Law of the Land

I think the book and/or movie "Deliverance" is a fine answer to your question.

"The law? Ha! What law? WHERE'S THE LAW, DREW?"

I sympathise with Lewis' character a lot. I think if the whole system did break down you might find yourself actually living instead of existing which wouldn't be so bad at all...

It's the squealing like a pig I'm not so keen on.
 
Like I had said before, there have been some very interesting statements and opinions made in regards to the original question. I agree with Esav's logical approach of first asking "What are rights?". That may land us fairly close to some controversy, as different people have different definitions of rights and where they come from. I hope though, that we can separate that from how it applies to people's attitudes on survival, particularly wilderness survival.


A few things that caught my eye that are valid statements; Rights, Laws, Government, etc. are human constructs. Another is that some people aren't willing to bend or break certain laws because they refuse to "become an animal", which, well we are animals.

Granted we are arguably the most complex and intelligent animals, and so these questions ultimately come up. In society you are expected to act a certain way, in an effort to seperate ourselves from "the animals". In "the wild" however, some things that may not be socially acceptable could very well be acceptable for survival. That's really the point of starting this thread, survival is in large part about adaptation, and we as humans are the most adaptable animal.

I'm sure that I had a few more points, but they say the memory is the first to go with old age.


If anybody remembers what the second is, I'd appreciate the help :D :thumbup:

Gautier
 
I am a natural rights kind of guy.

That said, we should also consider our responsibilities for our own conduct.

If you are on private land, pretty much do as you (or the landowner) please.

When you step onto public land, the rules change. If you can't accept that, don't go there. Don't tell me about 'it's mine too.' It isn't, no more than the Elks building is 'yours' because you are a brother.

So, you go out for a day hike, in a National Forest, get turned around, caught in a freak snowstorm, break both ankles, etc. etc. etc. Now you need a fire to purify water and stay warm. Well do it. Even if there is a burn ban? Yep, do it.

Just be prepared to pay the legal consequences.

Just like you would pay for SAR in most jurisdictions. If the local powers that be want to use their discretion and let you off light, great, that's very nice and generally if it was me and I thought you were just unlucky (as opposed to blatantly irresponsible,) I'd let you skate also. But don't count on that. Ultimately you are responsible for your conduct.

Accept responsibility.

That's what it's all about.
 
Survival IS adaptation, leaving behind old habits that are no longer productive, and developing new skills to see you through perhaps unimagined dangers.

Or perhaps imagined dangers: planning ahead, stocking up, coming to this forum and asking how-to questions are all survival strategies.

Another aspect of survival is the depth of the problem. If civilization crumbles, you might want to get together with as many good people as you could and build a new, self-reliant community.

If the problem is being lost on a cold and windy mountain just out of sight of town, you only have to fall back on your gear, your skills, -- and maybe your cellphone! But you still don't know how far away help might be, and you could die before it arrives.

More likely, you get caught in a flood or a hurricane, with your family and pets to take care of, and the neighbors coming to you for help are a drain on ctritical material resources and on your time and strength.

What gives them the right to drag you down to their incompetent level?
 
TDahlgren said:
So, you go out for a day hike, in a National Forest, get turned around, caught in a freak snowstorm, break both ankles, etc. etc. etc. Now you need a fire to purify water and stay warm. Well do it. Even if there is a burn ban? Yep, do it.
Click to expand...

I don't know why, but this triggered a memory from last summer. :)

I went down to a local lake for a few hours. A woman came rushing around the trail, very upset, trying to find her son. He had hurt his ankle on the trail and called her at home on the cellphone. Now, this trail around the lake is about a mile, and she had no idea where he was, so she was running pretty much at random.

I calmed her down, and we went back to the parking lot, where the boats were launched, and it turned out, first, that he was a healthy teen out for a walk with his friend -- in NO danger. There was a fisherman who figured out talking with her where the boy probably was. Got his bass boat out there, cut straight across the lake, picked the boys up and brought them back, waving and cheering all around.

It's amazing how it all came together as soon as she calmed down, talked to us instead of running into the unknown, and we easily figured out a solution. Incidentally, she was heading exactly the longest way around to get to him, at least twice as far as if she went the other way.

"Ready. Fire! Aim ..."
uh-oh
 
Esav Benyamin raises a topic that would be good to give SERIOUS thought in your survival planning: how are you likely to be approached for help ( . . . water . . . food . . . gear . . . firearms . . . personal services . . .) in the aftermath of a disaster? And by whom? And how will you respond?

Many years back, I went on a multi-day hike in a canyon that had some springs. One of the written guides we had contained the exultant "news" that, because there were so many springs along the trail, you only needed to carry a one-quart canteen for a multi-day backpacking trip in Utah and Arizona during the summer.

Myself, I carried about a gallon of full canteens.

In the course of the trip, everybody else ran out of either packed-in or spring-obtained water. Simply put, the springs were still few and far between enough that one quart apiece wouldn't hack it. Those who had heeded the "just bring one quart" advice were forced to resort to the very-muddy-and-distasteful water in the bottom of the canyon, purifying it with whatever chemicals or apparatus they'd brought along, after straining out animal carcasses or whatever. Either that, or ask me for some of my water. (Requests that, for social and religious reasons, I did not turn down.)

It's worth thinking through: if you're more prepared than average, you can expect the world to beat a path to your door. Think through in advance how you are going to deal with this. What if it's a close relative? A distant relative? A child who's just lost her parents in the disaster? Someone who might or might not be carrying the epidemic disease du jour? Someone who possesses skills or items which you very much desire? Someone with governmental authority, and/or an inclination to take what you have (be it items, services, or whatever) by force? Think these things through with respect to each item, skill, commodity, etc. which you may possess. It need not be material things that people will be coming after: at one point in the Apache wars, a large contingent of Apaches turned up in the Mexican town of Janos, with a wounded warrior, and told the town's doctor that unless he could successfully patch up the warrior, they would kill the entire population of the town. At what point in a hypothetical collapse of society, law, and order would your response to weapons-confiscation laws (or martial-law orders) change? (Maybe you shouldn't tell me--but think through this yourself.) Do you lay in extra food or water supplies out of concern for (some of) your fellow men, women, and children? Do you adopt in advance a policy of kicking orphaned beggars into the dust? Do you make some provision for setting up a well-distanced quarantine camp for potential allies who turn up maybe contaminated with Bird Flu? What if a trauma surgeon with a full set of gear shows up and wants to join with your group, but wants to bring his yappy mother-in-law? Do you cache some of your food and gear in a separate place, so that if the bad guys from "Road Warrior" all roar up and loot you at gunpoint, you can give up part of your stash without losing it all? Do you load up on extra supplies and gear for potential use for barter? Do you conceal part or all of your preparations? Will the zillion rounds of ammo you stockpile for fighting off would-be partakers of your MRE be unusable because the Al-Qaeda members who just took over your town are patrolling in force and shooting any non-member who didn't turn over all weapons pursuant to their demand?, and they'll hear any shot you fire? What do you do if you opt to help out one person, but don't want them telling the 1500 other folks back at the Red Cross shelter about how you've got resources galore? Do you want to be the one maintaining and enforcing the rules in your survival locale (fallout shelter, lifeboat, or whatever)? Think through how you will do this. Will a majority vote rule on your lifeboat? If not, how not?

One thing my various emergency experiences have taught me in spades is that if you are more prepared than the average guy (or even just as prepared--because, if you're average, there will still be more than enough in the "sub-average" category to make this apply), as soon as people get the feeling that you are better-equipped in any respect than they are, they will beat a path to your door, often acting in pain-in-the-butt ways in the course of this.

Bear in mind, too, that these people may outnumber you. This makes a difference both in terms of the amount of your supplies AND your strategy. Even if you decide that the SHTF situation at hand gives you license to kick the orphans in the face and shoot the folks who come calling for food, you might want to think through the value of maintaining goodwill with your fellow survivors--or you might just find the beggars running off and then coming back with 250 half-starved National Guard troops who are equally motivated to requisition your half-ton of buried ramen noodles for redistribution. You may need to balance your inclination to use lethal force to prevent anybody from taking your stuff or enlisting you as their slave, on the one hand, against your desire to keep the entire population of others who survived the disaster from deciding you are a menace to be neutralized as decisively as possible.
 
Return of the JD raises a key question:
Esav Benyamin raises a topic that would be good to give SERIOUS thought in your survival planning: how are you likely to be approached for help ( . . . water . . . food . . . gear . . . firearms . . . personal services . . .) in the aftermath of a disaster? And by whom? And how will you respond?
Click to expand...

I think one aspect of survival that is seldom taught even in the best survival schools is how to deal with OTHERS in addition to what YOU should do. That's why I think this is a valuable thread -- while most people who face survival situations will probably be alone in a wilderness area, I suspect that a SHTF situation will involve unprepared neighbors and fellow citizens, and would be correspondingly more difficult to survive.

I probably look like a doof with my pop-culture references, but... Once again, Hollywood has given us a fictional scenario that, I believe, illustrates some basic survival issues (the *issues,* perhaps not the way you or I would handle those issues).

The Twilight Zone ep The Shelter takes place in a "civilized' middle-class neighborhood during the Cold War. A news report announces that mysterious objects, possibly ICBMs, have been spotted by NORAD radar and citizens are urged to get into shelter in the next 20 minutes (the show takes place in 'real time'). One person on the block, a physician, has built a bomb shelter in his basement and stocked it with supplies (despite the naysaying and criticism of his neighbors). As the episode plays out, the doctor and his family lock themselves in the shelter. The neighbors, terrified and confronting the folly of their own unpreparedness, club together and attack the shelter because the doctor won't let them in due to the limited space and supplies.

If you want a real-life analog, simply look to the Gretna incident after Katrina, when police from Gretna, a city outside New Orleans, blocked a bridge that led out of flooded areas, trapping many hurricane victims. To my knowledge, despite political flak from around the country, nobody on the police force or city government has been prosecuted. I don't know if the Gretna police were right or wrong to do what they did, but if I had been on the bridge, how would I have responded? Would I have been on the bridge in the first place?

As Esav B stated, survival is adaptation and realizing that "the rules" have changed may be a more valuable piece of knowledge than any other survival skill.
 
Return of the J.D. said:
One thing my various emergency experiences have taught me in spades is that if you are more prepared than the average guy... as soon as people get the feeling that you are better-equipped in any respect than they are, they will beat a path to your door, often acting in pain-in-the-butt ways in the course of this.
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I think all the "listen to my story of what happened when I loaned out my knife" threads here on BF prove this point. :D
 
Fascinating story about Gretna; I'd not heard of that. It doesn't take much imagination to imagine how that situation could have become much, much worse for people on both sides of that bridge.
 
A distinguishing characteristic of humans, at least since we developed language, has been in planning and organization.

The best service you could do yourself and family might be to organize your helpless neighbors, even if that means doling out some stockpiled supplies AND some carefully calculated bullying.

If they won't think for themselves, force them to let you think for them, before they become a greedy-needy animal, devouring your survival chances along with their own.

* ****** **** ****** *

When Y2K was imminent, my nextdoor neighbor became obsessed with providing months of resources for himself, and he was generous with advice on how to stock up and on what. He also got a pistol and spent some time at the range practicing with it. The pistol was for one reason only: to fight off anyone demanding a part of his resources.
 
You know, one more thing that I only realized somewhat embarrassingly LATE in my efforts toward emergency preparedness is this: emergencies can, by their nature, radically disrupt your ability to gain news of the nature and scope of the disaster, and of what people are doing about it.

True story: once I was huddling in a brick-lined crawl-space underneath my apartment while a tornado was breaking trees and walls and cars and people and sending anything that wasn't nailed down in a horizontal blur across my field of vision.

To my disbelief, the man and woman in the next building were standing outside (their building didn't have a partially-underground crawl-space like mine did), looking around, wondering where to go. I opened the plywood door to my shelter (it's all there was, and it was periodically being wrenched from my grip and crushed against my hands by the winds), and shouted (inaudibly) and gestured (frantically) for them to come and join me under my building. This they did--gratefully. The woman brought a tiny, portable, battery-powered TV with her--which gave us news access, which I didn't have, not yet having gotten to the point of making sure I kept a small, battery-powered radio around all the time.

We'd only been there for a few minutes when a couple of the woman's young male relatives showed up. They had just missed getting wiped out when one of the tornadoes slammed into the street in front of their car, and they were amped-up on adrenaline, to put it mildly. Their loud and excited account of this completely drowned out all sound from the TV, and, to this day, I don't know what the announcers were saying about the scope of the disaster. Later, the visitors left--and, with them, the woman with her little TV. One result was that I thereafter had to rely on news from people inching by in cars for any sense of how widespread the damage was, etc. All of a sudden, Paul Revere on horseback would have been a faster and more-reliable way to get news.

Some interesting observations: (1) I went very easily from being the sole inhabitant of my survival shelter to being odd-man-out, with the other four occupants all being connected by family bonds. No harm this time, but worth a mental note: had it come to a vote over anything, much less a fight, I might have found the developments unpleasant. (2) Disasters can make you very grateful for the opportunity to pool resources, listen to other people's portable TVs, etc. It's not necessarily a wise policy to point a gun into the face of anyone who wants into your shelter, turn them into a potentially-desperate enemy, and make them leave. (3) Your assumptions that you will be able to learn and assess the breadth of the damage, the degree of law and order, the orders of authorities, and the actions and plans of others may be dramatically affected by the disaster. (This will apply to the others out there, too.) MG Saldivar's story about Gretna is a reminder that you may have New Orleans government folks telling 100,000 of their citizens by megaphone to head for the bridge at the same time that Gretna police are being told to seal it off. Your disaster prep should give some thought to how you're going to find out whether 700,000 people have just been told by megaphone to evacuate to your pre-selected survival locale--or whether the flu that's killed off 80% of your town's population is nationwide or worldwide--or whether the National Guard has been deployed in a ring around your town with orders to machine-gun anyone like you trying to escape from the quarantined area--or whether the Al-Qaeda bad guys who have taken over the east half of your state are in fact engaged in a pitched firefight against good-guy troops who are in control of the west half of your state. If there's suddenly a loud "bang" and the power is out and half the city is in flame, your ability to figure out just what happened, how widespread the problem is, and what other people are doing about it may turn out to be the KEY factors in your assessment of just how much S has hit which fan, and from what direction and at what velocity--and, therefore, in your decision as to how many of "the rules" no longer apply.
 
Communications if large, heavy, requiring fixed power sources, are useless in that sort of situation. This what you need:

http://www.countycomm.com/KA006.htm
http://www.countycomm.com/gp4light.htm

The second one is the one I got. I am real pleased with reception, clarity, tuning, and battery life. Unfortunately, they don't seem to carry the little transparent boxes they used to sell for them. (I bought about a dozen boxes, which come in handy for lots of purposes.)
 
Return of the J.D. said:
You know, one more thing that I only realized somewhat embarrassingly LATE in my efforts toward emergency preparedness is this: emergencies can, by their nature, radically disrupt your ability to gain news of the nature and scope of the disaster, and of what people are doing about it.
Click to expand...

When some idea of the scope of a disaster becomes obvious, it has the psychological effect also of disrupting your ability to think clearly. Stop, take a deep breath, start thinking from the beginning again -- don't get in a mental rut.

On September 11, my daughter woke me to tell me about the attack. I turned on the radio and got ... bzzzzzzzzzz ... and practically panicked, thinking my friends, the people on that station, had been killed in the attack. I was shaking, the disaster really began to hit me.

Then I realized that I knew their studios were in the NYC Municipal Building, and only the antennas were on the WTC.

Always stop and think, always, continually, reevaluate your situation. Plan ahead, but be ready to modify or abandon the plan when it's not working.
 
I think the question here more than what would you do is when to. when do we "Flip The Switch" from regular daily life, to survival mode.

is it okay to start a fire after being lost for an hour?
Is it okay to Loot a store after 1 day without food, how about 2 or 3 ?
If I go for a walk in a blizzard and get Lost is it okay to break into an empty home for warmth ?

I cant say I have been in many Life or death situations, I delieve this is in part because I prepare. I have been caught in foul weather, and Lost at night in the woods, but managed to use my gear and skills to rectify the situation and get out without need to go to extreme measures.

In working EMS I have Come across instances of people who "Flip The Switch" too soon and others who have trouble with the concept.

Some Examples:

en route to the hospital with an accident victim with serious injuries, the accident was in the norhtbound lane of a divided highway and the hospital was south. my driver passed by two higway crossovers and was preparing to get off at an exit when I questioned why she haddn't used the median crossovers she said there were "no U turn" sighns. I reminded her that this was an ambulance on an emergency call. She was relativeley new and most of her driving exxperience to this point had been on less vital calls and she haddent learned to swich into emergency thinking mode yet.


A car accident with minor injuries, an off duty EMT travelling the opposite direction, slams on his brakes, turns on his strobe lights (volunteer responders are permitted to use these here) and does a U turn in the middle of the road and parks his vehicle next to the police car on scene, creating a greater traffic risk. the officer on scene told the EMT to leave scene before he was arrested for reckless Driving. In this case this person was too willing to go into Emergency Mode and looked for any excuse to.


I know the rules for responders are slightly different than those for others. but the same theory applies, any choice to act outside the rules can still result in punishment, for example an ambulance driver can get ticketed if his driving causes an accident especially if it is deemed that the reason for his actions diddnt outweigh the risks taken.
 
Guatier,
excellent post. this idea has been on my mind for a while now and i have had some recent observations. forgive me if i vent a little too much.

my wife and i are bringing up three kids (9, 10 and 12). we were recently visiting a friend in new york and went to see a local river with a water fall that has been made into a state park. the weather was warm and the water was running a little low and was beautiful. they wanted to wade/swim but there was a sign that said NO ADMITTANCE PAST THIS POINT AND NO SWIMMING. to make a long story short the water was great. i watched over them as we carefully swam in the pool at the base of the falls, and had one of the best family times of the summer.

the catch is my wife and i are big on discipline and i have taught my kids for years that obeying keeps them safe and happy. disobeying the sign prompted alot of thought for me and some discussion for the family. im now trying to teach my kids some ballance and that just because some bureacrat hangs a sign somewhere doesnt make it so. we also discussed personal responsibility and how we were taking a calculated risk. (i have been a lifeguard and the family are all strong swimmers, the water was low and clear etc.)

i was suprised how angered i was that we were restricted from enjoying the river on public property. we even ran into a park maintance worker on the way out that remarked on our hypocrasy in doing that with out kids. i was polite and brushed off the comment but the more i thought about it the more i wanted to throw up my right hand to the facist and give her a heil hitler.

unfortunately a small falls near my grandfathers farm that i grew up swiming under and tubing over near my home in ohio has also been taken over by the state (they even wear brown shirts) and their ever present no swimming/enjoying allowed.

the subj. came up again today in another way. i work for a local police dept. and received a dispatch that some kids were swimming in the river. i was glad to take that call. i first made sure the kids were safe. the water was low and slow. they were swimming and skipping rocks on a sand bar. i then spoke to the busy body that called in the complaint and asked her what the problem was. she said those kids are swimming in the river. (she had a swim suit on) i asked what was wrong with that. she said she didnt know if it was safe and that it could be dirty. i told her it was probably cleaner than the baby pool at the city pool, that the water was low and the kids were fine and left it at that.

another example our fire dept. is often dispatched to open burns that usually involve someone roasting marshmallows in a small back yard pit. they make them put it out. i dont even know all of the regulations for having an open flame but learned that it has to be round wood from a tree. burning a cut up pallet, or "square" wood is illegal and punishable by fines. the funny thing is i just arrested a 18 yr. old who molotoved an apartment complex because one of the residents refused him sex. he admitted doing it and said he knew there were other people in the building including kids but didnt care. he got 3 months in a rehab center. i should have charged him for having an open burn, or for lighting a firework, also illegal.

i could also discuss the time we drove through a certain public area known for its senic beauty and wildlife, especially large carniverous bears. the sign said no firearms allowed.... the facist from new york would not have approved.

these are just some of the examples that have been on my mind lately. i wont even bring up thoughts on taxes, zoning, censorship, schools, etc. none of these are huge violations of anyones rights or something that would spark a revolution but they make me uncomfortable. there is an uneasy sensation that things are getting too restrictive and too controlled when even my toilet tank size is regulated by the govt (flushing twice makes me feel better). i could go on with other examples including the illegal bathroom faucet i bought at lowes that the building inspector made me remove but its all more of the same.

i believe in the Constitution and law and order but i also belive in liberty and personal responsibility. im growing tired of the nanny state and just want to be left alone. live and let live. i see a growing trend to not punish people that violate important laws (mala in se) and to punish those that dare show some autonomy by disobeying some pathetic regulation (mala prohibita) that harms no one.

when it comes to preforming my job, discretion is a wonderful thing. if you arent hurting anyone im probably not going to have an issue with what you do. i dont claim to have all this figured out but having my kids along really makes me think. i dont want them to be antisocial criminals but i also dont want them to be mindless surfs to every stupid sign some idiot hangs. i love the thread, it has me thinking, not just looking at all the pretty knives.

joshua
 
i see a growing trend to not punish people that violate important laws (mala in se) and to punish those that dare show some autonomy by disobeying some pathetic regulation (mala prohibita) that harms no one.
Click to expand...

Aye, there's the rub. Who are THEY to tell the rest of US what's best for our lives?

I understand banning swimming if the State would be liable for the drowning. So instead of banning swimming, put up a sign saying: Drown at your own risk!

I like the way you handled the kids swimming. We have a small lake I like to walk around. Boating, fishing, NO swimming. There was a big old tree by the bank that tilted over and the kids used to dive off it and swim around. Public Works came AND CUT DOWN THE TREE to stop them from swimming there.

Comes the revolution, we need one new Constitutional rule in particular: no one can enforce "the rules" except by carrying around all the rulebooks he's responsible for enforcing. Like Newt suggested, the occasional Congressional session should be devoted to removing stupid old laws.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Aye, there's the rub. Who are THEY to tell the rest of US what's best for our lives?
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The U.S. is a nation where 1/2 who could bother to register to vote and one half of the half bother to actually vote -- in really "hot" elections (so the "mandate" is often 12.5% of total adults who could register and vote). So "they" is statistically unlikely to be "us."

I understand banning swimming if the State would be liable for the drowning. So instead of banning swimming, put up a sign saying: Drown at your own risk!
Click to expand...
In most states: 1) Warning signs do not work at all for under 12's; 2) warning signs do not absolve the governmental entity for its own actual negligence (for example, "inadequate warning of specific perils").

In "comparitive negligence" states, it's up to the jury to decide if the negligence of the ... [drowning victim(s) 12 or older] equaled or exceeded that of the governmental entity: "Jury, look upon the weeping [widow/parents/children] and decide what is fair." Get out the checkbook.

Trends matching the increase in the ratio of lawyers to population: 1) more and more $$ contributed to politicians by lawyers; 2) more and more changes in the judge-made law to make it easier and easier to collect in lawsuits. Yet, voters (that magic majority or plurality of one half of one half - or less) consistently reject reforms to remove the selection of judges by political process.

Follow the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Aye, there's the rub. Who are THEY to tell the rest of US what's best for our lives?

Like Newt suggested, the occasional Congressional session should be devoted to removing stupid old laws.
Click to expand...

THEY are the people WE elected to represent us. THEY dont make up these laws, WE ask for them. every time someone tries to sue for millions after a tragedy, every time we elect some politician because he promises to "protect children" we ask for more legislation.

THEY diddnt make those No swiming regulations. irrisponsible parents who let their children swim unattended did, teens who got drunk and drowned did, morons who got injured doing high dives out of trees did it.

If WE want to Keep THEM from legislating US out of living then WE have to wach eachother. That "Busy Body" who called in the unattended children in the river saw an unsafe condition and took an action, if more people did that instead of ignoring it and then calling for legislation when tragedy strikes, we would probably have less restrictions. If I were that caller I would have taken the dispatchers name and if anything happened make sure everyone new who was to blame.

I agree whole heartedly that there are too many laws already, I think that for every law passed another should have to be taken away.
 
At what point does someone else's error or irresponsibility become MY (and YOUR) problem?

If I'm out hiking and I come across a group in distress because they failed to prepare, I might like to help them. If they attack me, screaming "get his supplies!" what do you think I'm going to do? Cooperate?

I understand how our society got to be this way. It's the classic democratic dilemma: once The People realize they can vote themselves anything within their society, the temptation to do so grows.

But this thread turns on a more subtle point: given an emergency, how would each of us choose to partake of the resources we need?
 
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