Piped in from the Sierras? Stolen from the Sierras is more accurate.
thc0655: Depends upon what one expects as to whether I am being unduly optimistic I’d guess. Chris and Sebastion mentioned Argentina. I don’t know if you have read FerFal’s blog on living through a couple of the economic crashes down there, but if you haven’t I recommend it highly. Very good first hand account of a man living through a REALLY difficult situation.
Reason I mention him is that I recall him losing his patience with those who kept bringing up “what if” scenarios which led to wanton violence. Of course there was violence, and of course he had to go heeled, but it was still a country where the rule of law held a lot of sway. Getting Ole Reliable out and putting a hole in someone who was stealing your garden produce would get you the same result as in the time before the economy augered in at Mach 2. Namely you would be branded a lunatic, followed by a quick trial and long stay in the penitentiary.
I consider the Mad Max scenario to be a very low percentage outcome. As in, not a prayer. So I don’t spend time planning for it. Others don’t feel the same way so they may spend a lot of time on it.
But as to the OP about moving to the country? Maybe there is a grain of truth in what Balin the dwarf said: “Aye, the wild is no place for gentle folk…” But I’d also say that I sincerely doubt I’ll see roaming warbands laying waste to vast sections of my sovereign mother. Not in my lifetime.
Will
Hey PW,
I think the violence thing is really site dependent. Argentina vs Venezuela are stark contrasts. Third highest murder rates in Venezuela… Argentina wasn’t ever even close to that. As long as the police is getting payed/fed there is a chance for civility. The main thing is calories, as soon as the general population isn’t getting enough grub people will start to lose it. Argentina is one of the worlds breadbaskets, its economy is diversified. Through the economic crisis food was still being produced and serious starvation was avoided, Venezuela not so much. They are a 1 trick pony, oil export dependent economy.
Short term, baring a black swan landing, Countries that are net food exporters should maintain some order. You might end up with a socialist government (Argentina) or a totalitarian one(Venezuela). Either way short to long term we get a lower standard of living and higher crime. For me the choice is between living in a city that becomes Detroit or worse, or a depression era small farming community. Both have their benefits and drawback but for long term resiliency the choice seems easy (but with a bunch of hard labor).
S.
I am reposting this here as its appropriate to the topic: “After letting the dust on that upheaval settle down, I find myself filled with energy to begin anew, this time on a much larger property that can support a much larger vision, and many more people besides my own nuclear family.”
I am very interested in hearing how the new development progresses in R.I. I would love to be a part of that but its too far North for me and my family. Nevertheless it can serve as a model for others who might wish to create a similar intentional neighborhood in other locations which might be closer to their current friends and family. As you know, I am interested in creating a similar neighborhood in the northern part of Costa Rica. I picked that location due to some of its inherent sustainable advantages as well as its lack of a strong central government (and lack of an army)…it is the opposite of a police state. One huge concern with starting an intentional community in the US is that regardless of what state that community is in, it still is under the thumb of the US Federal government and agencies. All of the debt and the laws that Congress passes will get passed on to it’s subjects whether they agree with it or not. Since the Federal Government does not abide by the limitations put on it by the Constitution (which had the individual States being far more Sovereign than they are today), it has reduced our freedom of choice as citizens dramatically. Now if we really want to opt out of the status quo imposed upon us by these Federal bureaucrats, our only real option is to leave the country. I am hopeful that the concept of Secession will become much more openly discussed. Without the possibility of Secession, there is little to force the Federal Government to devolve some of the power it has coerced and giving this back to the States where it rightfully belongs. This topic of Secession is important enough that I would like to see it become its own thread at PP. For those interested in the historical precedent on why Secession was always envisioned as an option by the original founders and States, I highly recommend the book Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century. There are a number of interesting concepts in the book (besides the legal grounds for making secession possible), one of which has to do with the ideal size of population which can be governed effectively…the idea that bigger is better regarding government accountability is highly refuted. Of the worlds 223 political entities, 50% are below 5.5 million people. 18 of the top 20 GDP per capital are in small sovereigns (under 5 million) and all but one of the top 10 are under 5 million. All this to say that I believe long term its likely that the US will break apart and that some of the individual states might become sovereign entities which would allow true diversity of opinion and true options on where and how to live and be governed…some states might seek to have greater centralized control over its citizens while others might opt to be less involved and leave decision making to local towns and families. California or New York might have a very different view of government vs where I live (Texas) or Florida or R.I. Rather than force all parties to live by a centralized authority, each could pick their own government and citizens would be free to move to another state which might be a better fit with their beliefs. Since none of us has any control over our current Federal Government and when we might really be allowed the freedom to make our own choices locally, our only option for now is to look for locations outside the jurisdiction of US government which means a different country. I wish it didn’t have to be that way but see no alternative until secession becomes a real option in the US. Incidentally, I attended a Mises Institute meeting in Houston back in 2015 where the topic was Secession. Two of the main speakers were Ron Paul and Ron’s ex-Chief of Staff, Jeff Diest who is now President of the Mises Institute. Jeff gave a great introduction on the topic of Secession. Basically his message was secession starts at home (ie in the family) and is unlikely to ever be adopted by the normal electoral process but that having the ability to secede is the embodiment of liberty and would have been embraced by our founders. Some excerpts from this speech: Mises wrote in 1927: “The situation of having to belong to a state to which one does not wish to belong is no less onerous if it is the result of an election than if one must endure it as the consequence of a military conquest.” And from novelist L.P. Hartley, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” The America we thought we knew is a mirage; a memory, a foreign country. Frankly it seems clear the federal government is hell-bent on Balkanizing America anyway. So why not seek out ways to split apart rationally and nonviolently? Why dismiss secession, the pragmatic alternative that’s staring us in the face? Secession, properly understood, means withdrawing consent and walking away from DC — not trying to capture it politically and “converting the King.”
Secession really begins at home, with the actions we all take in our everyday lives to distance and remove ourselves from state authority — quietly, nonviolently, inexorably. The state is crumbling all around us, under the weight of its own contradictions, its own fiscal mess, and its own monetary system. We don’t need to win control of DC. What we need to do, as people seeking more freedom and a better life for future generations, is to walk away from DC, and make sure we don’t go down with it.
All of us, regardless of ideological bent and regardless of whether we know it or not, are married to a very violent, abusive spendthrift. It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to get a divorce from DC. Jeff concludes with specific recommendations on how we can all secede on a personal level.
His speech can be read here:
http://mises.org/library/secession-begins-home-0
Canberra has, at current rates of consumption, about 3 years of stored water remaining assuming no significant rain in that time. That’s about 50% of capacity. We used the first 50% in the last 3 years.
The government continues to suffer badly from growthitis. A new suburb is being built near me even now, the bulldozers scraping all vegetation off the land, any good soil taken away for separate sale, the dust blowing in the endless winds we’ve been enduring for the past few weeks.
If the city’s population grows without limit, then the city’s water supply grows without limit. I cannot see any way to break that nexus.
Blind fool that I am: technology will always save us!
Down here in Tucson, the local TV news actually came out of the closet and said that tap water may stop flowing in a couple of years, and that was a year ago. It’s mostly due to Lake Mead running dry. What’s left will be a big source of conflict between AZ, NV, and CA. Guess who will win that one. At the same time the latest news about a local golf course’s green fees gets more coverage.
100 years ago the Santa Cruz river flowed through Tucson all year. Not any more. The river flowed from the Mexican border north through Tucson. About 50 years ago a copper mine 50 miles to the south purchased all of the region’s water rights. They are required by law to water down the tailings in order to minimize the dust blown into Tucson. Those sun lovers better learn how to love the taste of dust in a couple of years. The whole region is going to be a much hotter dust bowl.
Meanwhile I’m getting close to finalizing my relocation plans. I want to be around lots of water, clouds, rain, livable temperatures, fewer people, etc. More on that later.
Thank you cleanenergyfan for the review of Jeff’s mises article. In particular, you mentioned that “our only real option is to leave the country… .we need to walk away from DC, and make sure we don’t go down with it…”
The referenced article at https://mises.org/library/secession-begins-home-0 posits two most important points:
One, “Some people will always support the state, … we make a fatal mistake when we dilute our message to seek approval from people who seemingly are hardwired to oppose us. And we waste precious time and energy.” In my opinion it’s not “some” but instead MOST people (I estimate between 90-95%) are incurable Statists. We cannot confront them but should instead avoid triggering them by revealing to them how insignificant we are so that they can safely ignore us stupid, poor and weak country/farm dwellers.
We can have much freedom inside the collapsing State this way. We can acquire/generate much real wealth hidden in plain view of Statist oppressors, by being stupid and poor in the countryside. “Nothing to see here!”
Two, we can take many steps to “secede right now” regardless of where we are (don’t have to leave the country). Jeff advises (see the list at end of his article) avoiding the statists (I call them the “matrix dwellers” who can be identified by their behavior of constantly staring at a small screen held in front and quirkily stroking the surface thereof while walking around outdoors). Jeff gives many specific suggestions including for example, taking small steps towards resiliency in energy, food, education etc. These steps, taken by poor idiots who are too stupid to join the Matrix, are invisible to the Matrix dwellers.
Clean energy fan, I agree with making your topic a focused discussion group and suggest detailing/prioritizing steps that we can all make regardless of where we are to secede. By the way, isn’t the “secession” referred to here really the same as escaping the matrix? The statists have acquire ownership or persuasive control (via rich-man’s club) of facebook, google, CNN, MSNBC, twitter etc. and a first step towards secession (I propose) is to cleanly understand this and to free one’s mind first. John Prine clairvoyantly sang about how to do this years ago : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BofvfVPFbiM regarding simply abandoning the media such as TV and newspapers.
I suggest that we focus on “reality check” mechanisms (what are these, how can we use reality checking to help us escape?) as a first step. In this vein consider that the “reality check” of empirical science was the analogous tool used in the middle ages to banish superstition control and help escape from that age’s feudalism. The last Renaissance was driven by such independent thinkers who pulled themselves up by the tool of reality checking (science) to confront the fake news and opinion of that time. What such tools are available to us now to escape the Matrix? I don’t know the answer but it seems helpful to interact directly, face nature by making our own food and energy and follow John Prines advice in "Spanish Pipedream: (Blow up your T.V. , throw away your paper , go to the country, build you a home. Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches try and find Jesus on your own.) Anyone else want to discuss this in a separate thread?
Meanwhile I’m getting close to finalizing my relocation plans. I want to be around lots of water, clouds, rain, livable temperatures, fewer people, etc. More on that later.Every spot I am currently examining has water. Lots of water. Year-round surface streams here in a region where there aren't any big fights over who owns it. CO is a different story. AZ, NM, and other bits and parts of surrounding states are in dire straights. And yet, even with all of that looming, growth and building continues. It's such a sickness that it's hard to understand. Gluttony was the sin of eating oneself to an early death. It was also the overindulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or wealth, especially as status symbols. Pretty much describes every local growth-oriented government... Choose wisely. I am examining new properties each week. Getting a pretty good feel for the pros and cons and overall market conditions. Someday a magic place will appear and I will know it. After all, chance favors the prepared.
movement in the south.
watch it. It may inform your decisions…just a bit
Hi Chris, I’d like to add a couple of details to the water issue.
- Another reason to choose a lightly populated region that has more than enough of water is that even if it is a Prior Appropriation state, it won’t have the degree of developer’s influence on the state legislature to wiggle around the groundwater laws (like Arizona did) so you still end up with lower water tables and lower streams from increased building. In Riparian states, there’s pretty much no law regarding water use so most people are able to use what they want as they want as long as they don’t live near densely populated areas that draw a lot of surface or groundwater for their domestic use. Even in Colorado, which has always had the most strict water laws (surface and ground) in the country, I don’t doubt that there will be more pressure to ease up on groundwater law to let developers put up more houses (even if one at a time, or 10 at a time) as the state becomes more popular to incomers and the Rockies get drier and produce less snow.
- Not only is there a history since the '70s of increased frequency of heavy precipitation events across the upper Midwest and Northeast, but climate models all show those areas will have even more heavy precipitation events in the future. So choosing property regarding placement of buildings and farmland would mean making sure that heavy precip events won’t aim runoff right toward homes, and that fields are relatively flat but have good drainage or diversion structures so you don’t lose topsoil. Related to this is nearby small towns/cities whose stormwater infrastructure is already incapable of dealing with heavy rains or high rivers/lakes and so flood most years. The reason I mention this is that the better prepared the most local small town is to handle heavy precip, the better that town’s economy is to handle and survive it and not start eroding away and weakening the surrounding rural economy or otherwise pressuring the local rural resources more. My PhD is in hydrology and the earth science basics needed for watershed mgmt (e.g., soils, climate, pollution pathways, land use basics), so if you ever have a question, I could probably answer it or lead you to some good sources.