Loose Lips...

In a society in which the have-nots feel obliged to take what they want from the haves, all the preparation in the world can prove fruitless without a mindset of security and secrecy.

That thought struck me the other day when I was at work.  Someone was complaining about how someone had more than they did.  It is the typical clamor of remonstrance we hear from those with a narcissistic entitlement mentality on a daily basis.  It's the same protestation we saw in the Occupy crowd, but this time without as many hygiene problems.  This person was, I can honestly say, simply a naive and uneducated individual who was simply parroting what she'd been fed most of her life.

But it got me to thinking about the direction our government is currently heading, where we elect leaders whose main quality is their desire to take from those who produce and give to those who do not.  There is an entire generation of people who have been raised as takers.  Recent studies demonstrate that college students have a higher sense of self-importance and entitlement than ever before.  Our government fosters and reinforces this worldview by promising to pay off student loans for them at taxpayers' expense.  They build on it by extending unemployment benefits for untenable lengths of time.  They cement it by providing food-stamps, health care, cell-phones and many other unnecessary items for "free,"  all at taxpayers' expense.

It's easy to spend someone else's money.  The concept of stewardship is lost on these people--both the recipients and their benefactors in government.  This is why they think the "wealthy" need to "pay their fair share" when they, themselves, are paying nothing.  Isn't it interesting how it's "fair" for others to pay more when the person speaking contributes nothing?  It's a simple case of "I'm more important than you are, and my needs/wants/urges are your responsibility to take care of."

I say all of that to say this:  If these people, both government and citizen, feel morally justified in taking your hard-earned wealth by force of law and giving it to those who have not worked for it, their gold-digging nature will certainly extend to any preparations you might have stored up for your family in a time of crisis.

I have long believed that those who have not prepared will come knocking on the doors of their more responsible neighbors when times get hard.  It's the nature of the beast.  Those to whom much is given are often too lazy to plan for hard times.  Therefore, they usually scout out those who do work hard and know that these hard workers will have preparations in place.

What dawned on me the other day was the fact that these scavengers will probably be preceded by regulations and government workers who will, in the interest of the public good, relieve you of your hard-earned preparations in order to provide for the half of the country who have become accustomed to living off the largess of others.

So what do you do?  Do you barricade yourselves and your family in a cabin in the woods with all your stored food?  Do you roll over and let the takers have what your family needs?

The problem is that many "preppers" like to talk openly about their "prepping."  People talk about their basements full of canned goods, ammunition, and sundry other items.  Many of their neighbors know what they have and where it's stored.  It's sort of like having a neon sign hanging in your window that says "Can't afford Walmart?  There's a room full of everything you need right here!"

A government that arbitrarily says you don't need more than ten bullets in your gun will not hesitate to say you don't need more than three days food in your pantry.

So... what am I saying?  I'm saying we need to stop making ourselves easy targets.  I'm saying that whatever preparations we may or may not have are nobody's business.  I'm saying you won't find any food stored in my garage, my basement, or any other place you might think to look.

Know what I'm saying?

Loose lips sink ships.