Why we prep
Here's another reason why you – and your friends and family – should prep:
"If you can't touch it, you don't own it"
Seems the British are having some trouble cashing out their mutual funds. A lot of banks in jolly ol' England are refusing to pay out. All of the hoopla appears to be because too many investors are getting nervous. And when people get nervous about their money, they naturally want to get closer to it; as in "in the pocket" closer.
TRENDING: St. Patrick's role on the 'external hard drive'
No bank can survive a run because no bank is ever even close to 100 percent liquidity (meaning, they have all the deposited money on hand at all times). But fortunately the bank fund managers have an out: they can "... halt redemptions, should 'extraordinary circumstances' occur."
And the fund managers are the ones who get to define what "extraordinary circumstances" are. Sweet gig.
Folks, money in the bank is an unsecured loan by you to the bank. The rules are written by the bankers in such a way so that they get to decide when you can collect your "loan."
Control is ownership. He who controls something owns it. Think you own your home and property? Try building a pond on "your" creek without permission. Try skipping your property taxes or building a house without a permit. That's when you'll see who really owns what.
If you can't control something; if you can't hold it in your own hands; if you have to ask someone else for permission to buy something or sell something or even destroy something … it isn't yours.
Preppers don't keep all their eggs in one basket. They know that a box of cartridges is more valuable than money in the bank. And they avoid having to go to the bank, hat in hand, to beg for their "loan" to be repaid.
And that's one of the reasons we prep.
Last week I interrupted my two-parter on the natural and complementary roles that women and men bring to prepping to urge you all to shift your acquisition priorities to getting your guns and ammo needs in order. Nothing in the news over this last week makes me change that recommendation.
Don't waste any more time.
But I hated to break up my train of thought in the man/woman prepper partnership, so let's get back to the differences between male and female preppers, and how those differences can make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
First, a disclaimer: I hate social justice warrior logical absurdities. If I tell you that all dogs have fur, please don't point at a Mexican hairless and then use this singular example to righteously declare that no dogs have fur. Men and women are different. And while I know that you don't need to own a pickup truck because you wife can carry a half-ton on her back and still get 20 miles to the gallon; or that your husband can cook a leather jacket and make it into a three course meal, these examples do not disprove the generalizations that men are stronger than women or that women are more drawn to the domestic arts than men.
So here's a few generalizations that can guide us to the best use of gender-power in the prepper compound. After an exhaustive survey of my male prepper friends, we all agree that when we can't find our own heads, it is our other halves that know where they are. (Often they will tell us to look in other portions of our anatomy.) This gestalt awareness of place holds true for car keys, reading glasses, baseball caps and even less important items like wedding rings and underwear. It is the attribute of the quartermaster: someone who knows where everything is and how much there is of it. And it fits with the scientific studies that show women to be less interested in process and more inclined toward product, and better at multitasking and organization.
When you ask a woman prepper to describe the perfect bug-out or homestead, you invariably get answers that include: a mature garden, a full pantry, a complete medicine cabinet and good relations with neighbors. In other words, a finished product; a completed snapshot. But the same question addressed to male preppers elicits replies like: well-regulated weapons, operational water supplies, essential tools, and local mutual defense agreements, all with the codicil that there's more to do and "perfect" is just a starting point.
Ask that same guy about the garden and he'll tell you about the drip irrigation system he's working on. Inquire about the state of his pantry and more often than not he'll tell you about installing the shelving and his concerns about upgrading the load supports. Ask him if it's well-stocked and, well, he'll direct you to his wife.
From all of this, it becomes apparent a woman's place isn't in the home. A woman's place IS the home. Home is the center of all self-sufficiency efforts. And home is therefore of paramount importance for the prepper.
Men are the makers. Women are the conservators. And in a prepper home, neither can work to the optimum without the other.
Now on the issue of home defense, most of my prepper acquaintances agree that men and women have equal responsibilities. However, a sizable number of women are more chary about being able to shoot another human being.
As one friend put it, "Women are by nature life-bearers, not life-takers." That may be generally true. But the conservator nature of women does make them the more dangerous half of the male/female equation in one scenario: the sow bear is always more dangerous than the boar when there's a perceived danger to the cubs.
Ultimately, men and women should play to their strengths. A good male/female partnership is a God-designed complement. It is incredibly sexist to deny the differences between men and women and to try to force either sex to fill roles for which they are unsuited, simply because of foolish and false paradigms created for personal or political gain.
Men are by nature the head of the household. That is inarguable. (But of course I expect some arguments anyway. Women!) That God-given division of labor and responsibilities can be masked or even ignored in times of safety and plenty. But when the SHTF, when there are pirates, when risk has a greater survival value than conservation, the natural order will return.
Just as it always has.
Next week, we'll finally get to the end of the "guns for beginning preppers" series with a discussion centered around the most contentious firearm class of all: the rifle. Should be fun.
Be good to your spouse. Kiss your kids. Get prepared.
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