Modern Survival Philosophy
12 Principles for Building the Life You Want, If Times Get Tough Or Even If They Don’t
Introduction
Forward – Why I Wrote This Book
What Is Missing In the Lives of Most Americans
Planning vs. Paranoia
The 12 Principles
Prepare for Everything Including Nothing Going Wrong
Debt Is Cancer Kill It
Grow and Produce Some of Your Own Food
Tax Is Theft Pay Only What You Must
Stored Food is a Safe Investment
Understand Disaster Probability and Commonality
Green Energy Is For Independence Not Saving Polar Bears
Own Land and Make It Produce
Utilize Pragmatic Preparations
Have a Means of Defense
Have Full Documentation for Any Disaster Need
Develop Your Own Plan
Taking Control
Redefining Investments
Declare Systemic Independence
Build a Back Up Power System
Plant Trees, Bushes and Vines
Build a Green House
Brew Beer
Make Wine and Mead
Build a Solar Dehydrator
Learn to Can
Get Firearms Training
Section One - Introduction
Forward – Why I Wrote This Book
In June of 2008 I launched an online talk radio show (referred to as a Podcast) called “The Survival Podcast”. The show was designed to do a few things
· I saw the coming financial collapse and wanted to warn people
· Make people that were concerned about the future realize there was something they could do with out becoming radical extremists
· Fill a niche that seemed to be missing, a daily audio program that discussed threats (man made and natural) and what the average person could do about them.
· Inspire people to realize that what they did mattered, to help them understand that survival is more about you and how you react to any event then anything else.
The way the show started was almost comical; it was just me speaking into an audio recorder. The first shows had awful audio and it took me at least 30-40 episodes to really get it right, yet something almost magical happened. Most people didn’t even care! What they wanted was information, the static, back ground noise and some of the effect of file conversion was ignored by most of my listeners.
In time I made improvements, got a noise canceling microphone and a better recorder. The show got much better audio wise, not perfect but better by a massive margin.
Did I mention that I record the show in a moving car on a 50 plus mile daily commute?
Hence it wasn’t just poor quality audio it had big truck noises, sirens and occasionally me chewing out a reckless driver. In fact as I write this I am still recording the show 95% of the time from my car.
In June 2008, I had one listener, me! By August it was almost a hundred and I set a goal of 1,000 by November 1st. We blew the number out of the water and hit just over 2000 by the end of 2008. On March 24th, 2009 we hit over 4,000 again doubling the audience in less then 90 days.
Notice I said, “We blew the number out of the water”. Why? Because from almost day one I have involved the listeners in growing the show, I ran a listener appreciation contest, members burned copies of the show to CDs and gave them out; one listener even printed and distributed bumper stickers at his own expense just to help spread the word. My listeners then demanded a discussion forum (seriously demanded it) and many of them volunteered to moderate and run it for me. The group of moderators on our forum (www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum) is an amazing group of people that work tirelessly to keep the forum clean, safe and civil. They and all my listeners are a blessing beyond words.
So what does this all have to do with writing this book? Simply put doing the show taught me that people want this information, the knowledge of how to respond and they want the truth about where we are and how we got here! Before I started doing the show I almost lost hope in many my fellow American’s. I watched us electing socialists into our government (they call themselves both Republicans and Democrats by the way), people asking for cradle to the grave care and more and more apathy from the average person. I did the show to send people a message, “you are not alone” and the wonderful thing is that my listeners sent that very message right back to me.
As you might imagine doing a daily show requires a vast amount of research. I read articles, forum threads and blog posts on the Internet in daily show preparation about every aspect of economics, threats, government action and anything I thought my listeners would want to know about. I read a lot of books too and I realized there simply wasn’t a book that could be considered a concise guide to modern threats and how to prepare for and respond to them.
Now there is plenty of “how to” type books out there, how to build a shelter, how to purify water, etc. Most are geared to wilderness survival or total global collapse. Yet what about the countless people that find themselves in survival situations every day. They face threats to their…
· Retirement
· Employment
· Housing
· Debt
· Wealth
· Freedom
· Etc.
Every day someone looses a fight they could have been a lot better prepared for. Thousands loose money they don’t have to loose. The American people loose freedom they don’t have to give up if they only knew their own power. Then there is the saddest fact of all, thousands of families are destroyed that should have be able stay together.
I wrote this book because American’s are beginning to wake up to the reality that our Grandparents and Great Grandparents were pretty smart people, they had common sense and knew to live on credit was to live in slavery. I wrote this book because “survivalist” conjures up images of wild eyed nuts hiding in the mountains, and that simply isn’t the case.
In short I wrote this book because I have learned that America is listening, they want answers and while I don’t have them all, I have a many of them and I have figured out how to help people find their own answers. This book was written to help the average person have an exceptional life, “if times get tough or even if they don’t”.
What’s Missing in the Lives of Most Americans?
My real goal is to help America reclaim what it has lost, that self reliant and self sufficient spirit that transformed out country into the greatest nation on the planet. I want us to reconnect with the can do spirit that won two World Wars, put men on the moon and took a land considered to be a “third world nation” just over 100 years ago and made it the world leader in just about every measurable way. Much has been lost in the past 50 years and the loss seems to be accelerating. In fact you may be reading this book and prepping specifically because you believe we are reaching a point of no return. I will be honest with you as a nation of 300 million with a “what’s in it for me” mentality you might be right.
The key here though isn’t changing 300 million it is all about people changing their own lives by choice, reclaiming freedom with action and choosing a better life no matter how good or bad times are. You simply can’t tell your neighbor how to live, you damn sure can’t tell your congressman how to live but you and you alone choose how you are going to live from this day forward and forever. There are of course limitations to what you can and can’t do, there are obstacles you will come across and even some things totally out of your control. Yet as long as you are breathing no matter what happens you still control how you react to it, what you do next and how you choose to be affected. No one has more impact over you then you.
And there it is, that is what is missing in the lives of most Americans today, not health insurace, a nice car or a plasma TV or any other piece of crap Madison Avenue or Washington has convinced you that you need. I have talked to more then one oncologist (doctors specializing in cancer treatment) who have said that the patient that is a “good patient” and just does what they are told is seldom the one that beats the odds. That in fact it is the “pain in the ass patient” that wants to know every option, the why and how of every treatment who beats the odds. I have been told this is true even when both patients eventually follow the exact same course of treatment. Why? The pain in the ass patient knows that what they do matters.
Does this just seem too simple for you? It is simple indeed but simplicity is the most powerful force in our lives. Every rule, every marketing campaign and every factor that leads us along in life is only cloaked in complexity. When you take the time to pick them apart and understand them, they are always composed of simple components. You don’t have to study this or even really understand it but you must accept the simple fact that you control your own life, without that knowledge, nothing in this book can really help you.
The lack of this knowledge in American is discussed everyday; it simply isn’t put in such a cut and dry framework. Why? Because those discussing it are often missing it in their own lives, so they can’t articulate the simplicity of it. Often the few who do understand it are so concerned with sounding intelligent and selling themselves that they needlessly complicate the message. This missing factor is often expressed with common phrases such as…
· People just don’t understand the value of a dollar any more
· No one respects hard work any more
· These young people think they are just entitled to things today
· The government should just ______
· The government should just stop ______
· Those damn democrats
· Those damn republicans
· If my interest rate was lower I could pay these bills
· The middle class just can’t make it any more
Those are just a few of them by the way. In general anything that pushes blame or responsibility onto others stems from this simple missing component.
It wasn’t always this way, there was a time when the knowledge that what you did mattered was the primary driver of life in America. What happened? Where did it go? Who is responsible for its’ loss? I am sorry but you can’t blame anyone except yourself. This may sound harsh but as long as you blame anyone or anything for you own loss of self direction you are nothing more then a slave.
Did the last word above bother you? I hope so and let me tell you if you don’t take control of your life with this simple principle right now you are indeed a slave. Most Americans today are slaves they are just comfortable in their slavery. What are they slaves to? They are slaves to false rules about the way things have to be, slaves to the belief that government is supposed to solve their problems and above all they are slaves to debt. Most Americans today work 50 or more years at a job they don’t want. Most people feel underpaid and they are paying massive taxes they are not even aware of. Sound bad, well it gets worse, because every act most people take on the path to the mythical freedom of typical American retirement actually increases their bondage and the power of the slave masters.
Right now you might be thinking none of this really sounds like modern survivalism or getting prepared for potential disasters. You may be wondering when I will just get on with how to use solar energy, write a disaster plan or grow your own food. Don’t worry that is coming soon, but this first piece of knowledge about how to think is necessary before we proceed further. When a military officer is trained to lead men into battle he must know tactics, weapons, and logistics, without them he and his men will be killed. Yet a tremendous amount of the commanders training is how to think, how his men will think and how to control and harness emotions. This part of his training is equally important and every great leader has a solid ability with both tactical and psychological concepts.
Why does this matter? It matters because you want to be self sufficient. It matters because you want to control your own life. It matters because you want to be okay if the shit hits the fan (TSHTF). It matters because you most likely have people you love and being prepared is in part so you can take care of them. So who is going to be in charge of that? Who will have to make the choice to stay put (bug in) or evacuate (bug out) if a disaster strikes? When something that is supposed to function fails, who is going to fix it when there is no way to “call a guy” to take care of it? When someone you love is in need of an action that will save or cost them their life and no one is there to help, who will have to make the choice and act now? The answer of course is you.
You want to be self sufficient; you want to be a survivalist? Well then you don’t get another option you must now step forward as a commander in your own life. Today you just got promoted from being a cog in a system to commander of your own life and there is no going back. Your family, your friends and perhaps your community will now be “your troops” and you will have to step up because in many situations no one else is able to. The beauty is this has always been true. Every person is already in charge of their own life, what they do has always been what has mattered most. When we accept that, it isn’t that we take charge, it is simply that we finally know we are in command. Once you know that you are in control, you can begin to shape your situation into what you actually want rather then simply reacting to what comes your way.
Planning vs. Paranoia
In modern times we face some very real, present and some even possibly imminent threats to our individual or collective safety. We face threats from climate change (no belief in carbon footprints required), coronal mass ejections, and global pandemic. We also face self inflected threats like hyper inflation, one world government (no belief in the Illuminati required), economic collapse or a massive explosion in the drug war. Moving on to threats to you and your family as individuals, you face potential job loss, imminent domain, loosing a family member to death and even home invasion scenarios.