Those Damn Government Workers

As the economy has declined over the past several years we’ve all become more aware of federal spending issues, and it has become fashionable to bash those lazy, can’t-be-fired, overpaid government employees. A study by the Heritage Foundation in 2010 and another by the Congressional Budget Office in 2012 both found that federal employees are paid more than those in the private sector.

Guess what: I’m a government civilian employee, a fed. Yes, one of the snakes out to crush the life out of you.

Don’t worry, I’m not a secret socialist, this is not to disagree with the fact that some feds as a whole are paid more, and you’ll never hear me calling for more government, just the opposite. The federal government is getting smaller now and much deeper cuts will come. This is to add some context that media summaries of the larger reports don’t stress enough.

I decided to work for the government because I wanted to be in a certain field where you pretty much must be either a fed, government contractor, or military, and I’ve been all of those things at one point or another. As a side note, before I was evil I was stupid. Back when I came into the federal workforce and the economy was good, many people felt those taking government jobs, or even going into the military with a commission, were idiots, a lot more could be made in the private sector. Times change.

This is longwinded but has a point. From a survivalist’s vantage, if you think collapse is immanent you may not care much what goes on with the government as long as it doesn’t affect you directly before that happens. Fair enough. I tend to see us as being in a slow collapse right now that could trigger a fast one unexpectedly and must eventually if nothing changes, but it could also drag on for many years or even decades. Though I think it unlikely, we as a country and civilization could somehow not collapse with enough dumb luck (our politicians sure aren’t going to fix what’s wrong).

If this slow collapse we’re in does take a long time to wind down to TEOTWAWKI, how and where we cut the government does actually matter. In part how we can defend ourselves, but also how the rest of the world deals with us – especially in trade – is due in no small part to our military power. The Department of Defense is 35% of the federal civilian workforce. Unfocused budged can easily hurting our national defense.

This could affect our access to energy, other imports, policies on exports, etc. that would in turn influence inflation/deflation, what goods we have, and of course jobs. Maintaining some global influence will be important as long as we’re in this slow collapse.

In the larger scheme of things, we could cut defense out of the budget entirely and in a few years mandated increases in Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and interest on the national debt would eat up that savings – and we’d not have a defense/military.

I’m not saying that because I’m in defense and trying to save my job. Being on the inside I can say yes we need to cut a lot but we’d better be damned careful where we do cut. We do have a lot of deadwood. There are people that are not productive, there are departments or divisions or offices that are redundant or of no real use. On the other side of that, we need to cut carefully and there are some dedicated folks who give it 110%.

Some of this anti-fed sentiment seemed to have fueled part of the rationale for a government shutdown in late 2011. The shutdown is an examples of something that sounds like a good idea but isn’t, unintended consequences. Yeah, let’s stick it to those government employees; give them a taste of furlough!

The problem is that government shutdowns end up costing the government more, even if federal employees aren’t paid for the time they’re off. I’m not saying this because I’m a fed, I’m saying this because it is in reality a lose-lose situation and I don’t want my tax dollars pissed away any more than the next guy.

Getting back to those reports and the public opinions they help drive. The studies control for years of experience, location, etc. One problem with this is that many of those in defense actually have occupations are not in the civilian workforce, but are comprised of highly educated employees. Many have security clearances and other specialized skills that just don’t translate that well.

That is the case with where I work, there is no good private sector comparison. We all have at least a four-year degree (most have advanced degrees), clearances, perhaps another language, and specialized experience and training. Where I work even the janitors have security clearances and get higher pay for it.

In this time of slow collapse the government is finally starting to downsize. Right now it’s mostly through attrition. Eventually it will be through axing entire departments, if we get that far if and before a fast/total collapse.

What can any of us do about it? Besides voting for candidates that we think will cut the budget with some thought and research, not a whole lot. But this doesn’t mean you’re helpless, you can add this to your list of indications and warnings that help you gauge where we’re at. Understanding they “why” can help you determine the “what” to do about it best for you. Sometimes that’s all we can do.

The cuts are coming for all of government and tougher times for everyone, but how it happens will probably matter. If we’re going to go down anyway, I’d rather not have the U.S. end up being China’s or even Russia’s bitch before it does.

And next time the anti-fed bashing begins, remember it’s not as black and white as some say. There are sometimes unintended consequences. Some feds are on your side.

From Each According to His Ability, To Each According to His Need

Students are asked about redistributing grade point averages (GPA), from the upper 10% to those who may not graduate unless their GPAs are raised. A typical response, “that’s not fair, I worked hard for that.” Same students asked if they favor redistributing wealth, looks like all in the video did. Many tried to deflect this obvious hypocrisy by saying the analogy isn’t good, that it’s an apples to oranges comparison. But is it?

One argument, for example, was that grades are a more accurate measure of performance than income. I say; maybe, maybe not, and so what? Income is a combination of performance and life choices. Natural ability and luck are certainly factors, but probably less so than 1) not making stupid choices and 2) working hard. That’s just the way it is.

The Atlantic picked up on this and offered some of the reasons/excuses some argued, as examples and not the position of the author. I think they all fall flat and agree with the conclusion:

They suggest that most of us just want to redistribute income because, well, we wanna . . . not because we have any particularly good reason.

Class warfare is what we’re up against when it comes to creating a sane federal budget, and the sort of hypocritical and illogical approach by the students in the video above is one reason why I have little hope there will be a solution in time to prevent a collapse.

Why our civilization is fragile, Part 6

This post won’t follow the format of preceding posts on our civilization’s fragility in that it doesn’t present an academic work related to collapse. Instead it looks at how world events can begin overlap and affect multiple systems. Some events we’re all aware of:

• The overthrow of Egyptian dictator – and U.S. ally – Mubarak and the new government that will eventually take power calls into question the last few decades of peace between Arab nations and Israel. Any large-scale war in the Middle East is a very bad thing for the rest of the (oil consuming) world.
• The related Libyan uprising against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi has caused fuel prices in the U.S. and elsewhere to skyrocket, threatening the already fragile financial recovery. What’s surprising about this is the relatively small amount of oil Libya supplied (about 2%), especially for the U.S. market:
  

  [Libya] normally pumps around 1.6 million bpd, 85 percent of which is exported to Europe. Output is normally equivalent to about 2 percent of global consumption, and unrest has cut output to about 500,000 million bpd…

• The earthquake and tsunami in Japan have caused a generations crisis there that has endangered the financial solvency of Japan and sent shock waves into the global financial market:
  

  The global financial turmoil sparked by Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis — which has wiped out about $300 billion in U.S. stock values alone this week — is particularly troubling for the United States and several other countries, where an economic recovery has been showing signs of derailing because political unrest in Libya and the Middle East has led to a sharp run-up in crude oil prices.

• Though not in the news lately, the European debt crisis is still there looming around the corner, waiting to come back.

As political upheaval and natural disasters disrupt energy and other supply lines, the effects are felt throughout other systems and across the world. The nuclear plants probably melting down in Japan may slow plans for new nuclear power plants in the U.S. As nuclear power is the only energy source that has any realistic potential for replacing fossil fuels in the long-run, this only makes an American collapse more likely.

The world is getting closer to the edge. Additional natural disasters, political upheaval, or conflicts in critical locations could be enough to push civilization as we know it over the edge. I won’t say “the end is near” because the end is always near. Times like these we can get a glimpse of how close it is.

Book Review: Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957) is the fictional story of industrialists vs. socialists in mid-twentieth century America. However, in her novel, the real movers and shakers of society – the very top industrialists, businessmen, inventors, scientists, managers, etc. – decided to shun the socialist government and society that was living off their hard work like a nation of vampires, leading to a national (global?) collapse.

Having heard of it for years, I only just now finally got around to reading the book. Although widely acclaimed, including in some survivalists circles, I was completely underwhelmed by this book; Suburban Survivalist Shrugged. Why? Two main reasons; the characters and the overall philosophy.

The main characters simply were not believable; they were gross caricatures. The businessmen were driven in business but inexplicably could not understand the need to lobby in Washington, a trait rare if not non-existent in truly successful businessmen.

In her story, these genuine heroes of civilization, prompted by none other than John Galt, decide to forsake society until said society appreciates their efforts and stops living off them like remoras. This is also unrealistic; talented others are always waiting to fill any vacuum in such fields. That’s reality.

The socialists characters (mostly government, but some businessmen who inherited their companies) were so stupid as not to understand that a business cannot operate at a loss and still continue to function. While some socialists must indeed be that dense (the early twentieth century was apparently full of such men), these characters simply did not have the ring of reality.

The philosophy Rand expounds upon in Atlas Shrugged is Objectivism. Rand describes it as:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

To her this also means, as expounded upon in the book and later interviews, an almost anarchist reliance on capitalism, no charity, and the rejection of religion. Neither realistic nor desirable, in my opinion. Of course I’m distilling it down to the bare essence, but it’s still unacceptable to me. It could be termed Calvinism in an anarchy, without God.

I’m a Christian (not the preachy kind, hopefully evident if you read this blog), and believe in charity. Rand rejects religion and the concept of charity completely, which I cannot and will not do. I do reject the government engaging in charity and forcing me to pay for it, however.

Probably the main point could have been made just as well with about half the pages, over one thousand in the 50th anniversary edition paperback I read. Very well written, especially for someone doing so in a second language, but a lot of unneeded detail.

It almost seems if Rand was seeking to establish her own religion/cult of sorts, but without a spiritual – or mystical, as she put it – deity at the center. I get the feeling an adherents to Objectivism would deliver their pitch with that same thousand-yard stare you’d get from someone trying to sell you on Amway or Scientology.

With all that negativity up front, it should be clear that Rand developed and wrote the book while much of Europe was succumbing to socialist ideals after WWII. She also correctly predicted America’s slippery slope into socialism.

My suggestion is read this book, despite the flaws I see (you may not). Borrow it from the library, know what it’s about. Rand makes many very good, if slightly unrealistic, points about the absurdity of socialism.

I’ll close with a key phrase from the book:

Post Collapse: Community vs. Communism

If Jim Rawles allowed comments at his popular Survival Blog, the post, Community Crisis Planning for Societal Collapse, by J.I.R., would probably be over 1,000 by now.

J.I.R. starts out with a no nonsense look at how communities will function should an American collapse occur past the short-term. The need to establish rule of law, stockpile resources, and ensure critical functions are completed.

But the talk of confiscating resources hit a lot of raw nerves and rightly so. I’ll hit a few representative high points – the things that really get under my skin – and try to keep it in context;

If you let private citizens keep their food and fuel and other scarce resources and only confiscate and control corporate or “large retail or wholesale stocks” …

“If you let” citizens keep their property? Next is the delineation between private citizens resources and store owners things, though the “initially” is troubling:

You have to be careful which resources you initially confiscate and only gather large retail or wholesale stocks meant for re-sale. Anything owned by an individual for his own use is his property and must not be touched. Any critical and scarce commodity owned strictly for resale should be confiscated for the common good and held by the community. Make sure you provide a receipt to any owners you can locate or at least keep records of what is taken.

Needing to establish some sort of community stockpile is of course what would be needed long-term, but “ownership” still does exist and there is no point to pretending otherwise:

One of these choices might be to confiscate corporate property and redistribute it as needed for the common good. That specifically includes local merchants who hold stockpiles of needed resources meant for resale, such as gas station and grocery store owners. The whole retail system with [its] complex accounting and “ownership” laws are part of a finance system that no longer exists after a severe EMP event.

This next bit is actually bullshit – my brothers and I own land where we grew up and where we’d (try to) return to in the event of a collapse. We don’t live there, some of it is farmable, so we’re absentee landlords. It is not an “investment” in the finance sense, and anyone trying to take it, or those that did, would be on the receiving end of our hot lead:

Farmable land owned by a absentee landlord is easy; he’s not there and owns it only as an investment, therefore it now belongs to the community.

For this, all I have to say is, and “try it”:

You may also be forced to confiscate privately owned vehicles if yours are damaged or you need specialty vehicles (like fuel tankers, for instance). You need to work out a method of doing this without stealing. Any time you confiscate resources from any private citizen, you need to somehow reimburse them as fairly as possible. A better approach may be to exclusively hire them as the driver and let them retain ownership.

This next bit is fairly cheeky – confiscate these farmers’ property, but hire them to help with the process:

Co-ops and large commercial farms: These may have livestock and large amounts of feed grain and other dried foods on hand. … Seek them out and get their input and help to secure their food. You want to avoid spoilage and loss as much as possible and these people can help. Hire them.

J.I.R. has the right initial notion that communities will need to stockpile food/supplies, provide for rule of law and collective defense, but I think he sets precedents that prime the slippery slope of communism.

Readers of Survival Blog have responded and several letters have been published, and the author of the original article has responded a couple of times;

• Four Letters Re: Community Crisis Planning for Societal Collapse
• Six Letters Re: Community Crisis Planning for Societal Collapse
• Seven Letters Re: Community Crisis Planning for Societal Collapse

Not all disagree with J.I.R. (from the Six Letters);

I completely agree with J.I.R.: Long term, communities (a dirty word to radical individualists) must organize and work together. And so all of a sudden on a survivalist web site like yours, someone has gotten real and is talking about community, the dangers of anarchy, the rule of law, justice, the protection of the weak, and even redistribution of property. In other words, government, the very thing most survivalists demonize the most. This is unavoidable. No guns-based, hyper-individualistic strategy could ever work for long.

That’s why I’m a left-wing survivalist. To me, the key is cooperation and production. Though the old self-reliant American lifestyle was fading when I was a child in the 1950s, the infrastructure and social fabric that supported community-based self-reliance had not yet decayed.

Several replies mentioned the scenario from the excellent book, One Second After and that it was similar. Actually, it was different in the book in that a lot less was confiscated and things were more voluntary. There was a rationing system – you give your stockpile and you get a ration card, otherwise live on what you have. That’s better. But it was also a relatively small community.

Our “retreat” (the family farm, or perhaps “compound”) has enough land and water to grow substance crops for as many as we’ll allow on our property. There is also some game, but my guess is that if there is a real collapse, game will become thin pretty soon.

We plan on having enough for our family and close friends we plan on having here. Probably some won’t make it there (including me and my family), probably some we’d rather not have there will show up. Probably more than planned for, which is sort of figured into planning; it’ll be very hard.

My family, I’m sure, would not allow any land, vehicle, fuel, livestock, or other property to be confiscated. We’d be well armed, including scoped long-range rifles, and with a plan to defend. As J.I.R. notes (Six Letters);

Without some kind of redistribution of scarce resources and a working police department, nobody’s property is off limits. Most of the people in the community are going to be hungry very fast. Nobody just sits down and starves to death. They are going to attempt to find food or whatever their family needs. Hungry people loot.

That’s true. However, for most places, that will happen regardless. There will be too many people, not enough food. Period. And there is no way to help everyone, it just cannot be done (unless you have stored truly vast quantities of supplies, which is highly unlikely for most) without jeopardizing the lives of your own family or group.

Defining TEOTWAWKI

One of the two acronyms those new to prepping or survivalism quickly become acquainted with is TEOTWAWKI, or The End Of The World As We Know It (the other being variations of SHTF, or Sh*t Hit The Fan).

The vast majority of survivalists/preppers define TEOTWAWKI as a total collapse type event. This could be from financial collapse, nuclear war, plague, etc., but something that would cause enough interruption of services that trade, communications, transportation, etc. would fail. Most expect equally wide chaos and loss or rule of law to follow.

Hence the focus on beans, bullets, and Band-Aids in the survivalist community. “The End” rather than “An Interruption,” though it’s not unexpected that civilization – and government – would reorganize eventually.

So I was a bit surprised at the reactions to this comment at the Survivalist Blog recently:

SHTF blog
August 11th, 2010 at 8:04 PM
If I knew when TEOTWAWKI was gonna hit the first thing I’d do would be to take out 8,000 different credit cards and max them all out on gear and equipment. Then I’d spend the rest of the time enjoying the easy life before it all goes down the toilet.

Clearly the TEOTWAWKI expected here is a total collapse. Not a financial depression, not a tropical storm or tornado, and so on, but what survivalists think of when TEOTWAWKI is mentioned; total collapse. The hypothetical topic of the post being commented on, What Do You Do When You’re Given The Deadline For Teotwawki? and the content in that post implied as much.

Now I’d read that and pretty much agree – if we’re looking at total collapse, no reason not to use the credit cards. Won’t be paying my utilities afterwards either. I’d probably also empty my 401k and other savings.

But two things happened. First the author of the post replied back trying to undermine that comment using an alternative definition of TEOTWAWKI related more to a severe economic depression that the one most survivalists subscribe to. True, TEOTWAWKI may mean something different to a few, but clearly not the vast majority.

Second, a few holier than thou commenters tore into Ranger Man, prompting his reply at his blog since his comments in defense of himself were mostly deleted. I understand his frustration, since my comments critical of an alternative meaning of TEOTWAWKI were also deleted or just not approved (twice). Which is why I’m writing here instead of commenting there.

Of course that blog owner can do as they please, king in their realm, I just don’t seem myself writing comments there very often, since if they hint at disagreeing with the author, those comments are apt to disappear.

Back to the definition of TEOTWAWKI. Of course there is no official definition. Still I’ll go with what the vast majority of survivalists and preppers mean by it; a total collapse.

Military Service, Survivalism, and Mobilization

I can’t guess the percentage, but many survivalists have served in the military or currently are serving. Probably much higher than the veteran to non-veteran ratio. A few survival bloggers – including Ryan, Nutnfancy, and myself – are currently serving on active duty (them) or in the reserves (me). Many survivalist bloggers may not advertise their current status due to OPSEC concerns.

There are some excellent benefits to military service, and I don’t mean healthcare, education, or a steady income. Training (formal and OJT), types of professions, leadership development, and living overseas are a few. There is also the chance to pursue careers that are extremely difficult to get into otherwise, from combat arms or Special Forces, to intelligence, to technical disciplines. The military can change your life for the better, if you let it.

With such service in this era, however, there is also price to pay – you will deploy, perhaps multiple times, depending on which branch of service and job. Most of the time that’s what you want – you’ve trained for it, now it’s time to put it into action. Before OIF/OEF, service members had gone entire careers without much opportunity for mobilization.

Enter survivalism, and an awakening to the issues and potential TEOTWAWKI events lurking around the corner. Mobilization goes from being merely bittersweet – away from wife and kids, but doing fulfilling work – to something to dread; what will my wife and children do if TSHTF while I’m in Afghanistan for a year?

In my estimation we’re currently in a slow decline, which likely will trigger a total collapse at some unknown future time. Odds are my time to pay the piper will come sooner than later and I’ll be back in time, but one never knows. If you’re a survivalist considering the military or staying in the military, this is something you’ll need to weigh.

The Potential for Racial Violence in America

Besides the record deficient both parties of our federal government are responsible for, ignoring the need to enforce immigration regulations and enacting immigration reform is creating a dangerous rift in society. Even assuming we continue at the same standard of living there will be serious trouble down the road, but taking into consideration the likely unavoidable drastic reduction in standard of living – or even total collapse – this issue is even more alarming.

This is perhaps best illustrated by Arizona’s recent immigration law that aims to, “identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants.” To be clear, the law is anti-illegal immigrant, not anti-immigrant as some may claim. Many on the left tend to intentionally blur this important distinction. Some have stated Arizona’s new law is unconstitutional because, “States have no power to pass immigration laws.” But others note that argument fails due to the fact that the law, “reinforces existing federal immigration laws and creates no new immigration crimes.”

There has been a backlash against Arizona from some, including the City of Los Angeles, but the root of the issue is generally ignored. Luckily there are a few voices of reason out there, including George Will and David Broder. Mr. Will notes:

Arizona’s law makes what is already a federal offense — being in the country illegally — a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona’s right to assert concurrent jurisdiction.

Mr. Broder cuts to the chase:

The law is every bit as bad as others have said — but it is hardly a surprise. What has been missing from the discussion is any apparent recognition of those responsible for killing the last effort at comprehensive federal immigration reform that would have headed off the need for this kind of punitive state action.

Federal indifference to enforcing existing immigration law may in-part have helped foster the apparent feeling of entitlement to some illegal immigrants, and fostered a culture of victimhood among legal immigrants that is counter to integration into American culture. Some schools in Arizona have apparently enforced this notion.

Though I do not observe it where I live, there seems to be a sort of Mexican nationalism in the West that political correctness forces some to accept. When a few high school students recently wore t-shirts with American flags on them to school during the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, they were told to change the clothes or go home by school administrators. How dare they wear American flags on a Mexican holiday?

It seems obvious the students wearing American flag t-shirts were trying to be somewhat provocative. The question that needs to be asked is why did they feel they needed to do so, and why did at least some of the schools administrators feel the students would be at risk for doing so? It’s just as clear that the students had the right to wear the shirts.

Roger Ebert had to weight in on this subject, saying, “Kids who wear American Flag t-shirts on 5 May should have to share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle [sic] on 4 July.” This is an illogical analogy because This is America and July 4th is an American holiday, while Cinco de Mayo is a foreign holiday and the sickle and hammer is a foreign symbol. He later wrote, “Cinco de Mayo’s purpose is to celebrate Mexican-American culture in the United States,” which is just factually incorrect – it has nothing to do with “Mexican-American culture,” but is a memorial to the Mexican military’s victory over French forces during the Battle of Puebla, 5 May 1862. Yet ignorant and comments and illogical comparisons like Ebert’s will no doubt gain traction in some communities.

To me there is a very clear distinction between legal and illegal immigration. There is no gray area. And no one can claim I’m anti-immigrant; I have very close family members who are first generation immigrants, as well as friends and trusted colleagues. I support legal immigration and oppose those who attempt to bypass the laws my friends and family have followed, period.

As the slow decline we’re in worsens, and in the event of a total collapse, this ethnic/racial divide has the potential to get very ugly, as those on both sides settle scores for past injustices, both real and perceived. There is no easy solution to this for the survivalist or prepper – just know your area and be ready for this sort of violence on top of the accompanying chaos.