Creekmore: The 5 Common Piles of Prepper B.S.

M.D. Creekmore has posted an article at The Survivalist Blog entitled: "Warning: Do You Recognize these Five Common Piles of Prepper BS." His list of 5 fallacies are:

• The golden horde--as he notes, and others (e.g. FerFal) have noted, history shows that during upheaval, people head to the cities, not from the cities, absent some disaster occurring to that particular city (and, even then, there may not be a mass exodus).

• Without rule of law (WROL)--Creekmore also finds this unlikely because people want rule of law; he suggests that any such event would be localized geographically and temporally. Historical events largely support this. I've read quite a bit about the Black Death, and have noted that even during that horrible plague, with upwards of 50% of the population dying in some areas, the courts and other government continued to function. However, this is not to say that banditry won't increase--it will; until the 20th Century, violent crime was higher in rural areas than in cities. I've discussed the one exception to this being a civil war. But even in a civil war, the lack of rule of law won't be between you and your neighbors, speaking as a whole; they won't tolerate a murderer or thief ... unless the violence is directed against the "enemy".

• Shoot first--if you are going to still be subject to rule of law, you can also expect principles of self-defense to apply, even if more exceptions might be made. 

• Bugging out to the woods--wilderness living is just not a viable option for most people.

• Being squared away in the wilderness--Creekmore is not talking about moving to a small community here, but the genuinely isolated retreat miles from the nearest town. His comments mirror that of Fer Fal's (and what I have oft repeated in my blog):

Some survival writers suggest relocating as far away from other people as possible – this is what I call the “cabin in the woods” survival philosophy. Living in the backwoods is great, now, but in the aftermath of a long-term disaster or economic collapse, those “squared away” in the wilderness will become targets. 

And guess what… you’ll be on your own. No one will come to your rescue – if the looters manage to take control of your isolated cabin in the woods, they can stay for as long as they want and do what ever they want to you and your family, and no one will hear your screams for help. 

Robbers, thieves, rapists and murders will seek out isolated retreats, because of there isolation, I know this goes against what some other self-appointed “survival guru” has repeatedly told his readers, but recent history and common sense prove that I’m right.  Armed and organized home invasions will be a constant threat for isolated families.
One lone gunman could easily, take out an isolated family from a distance or even selectively pick off all of the male inhabitants while saving the females for his own pleasure. 

I’ve lived in an isolated area where my closest neighbors were well over a mile away, and the peace and quiet are great, I loved the isolation, but even then, I constantly worried about thieves breaking in and stealing my stuff, every time that I left the house to go to town or visit my family. And this was during good times – now imagine how quickly things would deteriorate in the aftermath of an economic collapse or other major disaster.

Anyone that has studied the settlement of North America will recognize the basic truth about this--the Indians did not raid cities or even towns, but the isolated cabin or small settlement.

Fer Fal gets into some of these same issues in his recent video critical of the American Redoubt concept. He observes that when analyzing what happened in the Yugoslavian civil war that a person would have been better off in Sarajevo than in the small towns or isolated homesteads that were subject to ethnic cleansing; and you are not going to be shooting "your financial problems" if there is a financial collapse (unless you plan on turning to banditry).