I must post an explaination or retraction quickly!

First, I totally appreciate the job done by our National Guardsmen and women and all other volunteers that put themselves in harms way to protect us and our way of life! I also appreciate the work done for the community by all civic minded individuals.

I also believe that if we as individuals become totally dependant upon others to protect us from harm then we will continue to vote for legislation that enlarges the role of all forms of legislation, regulation and policing at the cost of liberty and individual responsibility. When the bartender has to go to court because his patron kills someone on the road it is beacuse the society needs to feel protected and is unwilling / unable to protect itself. The more resilient and independant individuals are; the more capable of supporting and defending themselves individuals are the less they will vote for legislation that infringes their liberties in order to get that warm feeling of safety that they crave.

It is always through these sorts of fears that totalitarian fascists regimes come to power. IMHO, we, in america, are on the edge of sliding down that same slope. Everything from politically correct speach legislation == censorship to the Patriot Act authorization of extended detention of the unaccused.

If we come to live in a society where our fears combined with our individual inability / unwillingness / ignorance re self defence and self reliance cause us to hand over our liberties in an effort to get safety it will be the jack-booted Nat'l gaurdsmen who provide us with all the warm fuzzy safety that can be had.

I posit this scenario not because I think that the extreme will likely come to pass but as a backdrop to view the alternative of personal responsability and the duty to become independant and self reliant.

Remember the Nazi's were voted in. They didn't take power through military coup.

MM,

No worries....something about the word "jackbooted". I dunno.

In most ways, I agree with you. Too tired and sore to elaborate right now (roadmarch yesterday--no jackboots, though <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)


Take care,

Andy

For the record, I am active in ARES and I volunteer on the local EMS as EMT-B.

Jack-Booted is a comparison to the Gestapo or Nazi Secret Police. It has also been used in reference to Nazi Storm Troopers. I think when rhetoric of this nature is used it may distract people from the, possibly, very reasonable point you might be trying to make.
People do need to be prepared and involved, and I think your pointing this out is a very reasonable thing to do.
Besides taking responsibility for themselves, they also need to be responsibile for their society as a whole. Otherwise the negative elements that are a joke one day may be in power the next. You had a valid point. Your adjective just distracted from it.

Turk

Post deleted by Chris Kavanaugh

We are way off topic on this so I will only reply once and not engage in conversation in the forum but since you asked.....

Bartenders are neither doctors nor police, chronic alcoholics have extremely high tolerances, individuals may imbibe quite a lot without looking particularly intoxicated only to have the effects progressively worsen after leaving the bar without anymore intake. Bartenders have no knowledge of who is driving and who is not. Bartenders have no right to pry into whether I am driving or not.

A bartender is no more involved in an accident caused by an intoxicated driver than the clerk at walmart is involved in a drive-by shooting. Both retailers merely sold items that are legal to consumers that are legaly allowed to consume those items. The subsequent use or consequences of the behavior of the consumer is not the responsibility of the merchant. This attempt to avoid the personal responsiblity for ones own actions is deplorable. If an intoxicated individual or a non intoxicated individual kills someone through poor use of their vehicle then they are responsible for manslaughter. They and they alone are responsible for the decisions that led to that point. Whether it is because they are bad drivers or because they are intoxicated should not be part of the question. To make the bartender responsible you would logically also have to make the driver-education teacher responsible in the case where it is just plain bad driving or speeding or perhaps we should make the meteoroligist responsible when it is a weather related accident.

Certainly If a bartender chooses to sell liqour to an individual who legally is not allowed to buy (minor - someone who is clearly over-intoxicated, etc) then they have violated the law. That issue ends at the door of the bar. If someone has two beers and then gets in a car they will be in violation of the DWI laws. Presumably those DWI laws are set at the level where driving reaction-times become impaired. Certainly no bartender could conclude that the average individual is overly-intoxicated after two beers.

This society already attempted to ban the use of alcohol - that failed. To shift the responsability of the individuals actions away from the individual and onto all those around them is an attempt to make access to alcohol difficult and will also fail. Bartenders now have the burden of making it difficult for individuals to get access to the amount of alcohol that they individually feel is adequate for their individual purposes. To be actually safe from litigation bars would have to implement breathalizers to be used before each order is placed / delivered. This of-course won't stand. A bartender couldn't even be safe requireing a 1 drink maximum limit since the individual that they are serving could have easily had one at each bar on the street adding up to quite a few before comming into a particular establishment for their 1 drink maximum.

Making the individual responsible for their actions and not taking the intoxication level of the individual into consideration as a mitigating factor to their guilt would have a much more chilling effect on the bad behavior - poor driving while having no impact on the legal behavior - drinking. If I knew that I risked manslaughter charges for killing someone while driving drunk instead of a two year suspension of driving priveledges and a shared fine with the bartender I might choose to walk home or not to drink when I have to drive but on the occasion when I could get home without risking others lives I would be able to get as snookered as I might want without the barkeep poking his nose into my affairs.

for more conversation on this and other interesting / enlighteneing topics not related to survival feel free to PM me.

But where would you and your SUV go? Anywhere you went, refugees in any significant number would strain local resources. I doubt the locals would welcome you with open arms after they discovered your presence was inconveniencing them.

Even to my own pessimistic and cynical eyes, your post seemed pessimistic and cynical. Never fear, however, our family holds the National Guard in the highest regard. I actually cheered back when I saw the NG being deployed as moral boosters at airports, toting weapons.

When I later found out that many weapons were empty because there weren't enough bullets to go around -- (omigod!) -- my mood darkened considerably, but NOT toward you guys.

Some executive bean counter in a suit needs his head examined and his rear end kicked.

As with everything else it is a matter of PREparedness. If you look forward to the possibility that you may be submerged in a lake within your car then you plan ahead and carry a spring-loaded center-punch to break your windows. If you look forward to the possibility of needing the evacuate your home area for an extended period of time you will arrange a destination ahead of time and make friends / alliances with local, stock it with supplies and prepare it for occupancy. That may be as simple as sticking a 5 gallon bucket in the coat closet at Grandma's or it may be as complex as setting up a homestead complete with self sufficient garden and livestock. The level of complexity is determined by the scenarios you wish to prepare for. OTOH, if you have no prepared destination but you have a decent SUV and a tent in the BOB then you could get quite a ways off the beaten path into the wilderness and make a decent stand there. There are a lot of people - true but there is also a really big world here. If you let the population of manhattan loose in an evacuation scenario you will find most of them in other big cities. A small portion would be in the adirondacks in campsites, hotels, vacation homes etc, and an even smaller portion will be in the trackless places of the Adirondacks that may be accessible by driving along a rail-bed for some miles and turning off into the woods / swamps and going even further. Following such a proceedure you could get your SUV off the track and out of site, then pack in from there whatever you can carry on your back and probably make a couple of trips without worrying about having the SUV found. Then cover the trail from the SUV to your Bivouac and camo the SUV in place. This sort of plan when combined with well located geo-caching (perhaps the 5 gallon buckets or ammo-cans or whatever) could provide a secluded remote bivouac with supplies for a year. If the location is well chosen it could be secluded enough to avoid being stumbled upon by others. There was that guy that eluded police for a few years in a mountain-top hideout in PA I believe.

Craig,
I was in the local ARNG unit immediately following 9/11. Our local alert level was raised and the State directed that all armories be manned by armed guards 24/7. No big deal except that we don't store ammo locally. We only needed to go across the state to draw it. Two armed guards are required to draw ammo. The guards couldn't take weapons with them to the ammo draw because, you guessed it, you can only transport weapons off post under armed guard. Our battalion staff spent, no kidding, 2 1/2 hours coming up with a fix and another 1/2 a day getting it implemented.

Two unarmed troops went over to a unit on the same base as the ammo and hand receipted 2 pistols. Since they weren't leaving base they didn't have to be under guard. They then went and drew 20 rounds of 9mm and 20 rounds of .223. After loading the pistols they transported the box of rifle ammo back to our First Sergeant. Then they signed out 2 pistols from our armory, emptied the borrowed pistols and loaded ours. They then transported the borrowed weapons back to the owning unit and finally returned home.

And yes, the possilblity of an open purchase of a box of ammo at Wal-Mart was discussed. We were hamstrung by the fact that open purchases are limited to those items not readily available in the supply system.

It's this type of inspired decision making that prompted me to get out of the National Guard. It's also why you don't see truly "armed" National Guard at the airports, responding to riots, etc

Ed