The Organic Prepper had a post the other day entitled “In Argentina, Organized Groups Are Looting Stores for Food as Inflation Exceeds 100%.” The title gives you the crux of it: In Argentina, organized groups are looting grocery stores to feed themselves and their families.
I couldn’t help but think, “I wonder how long it takes before flash mobs stop looting Nordstrom or Home Depot and start looting Safeway or Kroger instead?”
The article mentioned there had been arrests, so I guess the police and courts in Argentina are performing at a higher level than the police and prosecutors in San Francisco and other liberal cities. One reason people are robbing stores in California and other liberal environs is because no-bail laws and leftist prosecutors who don’t lock up the criminals. Heck, in New York, they’ve arrested store owners for fighting back. Makes me glad I live in a “stand your ground” state.
The article also talked about store “owners loading firearms and preparing to protect their stores.” I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of that here in the U.S. I have seen armed store personnel in convenience stores, pawnshops, liquor stores, gun stores, and jewelry stores, but not grocery stores. Perhaps that’s why the mobs are targeting Nordstrom instead of Joe’s Cash and Carry—because they know Joe will shoot them while people in Nordstrom will just wring their hands.
I think a trained individual with a 9mm carbine backed up with a 9mm pistol using the same magazine would make a good shoplifting prevention system without being an excessive danger to nearby customers.
A Bad, Sad Situation
It’s a sad commentary on how far we have fallen to look at Argentina’s political and economic problems and think, “That could be us in three to five years.” In fact, I expect our future will look very much like that if the country elects someone named Biden, Harris, or Newsome next year.
I often talk about building a prepper pantry, having a source of water, living in an area of low population density, and training with firearms for self-defense. One thing I have not addressed as much is surviving in a lawless society. I think we must prepare for fewer cops, more criminals, and an increase in lawlessness over the next few years. Even if we do not experience a full-on collapse, we could see the economic and social collapses of cities, much like we saw in Detroit a couple decades ago, leaving decaying houses, rampant crime, and sticking it to residents who do not get out in time. The last time inner cities died, the suburbs flourished. This time, I see the suburbs going down, too, as the crime and violence from the city creeps outward looking for new targets.
The idea of a lawless society was driven home to me in the video below, where Chad from the 3 of 7 Project talks about deploying to Nigeria as a Navy Seal and what a hellhole it was. While he was there, he saw no rule of law except that imposed at the end of a gun. They even ignored traffic laws. Will the U.S. reach that point? I hope not, but that won’t stop me from preparing for it.
Degrees of Collapse
Many preppers prepare for “the big one.” They plan for nuclear war, an EMP attack or a CME, an asteroid strike, the Yellowstone caldera exploding, or some other earth-shattering event will kill billions and change life for the rest of us. But how many of us are preparing for a lesser collapse, one where everything is worse, but there has been no mass extinction event? Where billions of people are fighting for dwindling resources and the standard of living drops for everyone except the 1 percent?
Maybe we should look at how to survive in a world where no one answers when you dial 911, a world without the rule of law (WROL), where the person in the largest vehicle has the right of way at the intersection (assuming anyone stops at all). Can you stay safe, employed, and fed in a world where trucks travel in armed convoys to avoid being hijacked by organized gangs, people are frequently kidnapped and held for ransom, and you have to bribe petty government officials to get anything done? Because that’s the third-world life and we appear to be heading towards the same here in the U.S.
Alternatively, are you prepared for a scenario when you may not leave your neighborhood without a pass from the government and need pre-approval to make a trip out of state? Where you can be stopped and your belongings can be searched or confiscated any time for no reason? What if things you say on social media affect the cost of your insurance, the level of medical care you get, or where you may work? Because that’s the government as the tyrannical nanny state scenario, and the way we are headed, we may see it in the not-so-distant future.
Worse than Inflation
Sadly, there are worse things than inflation, and a corrupt, tyrannical, self-perpetuating, anti-constitutional government is one of them. Who cares what a gallon of gasoline costs, for example, if they prohibit you from buying it because of something you said about the president, or COVID, or an ethnic group? The combination of a central bank digital currency, constant surveillance, and artificial intelligence will make that a reality.
The leftists are using tactics we recognize from 1984 and Saul Alinsky to promote ideas that are based on the Marx’s Communist Manifesto and would be at home in China. This can only go on so long before the country collapses, as inevitably happens when socialism is the overriding political ideal.
The big question is, will we allow ourselves to reach that point or will people start loading their firearms to protect their person, property, and way of life, just like those Argentinian store owners?
