Does a person have a ‘duty’ or ‘obligation’ to another person? Or, put from another perspective, do you have a ‘right’ to someone else’s labors?

I was reading about doctors who refuse to treat people who are unvaccinated, and how those people are outraged that they are being denied care.  I understand that from a licensing standpoint, perhaps picking and choosing who you’ll help will result in you getting some sort of state sanction against. But do you, as a professional of any type (doctor, lawyer, dentist, etc.) have a right to refuse to assist someone for a reason as simple as ‘I don’t like you”?

I wonder about this because as the balkanization continues, we’re going to see more and more of what I call ‘bumper sticker apartheid’. Thats when someone comes to you for assistance, or commerce, or simply asking for directions and, when you see the bumper sticker on their vehicle describing their politcal beliefs that are fundamentally contrary to yours, you decide that you’re simply not going to engage them. At all.  Or vice versa…once they see your Trump sticker or NRA decal, you suddenly become some sort of untouchable troglodyte who is now beneath their contempt.

For better or worse, I’m starting to adopt that attitude. It used to be that I didn’t care what youre political, religious, sexual, racial, economic stripe was. You may be of a demographic I don’t like but I’d be willing to make a case-by-case determination if I wanted to deal with you. Sure, maybe you had a BERNIE 2020 sticker on the back of your Subaru, but you seem nice enough so I’ll help you change your tire. No more.

I used to feel that you and I could still get along even if we differed on political issues. Nowadays, though, politics has become a full-contact sport and when someone proclaims that people like me are the problem and that we need to be forced to conform/shut up/embrace the cause du jour/disavow a belief/support something we disagree with, it makes me want to simply not engage with that person. Like they don’t exist.

“But..people are, beneath it all, still people and those fellow humans deserve your help/sympathy/respect”, I hear the more moderate say.

Hey, you think Anne Frank’s dad would have pulled over to help the local SS guys when their car broke down by the side of the road? Because, you know, politics aren’t important when another person needs a helping hand….

So, if some doctor doesn’t want to treat me because I’m unvaccinated, do I have the right to be outraged and demand that he treat me? To my way of thinking, no. He’s a sovereign individual and doesn’t have any responsibility towards me at all. As an individual, he is free to refuse me treatment for any reason, as far as I’m concerned. And I’m free to take my business elsewhere. And, as an individual, when I see him getting curbstomped in his emergency room because a couple thugs didn’t think he was respectful enough when  their buddy was brought in from a drive-by, I’m free to step to the side and ignore his pleas for me to intervene.

I have no desire or intention to be the least bit supportive, assistive, or cooperative to anyone who, in my opinion, is actively working towards trying to discount me from society. Why would I interact in any beneficial way with people who want to censor, marginalize, deplatform, or ‘cancel’ me?

Thats the direction the world seems to be going, I’m afraid. First it was politics, then it was race, now its vaccination status. We never seem to find a shortage of things to fight amongst ourselves about, do we? Which is probably for the best since a cohesive nation would present a bit of a challenge to….

We’ve been calling it the Culture War for the last few years and it only shows signs of worsening. I have no desire to be on the front lines of it, but it appears that like many wars it’s going to be one I’m going to be forced to pick a side on. Perhaps sanity will be restored and we can all be civil while disagreeing, but I don’t see that coming for a while.

In the meantime, I’ll be happy to support those of my tribe, and I’ll, unfortunately, continue to shun those who work against it.

I’ve been through…let’s see….hurricanes, blizzards, forest fires, pandemics, economic turmoil, and just a generally bumpy existence. Number of rounds fired in total through all those incidents? Zero. Number of skulls cracked with a baseball bat? Zero. Number of gunshot and stab wounds incurred? Zero.

I mention it because, as I stroll through  my library of various ‘how to survive the end of the world’ books it seems like everyone is preparing for the final scene from The Wild Bunch.

I know the world is not a happy sunshine-y place. I know there are people who, even when the lights are on and the water is flowing, will still stomp your skull in for basically no good reason. I know that people, by and large, are dangerous critters. And yet…I’ve got fifty years under my belt and haven’t had to shoot anyone yet.

Yet it seems that a good 1/3 to 1/2 of any preparedness manual is about ‘self defense’ or ‘weapons’ or that sort of thing. Sure, it’s important… but when I think of the ‘disasters’ I’ve been through and what resources were used the number of rounds spent comes to…zero. On the other hand, the amounts of food, water, cash, batteries, toilet paper, radios, gasoline, light sticks, and tools comes out to non-zero.

“But..but Zero, it seems like every other post you have here is about guns and ammo!” This is true.But, to be fair, I don’t post about guns from the perspective of ‘get all you can so you can survive the new Mad Max world’, usually I post about them from the perspective of ‘get them while you can before they are banned’. Not quite the same thing. Guns are the low hanging fruit of preparedness blogging. People are far more interested in tweaked out ARs than they are the newest vacuum sealer or propane lantern. Not everyone, mind you….but most.

It reminds me of cop training…everyone gives cops a hard time for being unable to shoot straight. And while shooting people is part of the job, it is a microscopically small part of the job. Your average cop will use his Bic pen a bazillion times more often than he uses his Glock. Training often reflects that. Resources are directed where they are most likely to be needed, and your average badgewearer shoots people a lot less often than he writes reports, tickets, notes, accident forms, etc.

Guns are a part of any reasonably thought out plan to survive a disaster. However they are tiny part of the overall plan compared to things like water, food, gas, medgear, etc.

You know what I’ve discovered to be The Most Valuable skill for a ‘survivalist’ or ‘prepper’? Not having amazingly fast split times at the range….not being able to consistently ring the gongs at 200 yards…useful, but not as important as: being able to think logically, critically, and objectively. Your mileage may vary but I would say the most important skill I’ve picked up as a survivalist is… accounting. Once I figured out how to allocate, budget, and monitor my financial adventures it put me in a position to have all the other thngs that make surviving a crisis easier. But thats just me… it won’t be the same for you.

My long winded point is that guns are the supersexy common denominator of survivalism but they are not the most important. Don’t get so wrapped up in the boomtoys that you overlook the more used, more needed, more critical things like, y’know, food…money…fuel…water…meds…gear…etc. But don’t take my word for it…go read the AAR’s on the various survival forums for things that have happened over the last few years…riots, floods, earthquakes, etc. There was a lot less shooting than some of these preparedness manuals would have made you expect. Sure, having the Glock on the hip helped, but I have yet to read any encounter (except the classic Harry Beckwith Bullet Party) where someone went through more than a magazines worth of ammo.

Even in times of ‘non-crisis’ I still use gasoline, TP, food, water, clothes, toothpaste, soap, etc, every single day. I blow off 9mm and .223 maybe twice a month. While I stockpile guns and ammo, I probably stockpile just as much of the other stuff.

The classic meme is the survivalist with a mountain of ammo, a trainload of guns, and absolutely no food. An exaggeration, sure, but it makes a point. Buy the ammo, buy the guns, but keep some perspective.

In real life, I’m actually a fairly humble guy on pretty much everything. In fact, an outside observer would, probably accurately, say I even have low self-esteem issues. So it should be understood that this post isn’t bragging. I usually don’t brag because if I did something worth bragging about it’s probably something I should have done years sooner or with better results than I actually achieved. Anyway….

I was rolling through some old posts and noticed that several posts where I described changes in my life or courses of action I was taking have realized their potential. I thought it would be interesting to point them out.

After having limited employment opportunities, I decided that rather than agitate that minimum wage needed to be raised to $15, I needed to become the kind of person who was worth more. So..I went back to school. While in school I needed to actually get some direction and stop wandering aimlessly. I needed to develop a principle to use as a yardstick for my activities. And I needed to set some actual, defined, quantifiable goals. I also moved the direction of my efforts slightly from heavy-on-the-materiel to heavy-on-the-financial. And…it largely paid off. I hit virtually every goal I set, once I actually had a goal. The life I have now is far from perfect, but it is leaps and bounds more resilient than it used to be, and more importantly, there is substantial groundwork laid for the future.

It’s all stuff I should have done years ago, yep. But…maybe better late than never

What made the difference? (Other than having no real other options, I mean.) Figuring out goals and setting them. And then sticking to working towards them. Consistently. Short terms goals were easy. Any idiot can stay on a diet, exercise plan, steps-a-day, or other goal for two weeks. Thats easy. Two months? Harder, but within most of us. But…years? Thats a challenge. But…it can be done. I’m the least disciplined person you’ll ever meet. I always look for the easy way out. But if I could get my act together enough to hit some of these important goals (pay off house, get out of debt, finish college, bang Jennifer Law…wait, still working on that last one) then I can pretty much guarantee any person can. Heck, probably be easier for them than for me.

I’m not going to say I did it all on my own. Or that I’m some sort of self-made-man. Nope. I had help. People stepped in and stepped up here and there. Sometimes it was with a check, sometimes it was with an ‘attaboy’, but it was never all just me. And I’m fine with that. The people who helped me were the people I wanted in my life and they added to it as I added to theirs…and they proved that they were worth having in my life.

In my opinion, my life still isn’t anything to jump up and down about. There are still smoldering hot spots that could flare up anytime and start the blaze again, but things are far better than they used to be.

I’m telling ya man….find goals, set them, and then go after them ruthlessly. Worked (up to this point) for me.

So…the hordes are marching down the street towards your neighborhood. Sitting on the table before you is a brand new HiPoint 9mm and a box of Wolf ammo. Next to it is a brand new Glock 17 and a box of Federal ammo. You can only grab one ammo/gun combo. Which one do you grab?

Fairly confident most of you would eschew the HiPoint/Wolf combination. Yes? And why would you not choose them? Probably the most common answer would be something along the lines of “I don’t have confidence in the gun”, “The stakes are too high for me to risk relying on it”, or “I don’t trust the gun to perform as well as the other gun.” These are all perfectly valid concerns. I mean, think about it, when something as important as your safety and security is on the line don’t you want to have the most reliable, trustworthy, confidence inspiring gear on your side? of course you do. If you were jumping into the apocalypse you would judge every resource you have for it’s ability to be trusted for reliability and performance.

So…why do some folks keep people in their life who wouldn’t pass that same inspection? Do you really hold your handguns, flashlights, and pocket knives to a higher standard than you do the people you let into your life, your home, and your heart? Shouldn’t you hold the people in your life to at least the same standards as you do your pistol?

Years ago I thought about the people that I let into my life. I narrowed them down into three categories: people who made my life pleasant and added to my life, people who didnt make my life better but didnt make it worse, and people who made me unhappy and who subtracted rather than added to my life. The first two groups made the cut, the last group…not so much. And that wasn’t a terribly easy decision to make. There’s people I genuinely care about and love out there whom I just simply will not let into my life because having them involved in any facet of my life causes unhappiness. I trimmed out a bunch of ‘casual friends’, acquaintances, and even some family. What remains are people whom I actually care about, who take an interest in me and my life, I trust to varying degrees, and feel comfortable being myself around.

I’m not saying I have to ‘get something out of’ having a person involved in my life, rather I am saying if I don’t enjoy having someone in my life, or if its just a one-way street of intimacy and concern, then there’s no reason for me to let them in.

If you genuinely believe that the life we know is starting a slide into some difficult times, perhaps even really difficult times, does it make sense to expend time, emotion, privacy, trust, and concern on people who seem to only make you sorry when you talk to them? And does it make sense, in these times of…heightened concern… to have unreliable, untrustworthy, uncertain, or uncomfortable people around? No, it doesn’t. And, sadly, that means that some relationships, with people you may have known for years, need to be taken out and put down like a lame horse.

Only you know who in your circle of family and friends is adding to your life and who is taking away from it. Maybe its your cousin who wants to know everything about whats going on in your life but shuts you down when you ask about his. Or it’s the guy from work who you get along great with except for every other Friday when he calls you for a ride home because he’s drunk..again…and needs a ride. Maybe it’s your sister-in-law who seems to do nothing but tell your wife about how much of a loser you are and how she could have done better. Could be it’s even a brother or parent who, when their name shows up in your caller ID, ruins your day. Can you ‘ghost’ these people? Can you minimize their role in your life? Can you just cut them off?

The people that you’re going to ride out Ragnarok with shouldn’t just be an approximation of the random strangers you share an elevator with. There should be purpose and design in who you let into your life. And that phrase, ‘let into your life’, means exactly that. If you have someone in your life that you wouldn’t feel comfortable with driving your truck, housesitting for you, or playing with your kids when you’re not around…..then you might wanna think about whether you have the room for them, emotionally and strategically, in your life.

I own a lot of guns. A lot. And there isn’t a single one that I have acquired that I feel is a junker or a Saturday night Special or just a plain ‘ol piece of crap. I expended resources acquiring each of those guns and keeping a clunker serves my interest in no way whatsoever. I have no problem holding the people in my life to that same standard. I can be friends with lotsa people, but the list of people I take into my house and heart is extremely small. But, those people are, to me, good people worth knowing for what they add to my life. When the end of the world comes (or the end of MY world) , I’ll have no problem having them ‘on my side’ because they’ve been on my side all along…otherwise I wouldn’t be having some sort of relationship with them.

So, my advice to you is that if you really are worried about where things are going perhaps it’s time to triage through your friends/family relationships with as critical an eye as you go through the display case at the gun counter of your local shop.

Just something to think about.

Someone in comments mentioned that perhaps if I was set in terms of gear, perhaps I could opine on necessary skillsets.

Well, this is very abstract, but there is but one skill, in my opinion, that the serious student of survivalism (or even just plain ‘ol Life) should try to develop. Develop this one skill and all the other skills flow from it and are magnified by it.

Learn to think ‘outisde the box’. What does that mean? It means always be open to the previously unthought of, to new ways of thinking, to expanding your outlook past it’s present limits. Lemme put it another way….theres the old joke about what book would you want if you were stuck with only one book to read. The smartass answer is ‘a dictionary’ because it contains ALL books.

Learn to think for yourself, think critically, be able to see from other viewpoints, and whatever skill you try to learn next will be easier and more thorough. Don’t let yourself be limited by religious, political, social, or classist dogma. Keep an open mind so you can see things from every angle and point of view. You don’t have to agree, support, or believe in other viewpoints and perspectives in order to see things from those angles…you just need to be willing to try it so you can explore a topic as thoroughly as possible.

A zillion years ago, armies used to line up facing each other and start shooting until one side had enough and quit. That was how wars were fought. Everybody knew that, right? Hiding behind rocks? Shooting and running? Taking out the officers first? Why, thats the tactic of the heathen savages! And, because of racial, political, and cultural dogma, a lot of European wars were fought the same way for a hundred or so years. And then finally someone thought outside the box, decided to ‘stoop’ to the level of the savages, and discovered that..hey…they were on to something with that whole ‘shoot from cover’ thing.

Being willing to explore previously ignored, undeveloped, or undiscovered ideas is like suddenly discovering the switch for the high beams as you’re driving down a pitch-dark road at night. Not allowing yourself to be constrained into a narrow or rigid way of thinking makes it easier to recognize new ideas, opportunities, and alternatives.

Ayn Rand said that man’s mind is his primary tool of survival. You don’t have to agree with Rand on everything but I think we can all pretty much agree on that one statement. The ability to think….think clearly..think for yourself…develop your own ideas and outlooks….is the starting point for learning everything else worth knowing. Sure, you can grab Ham radio For Dummies and pass the exam.. or you can think about how radio works, find some topics on the subject, perhaps some history, that interest you and lead you to learn more, build a few primitive made-from-parts-around-the-house radio receivers because you have a burning need to know how things work…that sort of thing. Develop a curious mind and learning things will never seem like learning.

Everything I’ve ever wanted to know…I mean really wanted to know about…I taught myself. Of course, back then it was more difficult since your only recourses were library cards and first-hand experience. Nowadays genuine world-class experts can show you how to do anything for free on YouTube. How incredible is that? If there’s a skillset for anything that isn’t taught somewhere on the internet…I can’t think of it.

So, yeah….for me…the most useful skillset is being able to think for myself, draw my own conclusions, be willing to explore opinions or ideas that are foreign, uncomfortable, or even opposite of what I believe, and to be open to new ideas.

It’s really a hard task to try and put it all into words, but there you have it. I probably didn’t explain it as well as I could have but maybe some of it resonated. Once you have that mindset, you won’t need anyone to tell you what skillsets you should bone up on….you’ll already know because you know whats best for you and your situation.

Focus, Zero, focus…..

I’ve been a bit remiss lately on the physical side of preparedness and been spending too much time on the theoretical end of it. What does that mean? It means I’ve been staring into the computer too much making plans and strategies for the upcoming year and not spending enough time walking through CostCo, WalMart, and Home Depot getting things to improve my resilience.

What sort of planning? Honestly, mostly financial planning and reviewing. I’m reviewing how I did on my financial goals for 2020 (nailed them…nailed ’em hard), thinking about where the goalposts should be for 2021, and figuring out how much money I need each month to hit those goals. Thats the easy part. The more challenging part is adjusting the calculations for if I miss/surpass the monthly goal. I’ve a spreadsheet for that, but it takes a bit of fine tuning. Like I said…its all theory. But theory doesn’t fill the freezer. I need to remember to do the more practical stuff and get out there and buy the items, stock the shelves, fill the freezer, rotate the fuel, check the expiration dates, evaluate the quantities, etc, etc.

I’m still sitting at a pretty good level of preparedness from all of 2020’s renewed urgency. Just need to keep that motivation going. The Kung Flu thing has sort of had all the shiny taken off it and many people aren’t as frantic about it as they were last year, so motivation might seem a bit reduced. However the new(er) motivation is the upcoming economic…activities…supported/fomented/mandated/foisted upon us by the new administration. And that’s something I prepare for more with bullion than bouillon. As of late I’ve been just as concerned about stacking cash ( and cash like instruments) and investing as I’ve been in stacking ammo and stockpiling. I really am exceptionally diversified.

Inauguration is this week and even if it doesn’t turn into a boogaloo theres still those ‘first 100 days’ agenda items that will try to get ramrodded into law in a hurry. All in all, the year has barely started and its just fixin’ to get more interesting. Sell the jet ski, cancel the trip to DisneyLand, and start making more trips to CostCo.