Hi Susan,

I didn't come away from your post thinking you were against helping those in need. I think I understood what you were saying. While I agree in principle (why should I be paying for those who can pay for themselves, yet choose not to?), I still think my post makes my point. The people who have money shouldn't drain resources and should have their own survival setup, etc. I just don't know how you say "no" to them. When you setup a survival center and stock it you can't really turn any peaceful person away unless you simply don't have capacity (even then, I'm not sure about the morality). Obviously the fools who could have saved themselves are going to be no better off than the poor soul who couldn't afford anything and will most certainly be reconsidering their preparedness situation if they survive.

The problem is that you still need to build up the infrastructure. And I was trying to point out that although it may seem unreasonable, that the better prepared government is, and the more able they are to "turn on a switch" as you put it and get things back up, truly the better off we are. I don't see it as a whingy American thing and I'm not talking about from a convenience standpoint. I mean simply that society at large, prepared, unprepared, rich, poor - it doesn't matter - the less time we have to stay in survival mode, fewer people die and the faster things get fixed and the local economy recovers.

If you are just saying that there are people who are idiots and refuse to do anything and drain resources, I agree. But how do you 1) "say no" to them and 2) turn them away from a survival situation? You really can't do either and they will probably only learn from experience since they are usually the people who refuse to listen to good sense.

I certainly wasn't flaming and I'm willing to listen to any ideas you have on the subject, to be sure. But just saying those people suck and something needs to be done specifically about "problem people" really doesn't accomplish anything. It's true, and certainly it sucks, and I'll fight to the death your right to say it. I'd just like to see your frustration put to good use. That's why I suggested the volunteerism and political activism. While you may not be able to shut these people down - you can make such situations as a whole as good as possible for EVERYONE, and hopefully the losers with all the toys will learn and perhaps not suck resources from those who truly need it anymore. And even those who are prepared may fall into the group of those in need (that was my other minor point). One other issue that I thought of responding to this is that some folks who pay taxes for things like this might feel a sense of entitlement... like "I pay taxes, therefore, I'll use the facilities my government provides." Those folks will probably find out faster than the other fool just how much they get for their tax dollars. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />