Michael Snyder
Activist Post
Why would the government want to punish people that are just trying to work hard, become more self-sufficient and take care of their families?
There are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today, and often they appear to be singled out for punishment by bureaucratic control freaks that are horrified at the thought that there are families out there that actually want to try to become less dependent on the system.
So if you use alternative methods to heat your home, or if you are not connected to the utility grid, or if you collect rainwater on your property, or if you believe that parents should have the ultimate say when it comes to health decisions for their children, you could become a target for overzealous government enforcers.
Once upon a time, America was the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are being transformed into a socialist police state where control freak bureaucrats use millions of laws, rules and regulations to crack down on anyone that dares to think for themselves.
For example, people have been burning wood to heat their homes since this country began. And this is still very common in rural areas. But the Obama administration does not like this at all. The Obama bureaucrats at the EPA fear that our little wood stoves may be contributing to “global warming”, so they have outlawed the production and sale of 80 percent of the wood stoves that are currently in use. The following comes from a recent Forbes article…
It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.
While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.
Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.
Does that make you angry?
It should.
There are other preppers that try to use very “clean” methods to power their homes, but that is still not good enough for some government control freaks.
For example, one prepper down in south Florida that had gone “off the grid” was recently ordered by a court to connect back to the grid or face eviction from his home. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Guiles Hendrik…
Think you are still free to make choices in your life? Do you think the government will allow you to live independent of their utility monopolies? If you think so, try opting for renewable non-grid tied power and utilize environmentally friendly composting toilets and your own self-sufficient water supply. Today, those life choices could land you in jail if you live in South Florida. Take the case of Robin Speronis.
Robin Speronis has lived off the grid, independent of the city’s water and electric system. A Florida court ruled this off-the-grid living illegal last week and has given Robin until March to connect her home to a municipal water line or face possible eviction. Further, officials in the city of Cape Coral have justified this by deeming Robin’s home “unsanitary,” citing the International Property Maintenance Code. First of all, since when did we begin to locally recognize “international codes?” Where in the US Constitution does it provide for international jurisdiction over local codes? Ironically, this “international” code mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source, even though most of the world lives without reliable electricity and municipal water and sewer. Further, the code is outdated and obsolete because it was written without consideration to both old and new technologies that relegate the need for grid tied power and municipal water as unnecessary and expensive; especially, in locations where it simply isn’t feasible to have grid tied utilities. Nonetheless, Speronis’ home does in fact have power and water through far cheaper and more environmentally friendly means — solar panels and rainwater, but that reality is ignored by the local government.
Incredibly, most Americans still seem to believe that we live in a “free country”. But we don’t. Our lives are very tightly constrained by literally millions of laws, rules and regulations, and more are being added every single day.
Even some of our most basic fundamental rights have been seriously eroded. One of these is the right to make basic health decisions for our own children. In New York state, children that have not received all of the designated vaccines can now be banned from attending public school, and this requirement was recently upheld by a federal appeals court…
New York state’s requirement that children be vaccinated before attending public school does not violate their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court in Manhattan said on Wednesday.
In affirming the requirement’s constitutionality, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a previous ruling by a federal judge that students exempted from the requirement for religious reasons can be barred from school when another child has a disease preventable by a vaccine.
The decision was the latest to go against three parents from New York City who say their religious rights were violated when their children were kept out of school as a result of the immunization policies. The parents’ lawyer, Patricia Finn, said her clients planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
So what are we free to do without government interference these days?
Not much.
In fact, in some states we can’t even sit on our own land and collect the rain as it falls from the sky for our own personal use.
If you do this in the state of Oregon, for example, you could go to prison…
Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.
“I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.
Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.
And of course these are just a few examples. Almost every single day there are more stories in the news about government bureaucrats cracking down on preppers. They almost seem to relish the opportunity to go after the “non-conformists”.
But the good news is that the number of Americans that are seeking to become less dependent on the system just continues to grow.
So what about you?
Are you a prepper?
My friend Daisy Luther recently wrote a piece entitled “45 MORE Signs That You Might Be One of Those Crazy Preppers.” The following are some of the most interesting “signs” from her list…
- You spend your days off digging an underground bunker in your backyard.
- Your family doesn’t dare take something from the food stockpile without marking it off the list.
- Your kids know how to don a gas mask in 30 seconds.
- Everyone in your survival group carries the same firearm so that ammo is standardized.
- Your family is no longer surprised when you announce, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to make (insert anything here)!”
- You have long since accepted the idea that if you’re not on someone’s list, you’re probably not doing it right.
- You don’t just rotate food, you rotate ammo.
- Moving to a new house is no longer “moving”, but “strategic relocation”.
- Your kids think it’s a fun game to see who can find the most potential weapons in a room.
- Your EDC includes a knife, firearm w/extra mag, flashlight, mylar blanket, Chapstick, and an ounce of silver — and that’s just for when you’re walking the dog.
- One criterion for your new winter coat is that it fits over your body armor.
You can read her entire article right here.
America was built by people that loved their families, worked hard and were self-sufficient.
Now our government is specifically targeting those kinds of people.
What in the world is happening to us?
This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.
Here in the S.F. Bay Area they declare ‘Spare The Air’ days.
Earlier in the week, they sprayed the skies all night until there was a surrealistic, thick toxic metallic haze (and continued to over the ‘clouds’ all day).
These episodes often coincide with these tyrannical restrictive days in which folks are forbidden to use wood burning fire places or stoves.
They pollute, then oppress us under environmental premise.
Geo-engineering should be used as an instrument to wake folks up.
Showing once and for all that our ‘Government’ (an alphabet of franchised for profit corporations) does not care about the environment.
It ‘cares’ about genocide and enslavement.
Yes I am always complaining to them “how can you tell me not to burn while you’re allowing the coverage of the skies with toxic chemicals?” I burn anyways.
Thank you!!
i’m up in Lake county where they tell us we have had the cleanest air for years. BECAUSE of their enforcement.
What they don’t measure at all are ANY of the 80,000 chemicals used in the US, and they SURE don’t measure the pesticides on our farmlands.
Here’s a clue you idiot bureaucrats – that crap is all over the air, duh. Then in your body, and your babies. One study showed up to 232 TOXIC chemicals inside placental cord blood – that means getting into the fetus before birth.
Another thing is now they’re telling people they must register their devices (fireplaces)….People warned us about registering our cars…and that our guns would be next……..well now it’s our fireplaces. I refuse.
All of this all-consuming regulation is about control, registration, and ultimately taxation, AKA fees. The State isn’t interested in cleaning the environment. They are the biggest polluter. The military dumps untold tons of toxic material into the environment without any notification to local health agencies. Politicians like Al Gore are hell-bent on creating a phony carbon exchange so they can extort billions from business, who in turn will pass the cost on to the consumer. He is worse than the REVolting Al Sharpton.
You know what’s really crazy?
We did this to ourselves.
Only about 7% of the population are government employees. They are the ones doing this to us.
But we are the ones who handed them this power over us, We did this because we foolishly and erroneously believed that “We need them.” We brought the government into existence with our belief in its necessity.
All that we need to unburden ourselves of them, is to WAKE UP!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to2xQE-hSx4
So if there’s no one to control the population, wouldn’t it be chaos? What would you suggest for law and order? And if we all gave our power to the government, how can you get everyone to stand up at one time to say we don’t want this or that or tyranny in our lives? Forget about calling our representatives, senators, etc.
Dear Joan,
The assumption that those “controlling the population” will somehow be angelic beings more virtuous than those being controlled, and will therefore ensure order and safety, is a fairy tale and a contradiction in terms.
The chaos we have now is a direct result of seedy elites “controlling the population.” The elites who lust after political power, and who wind up “controlling the population” are always the ones least qualified to control anything.
I used to be a champion of “limited government.” It took a lot to finally convince me that limited government can never be limited, will always metastasize into unlimited government, and become an advocate of free market anarchism.
Are you familiar with Joe Sobran? He used to write for the National Review. He and many others underwent similar transformations.
Here is one that I hope you will find illuminating and enjoyable.
The Reluctant Anarchist
http://www.sobran.com/reluctant.shtml
Excerpt:
My arrival (very recently) at philosophical anarchism has disturbed some of my conservative and Christian friends. In fact, it surprises me, going as it does against my own inclinations. As a child I acquired a deep respect for authority and a horror of chaos. In my case the two things were blended by the uncertainty of my existence after my parents divorced and I bounced from one home to another for several years, often living with strangers. A stable authority was something I yearned for.
Yes.
The problem is that most of us are … irresponsible. We set up this government like a loaded gun. We did not want to be bothered. We had more important things to do with our lives.
.
Other people were different. They just wanted to lord it over the rest of us. They were not honest. They were sociopaths and they lie very well and they are good at getting elected to office.
.
In Plato’s ideal republic, the governing people were bred to that task, not elected. They had the education they needed to govern instead of having the insanity they needed for the task.
I am seriously starting to believe David Icke’s theory that the politicians and elite who micromanage the rest of us are really reptilian beings from another dimension (aka-demons, aliens, shape shifters,etc.) . Things are getting more bizarre and idiotic every day. It’s a step beyond what greedy and evil people would do. These “people” in charge seem like aliens from outer space.
Something’s goin’ on.
Even on a local level.
I don’t know how they get local ‘public servants’ all so adherent to the Agenda.
When we speak truth to them, they look at us like we’re from outer space…
even when I don’t wear a metallic hat.
You are right about that. It use to be mostly Federal level politicians and agencies who were oppressive but now you’re just as likely to get the same treatment from the leaders, authorities and professionals in your own hometown.
I heard that too! Something about their eyes glow or reflect in the dark though.
Yes they have those glowing eyes because the eyes accessorize so nicely with their cold blood, scales, and long, forked tongues.
Just like my cat! Her eyes are green, but in the dark they look gold.
My attitude to making sense of life is that anything – anything – is possible unless conclusively proved otherwise. And that includes the Lizards!
I agree. I do not know what to make of these people except I remember several presidents in the past 30 years or so openly talking about The New World Order- George H.W. specifically. I also remember his speech talking about a thousand points of light. These people scare me!
You remember our “Leaders” mentioning a New World Order to then!
One needs only to research the insidious machinations contained within Agenda 21 to shed some light on the fact that the Feds are bound & determined to force (thru steady attrition) the urban people into the heavily populated cities …so they can be extorted via exorbitant rents for ‘shoebox’ apts,,, while they get up early to line up for 10 blocks in a food line for their daily allotment of Soylent Green & wash it all down with heavy metal mystery fluids of ubiquitous fluoride & aspartame death cocktails….sounds like a ‘Rosy’ future is being implemented in mom pop & apple pie America.
Did the research Eduardo and it confirmed what most already know, your a moron.
This blog is so right about freedom, in that a great majority of Americans think they still live in a free country and that they send their troops off to war to defend and support this fictitious idea of freedom they have.
Very sad and worrying at the same time.
To show support for the man going to jail for collecting rain, don’t hold up signs, go get a rain barrel. What would they do if 100,000 people collected rain?
I plan to. I might not do it so openly, though.
Did everyone forget we have a US Constitution? What about the Bill of Rights? The Bill of Rights are there to PROTECT the citizens FROM those who serve within our governments – federal and state.
That the US Constitution and all that is in Pursuance thereof it is the supreme law of THIS land, NOT those who serve within it UNLESS they are doing their constitutionally assigned duty in a constitutional manner.
Do NOT forget the Ninth Amendment which reminds those who serve within our governments that not all of our natural rights are listed, but they are still protected by the US Constitution.
Amendment 9: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Nor the Preamble to the Bill of Rights: “Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their
adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent
misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and
restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of
public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent
ends of its institution. ..”
We kept warm by burning wood in many different ways before there was an America, and it is a natural right.
Alexander Hamilton, concerning the supremacy clause The Federalist Papers, 33: “It will not, I presume, have escaped observation that it expressly confines the supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution.”
Alexander Hamilton: “There is no position which depends on clearer principles that that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.”
Patrick Henry: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to
restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
James Madison, Federalist No. 14: “In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the
whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any”.
Federalist No. 45 Madison wrote: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”
Did everyone forget about the Separation of Powers which is required of all who serve within the three branches?
That if an agency is within the executive branch it is ONLY ALLOWED to enforce laws created by our Representatives (yes, our reps themselves no one else) within the legislative branch; nor is that agency allowed to decide the guilt or innocence of any person who broke a rule, regulation, law, etc. They get a jury trial, and guilt or innocence, or that the regulation/law/etc is bad and must be thrown out of the lawbooks, etc, and even if the judge is using “Good Behaviour” as is required of them is all decided by the jury. Though if that jury believes that the judge is using bad behavior by not following the US Constitutional duties assigned to them, or by not keeping their Oath that judge gets a jury trial to decide that problem.)
Those are OUR laws of THIS land.
Why not sell the surplus electricity back to the power company ? I hear most states that is written in their “law” .
Look the Divine Creator’s judgement is obviously on most of the governments in America today for DISOBEYING Him by punishing the good and rewarding the evildoers .
Evil governments are NOT from the Divine Creator
Here in Australia, you are forced to sell your left-over electricity (from solar panels) back to the power companies, and they get to set the rate at which they buy it from you. If you have solar panels on your roof in Australia (i don’t), you still have to be grid connected (so you can sell it back) and you have to have a smart meter to measure the amount of power you are collecting. Hence the reason why I don’t have solar panels.
About 20 years ago here, I remember a court case where a man took our major electricity company to court because he wanted the right to be self-sufficient and NOT sell his left-over electricity back to the electricity company. Basically, he didn’t want to be grid connected. The electricity company took him to court and won! He was forced to pay all the associated costs of being a slave to the electricity company.
That was 20 years ago folks..in Australia! WE ARE YOUR FUTURE.
The solution is democracy. The problem is the failure of this failed
Republic to represent the people. We have to agitate for democracy.
Snyder seems to think we can return to a bygone time of the Jeffersonian
yeoman farmer and become self-sufficient. Nonsense. Most of the people
in this country are landless. The people absolutely need a democratic
government to defend them against the oligarchs and plutocrats and
fascist militarists. The solution is democracy, not an escape into
unincorporated and unzoned places.
Democracy Is Tyrrany, Long Live Liberty
(Search it)
Democracy is not liberty’s friend, nor its
acquaintance, nor its long lost relative, nor even of the same species –
Democracy is the enemy of liberty.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. This nation was founded as a constitutional republic with some democratic institutions. It worked great until the oligarchs co-opted the seats of power. Restore the constitution as the rule of law.
Sailors are given liberty. It is a set time, say for example you get 12 hours shore leave liberty. You can go ashore and be off the ship for up to around 11 hours. Then, you need to hual yourself back and report in to the captain or his watch. Liberty is a given thing, permission, you need to beg, ask, do good to get it.
Freedom is a right we are all born having naturally. You have a government (controlling minds) telling you liberty is a good thing? You buy it? Well, you can enjoy it. I’ll move on and enjoy freedom all the more. I am my own captain, thanks.
It’s simply time to start taking vengeance on these public officials who enforce these draconian “laws” that take away people’s rights. Research who is responsible for what rights violations and pay them a little visit. Leave a banner with the body explaining what the pay-back was for, and give a tip-off to several news agencies so they can be at the scene to take pics before the cops show up. Extreme? Well, extreme provocation calls for extreme response.
By now, if you are reading this sort of stuff online, you are one of these people:
A Prepper
Someone who is fine with prepping, but hasn’t yet made the move for some reason
Someone who does not understand, or cannot, or will not, but is otherwise relatively neutral.
Someone who hates preppers or is otherwise against them
U.S. Government, the wealthy, the military, all supposedly comprised of U.S. Citizens want you in one of the last three categories, preferably either of the last two. Ironically, those groups fall into the first category, as they are preppers of almost mythical proportions.
Obama flies all over the nation campaining in ‘his’ 747 pollution pig that spews out hundreds of thousands of times as much pollution as those fireplaces, but that’s ok, the government is doing it. It’s not about pollution, it’s about CONTROL. Comply or die.
The way to defeat the entity that now stands, is to give it all back. Give them back their dollars, their shoddy homes, their cheap automobiles, their destructive lifestyle, all of it.. So long as you are in possession of whats theirs, they are in possession of you to some extent.
This is exactly the reason I recently added the tag “CONTROL FREAKS” to the app I use to save articles. Effing crazy.
Yes linda i’m with you they are all aliens , lol sry linda i could not resist that , I’m am not a god minded person but whats going on sure is evil and our leaders are up to their eye balls in it . I watched the doc We need to talk about sandyhook WTF is going on ??? Then you see NOAH POZER was killed twice ? Again WTF ? And you said it right linda it is a step beyond what greedy and evil people would do , check out this story folks #opdeatheaters a operation by anonymous to name child rapers in the UK and these are the UK leaders being named and royals ? Once again WTF ? I have my line in the sand and will stand up to them if crossed alien or not lol . TC all .