At its essence, a prepper lifestyle is geared toward avoiding trauma and drama. This explains why most preppers are:
Well-trained,
well-armed,
well-stocked,
morally upright and altruistic,
geographically well-situated in inland rural areas,
well-informed/situationally aware,
and,
self-sufficient.
This contrasts us from society’s normal sheeple, who are generally the inverse, to wit:
Poorly-trained,
unarmed or very poorly armed
minimally stocked,
morally ambiguous and opportunistic,
choose to live in vulnerable regions (i.e. high-population coastal cities)
generally oblivious and under-informed,
and,
system-dependent.
Media and Politics
One of the great ironies of 21st-century society is that the mass media is fixated on trauma and drama, yet they do very little to make it less likely. Books, movies, television, and the Internet are chock-full of situations with lots of trauma and drama: Natural disasters, wars, pandemics, major crimes, medical emergencies, fractured families, invasions, and so forth. People’s imaginations are drawn to these depictions for vicarious thrills.
But the last thing that we want to do is to actually live through something dramatic and traumatic. We just want to see actors play it out and prevail. Sadly, the majority of the populace sees these situations as purely fictional and without any personal ramifications. They carry on their daily lives under Normalcy Bias. They expect tomorrow to be just like today. But someday, almost certainly, that won’t be the case.
Normalcy Bias does indeed get shattered from time to time. 20 years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall. (Coincidentally, that was the same month that I launched SurvivalBlog.) Five years ago, the COVID pandemic was unleashed. Three years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. Next year… who knows?
While almost everyone would like to keep these scenarios fictional, leftist politicians have a tendency to create, encourage, or exacerbate situations with drama and trauma. They do so by consistently pushing Western nations toward authoritarianism, wars, economic instability, street protests, riots, and famines. And these same leftist politicians have encouraged urbanization, the breakdown of the traditional family unit and gender roles, civilian disarmament, hedonism, drug use, and government overspending. It is almost as if they subconsciously want to see negative trauma and drama manifested. I suspect that most of those working in government objectively and outwardly want to see smooth sailing, but their actions are slowly but surely leading Western nations to a catastrophic crescendo.
If you step back and look at society’s trends and the macro-level drivers in their quintessence, it is all very clear: There are problem initiators, and there are problem solvers. There are creative and productive folks, and there are takers. The politicians see the takers as their voting bloc and their meal ticket. So they continue to perpetuate this entire mess.
There is one universal truth to consider: Natural disasters are often unavoidable, but man-made ones are not. It is in the nature of man to be self-destructive. One way that we can avoid that is through Christian faith and conduct.
No Political Solution
The political process in Western nations is now nearly broken. Voters regularly cast their ballots hoping for free markets, less regulation, more prosperity, peace, strong borders, a sound currency, and fiscal responsibility. But the promises of politicians and what they actually deliver are worlds apart. Most politicians are self-serving sociopaths.
Here in the United States, we have two major political parties that are now both bent on overspending, increasing regulation, entrenched bureaucracy, and perpetuating the welfare state. Those parties are now both socialist. The only difference is that one of them is in more of a hurry than the other. The RINO leadership Republican Party gives lip service to conservative ideals and deregulation, but they carry on with pork barrel legislation, big government, overspending, bureaucracy, and over-regulation. Budget deficits and the national debt continue to grow. The RINOs maintain the status quo. But that status quo is essentially an enormous Slow Slide, leading us inevitably toward a general collapse.
Today, in the United Kingdom, acting on the orders of statist-leftist politicians, the police are fixated on political correctness and penalizing “hate speech” just as their nation is being overrun with misbehaving and often truly evil immigrants. Crime rates throughout Western Europe reflect the demographic shift. Just look at the statistics for burglary, robbery, arson, and rape. They all spiked upward immediately after mass immigration began. So, while grooming gangs go about their evil forays on the young and vulnerable, the British police are busy arresting people for hoisting their own national flag and saying things like: “We like bacon.” That is pitiful.
I recently re-watched the 2006 movie Idiocracy. I can now see that it was not just a silly futuristic comedy. It was a predictive documentary.
The Technological Long March
In the background of the aforementioned, the technological advances that began in the 19th Century are continuing apace. These developments have encouraged a surveillance state, unhealthy “screen time” fixations, societal stratification, over-specialization, urbanization, and power grid dependency. The recent rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.) has accelerated all of those trends. When used in conjunction with enabling tools like social credit scores, a cashless digital currency, facial recognition, deep fakes, and automatic license plate readers, A.I. will provide all of the building blocks for an Orwellian police state.
Conclusion
If you want to avoid traumatic and dramatic situations, then prioritize your life toward a preparedness lifestyle. Be consistent in your preparedness steps, move your family to a safer, more lightly populated rural region, and share the prepping message with your extended family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and church congregants. Mentioning SurvivalBlog to them is a good start. All of the tools that they will need are here in the blog.
Lastly, consider this: Each friend and acquaintance whom you successfully convince to ready themself constitutes one less person that will come begging on your doorstep for food or shelter the day after their normalcy bias bubble gets popped. So, sharing the preparedness word is in your own best interest.
We live in truly “interesting times”, so pray hard. – JWR
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