,
just as Adam Smith wrote about in the Wealth of Nations. A simple recognition
of this basic aspect of human nature – and finding a way to work with this reality, rather than against
it, provides the most good for the largest number of people – exactly as Smith
wrote, and exactly as history has shown for anyone who has eyes to see. And for
those of you with Judeo-Christian worldviews, this issue is why Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn called Communism “a Christian heresy.” Long story short, the
question is: Is man perfectible (particularly with the best and brightest, such
as Hilary, George Soros, Al Gore and Obama telling – nay, forcing – us
what to do!), or are all men fallible, and the dictum of Lord Acton correct
that absolute power corrupts absolutely correct. There is an unbridgeable
divide between these two assumptions, and this divide makes itself manifest in
the Hamlet-like “to prep or not to prep” debate.
The Fleet Street
Letter put this matter perspicaciously a number of years ago, and is worth
quoting at length: “There are two major traditions in Western political
thought. The first is Aristotelian, logical, rational, centrist, mechanistic.
You concentrate power and truth in the centre and apply it outward, shaping the
world according to plan. This was the guiding principle of the Roman Empire. It
evolved into the Holy Roman Empire and the Church of Rome. Except for
Switzerland, it has dominated politics on the continent ever since. Most
recently, it has morphed into the European Union. The principle is simple –
smart people can figure out how to run things, and should be allowed to do so.
This was the idea behind Hillary Clinton’s health care task force (and now
ObamaCare), as well as Japan, Inc. and even Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist
Germany. It has animated nearly every politician (each one of whom, as
Garrison Keilor notes about Lake Woebegone children, are above average) in this
century. But there is another tradition that is much less well understood. It
is the tradition of the Roman Republic… of English common law… of Adam Smith
and Emmanuel Kant… of Austrian School economists such as Ludwig von Mises and
Friedrich Hayek and of pre-Rooseveltian American. It is organic, rather than
mechanistic – the tradition of tradition, based on the recognition that people,
no matter how smart, cannot replace thousands of years of accumulated
experience. Experience is embodied in the evolved systems of values,
customs, rules and traditions that people use to order and give meaning to
their lives. A free market and a free society allow people to express these
preferences, as well as allowing the process of social and civil evolution to
continue. This tradition, in other words, is neither liberal nor conservative
in the modern sense, but anti-political. Indeed, it is often seen as
“anti-intellectual” because it denies the authority of intellectuals to tell
the rest of us what to do (through the political process).”
Perhaps you, like I
do, remember the “best and the brightest” who led the Vietnam war? How did that
one work out? Or, if that news is too stale, perhaps you care to visit present
day Detroit – which was the first
city to adopt the socialist “Model
Cities Program” in under Mayor Coleman Young a number of decades ago. Similarly,
Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” was a quasi- socialist endeavor, which was intended
to end poverty. You can judge for yourself what all those $9 trillion dollars
spent on this “war” resulted in (hint: we now have just under 48 million
on food stamps, up from 32 million when Obama took office, and with more
poverty than ever).
The basic
misunderstanding is, as Frederic Bastiat wrote in The Law, “Socialism,
like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between
government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing
being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being
done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we
are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the
socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced
equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It
is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because
we do not want the state to raise grain.
There is yet another
misunderstanding to clear up for those of Christian persuasion, as exemplified
in the Book of Acts, 2:24, in the New Testament, which states about the early
believers “And all those who had believed
were together and had all things in common.” Dr. Jay Richards
addresses this superbly in his book Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is
the
Solution and Not the Problem by simply noting that the early Christians
held things in common privately, voluntarily and without compulsion.
This is light years away from the state forcing sharing, and
under compulsion.
And one more
important observation, that is applicable to the prepping community: When I
donate my own money at present, I
watch like a hawk where it is going, and what it is doing. When my money goes
for taxes to “help” others - for the few
dollars that actually make it past the money sucking gauntlet of bureaucrats - how much actually reaches its destination?
Some research shows as little as 10% or so. As the saying goes, it is much
better to teach someone to fish, rather than just gives them a fish for a day.
And I can do a thousand times more, with a million times more love, for 1% of
the money, that the government could ever dream of doing, if I were left with
my own money to donate as I wish. Similarly, preparedness is most optimally
left to the individual, not the
state. I am clearly not saying there
is no place at all for the state to assist. However, it should be ancillary and
very secondary in function. To do otherwise is to set expectations that can
only be dashed – exactly as was seen during hurricanes Katrina or Sandy.
So, how does this
relate to preparedness with potential future catastrophic disasters? In a
collapse – whether it be Argentinian/Greek/Zimbabwe style, or EMP, or a global
war, compassion must be personal and
voluntary. Not only is it more effective,
it is more ethical. And it is more ethical because it is more caring,
more direct, and more efficient In a collapse, there should be a
voluntary exchange, and for those that are not prepared, there should be some
type of assistance rendered by the one who has not prepared (it could be
cooking, gardening; perhaps doing guard duty or carpentry). Where this is not
possible, simple humanity and compassion should – and undoubtedly will be – the
hallmark of many preppers.
In a serious
collapse, there may well be a need to choose whom one would help, or
not, but that is a decision that will be very personal. For myself – in
contrast to the government representatives who so condescendingly accuse
preppers such myself of being self-centred, I will indeed (as noted above) look
to help the weak and helpless. You may object by saying “A lot of good that will do – we should, as
per people like Dr. Peter Singer, just let the weak die.” To which I reply “A
society that only values those of utility is not a society worth keeping – and
in fact, is precisely the type of society – with its abortions,
euthanasia, etc. – that got us into this mess in the first place.”
Another point: I
would be remiss not to mention in the context of this article is the very self-apparent fact that for every
person who is prepared, that is one less mouth to feed in a real crisis. This
needn’t be addressed further, as it is patently obvious, but is yet another
reality that the debunkers always seem, somehow, to neglect to address, though
it is staring them right in the face.
The regular silence by these debunkers is a stark testimony to what is
either a lack of critical thinking, or a purposeful lack of honesty is
examining the relative merits of preparedness.
God – or for the
non-believer, nature herself – has written self-preservation into our very
DNA. Certainly, from a Judeo Christian perspective, each individual
person has the right to self-preservation. The Bible is replete with laws
allowing for self-defense in the Old Testament, and even in the New Testament –
while unequivocally admonishing believers to be irenic and forgiving, also
quotes Christ telling the disciples, for example in Luke 22:36, in preparation
for when He is gone, “But now if you have
a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your
cloak and buy one.” There are historically several approaches to defense in
the Bible – complete pacifism, the use of “police” force, and just war, but
that is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice to say, self-defense is well
within the historical understanding of options for Christians in a violent
world, although admittedly this can be a difficult issue to navigate, and there
is a range of conclusions which sensible people can come to within the pale of
faith. Similarly, I extend this self-defense conception into that of realm of preparedness.
I think the extension is fair and reasonable, about which reasonable people can
disagree in some areas.
Also, relative to preparedness
and faith, clearly Proverbs 27:12 explicitly states – and which passage many preparedness types
are familiar with - “A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the
consequences.” In a world where well-regarded
individuals like Dr. Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University state the total
amount of unfunded liabilities – federal, state, municipal and corporate – are
now a staggering $222 trillion, where
the amount of derivatives (which Warren Buffet famously once called “financial
weapons of mass destruction”) world-wide makes that amount look like a
molehill, in a nation where people like Jon Corzine can “lose” $1.6 billion and
simply walk away without a day in jail, where lives are lost during Fast and
Furious and people just shrug their shoulders, or a in nation about which Billy
Graham’s wife Ruth once said “If God doesn’t’ judge America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom
and Gomorrah,” is preparedness unwise?
Leftists may say object, and that is their prerogative. However, if they
wish not to prepare, then perhaps
they ought to take to their own hearts and written commentary the one thing
they forcefully invoke for everyone else in every other situation – tolerance. What business of theirs is
it?
With all due
respect to them, why is it our non-prepper friends, as exemplified by the
written commentary of Ms. Lucus-McEwen noted above, why cannot they practice what they presumably
preach about tolerance? Why must people like this actively vilify those with
whom they disagree? (But of course, the answer is obvious – just as in the days
of Imperial Rome, everyone but
everyone must bow to the
all-encompassing supremacy of the state. To do otherwise means crucifixion –
2,000 years ago, this was in the arena; today, it is the high tech lynching of
a Clarence Thomas, the fashion execution of a Sarah Palin, or the just the
“mere” thuggery against those of us who beg to disagree with big government by
modern day Kristalnacht Alinsky ruffians.
The whole area of
faith and preparedness admittedly needs much further and deeper exegesis – but
hopefully this scratches the surface of the subject, and opens up additional conversation.
But even for the
non-believer, one’s body is wired for self-preservation. And if nature is all
that exists, logically one has no basis to “backtalk against one’s DNA,” which
has written self-preservation into the body. From either a biblical or
non-biblical perspective, self-preservation is an intrinsic “good.” Why
should preppers then be castigated?
One final – and extremely
telling – point about “selfish preppers.” The woman who wrote this disparagingly
of preppers was a government worker. This means she makes a good living
off of private sector people such as myself. As a matter of fact, I cannot
currently make adequate preparations for my family and I because I have to
provide a “princessly” salary and retirement package for her (the
average government worker may make a third more in salary than a private sector
worker, and retires much, much earlier). But here is the kicker: If there is a
disaster – it will mostly likely brought about by yet another miscalculation by
the self-proclaimed “best and brightest,” (think Vietnam, the internet bubble,
Long Term Capital Management, Jon Corzine, the housing bust, etc.). Do you know
where these “important” will people go? To continuity of government shelters!
In other words, if there is a miscalculation, and a nuclear war starts, or an
EMP or biological attack starts, they
are all set to retreat to specially built giant, lavishly equipped caverns – while
you and I fend for ourselves, due to a
mess of their creation! Any word from our “preppers are
selfish” commentariat on that? Why not?. If nothing else in this article sinks
home to you, this should make crystal clear the hypocrisy behind the prepper
criticism. The truth is, just as we see with today’s cronyism in high places, as
George Orwell so aptly noted, “In the socialist workers’ paradise, we’ll all be
equal… only some of us (usually them!) will
be ‘more equal’ than the others.” Just ask Nancy Pelosi why her Congress exempted themselves, their
cronies and their districts from ObamaCare if you don’t believe that.
In sum, I prepare
the same reason my all my forebears did each fall: I don’t know what the winter
(of this this case, the future) will bring. While for believers, God has
promised to be with us and sustain us, as the old saying goes, we can’t ask God
to direct our steps if we are unwilling to move our feet. I trust, and my feet move.
Posts
