From the Editor

An Economic Collapse

By:  David Deschesne

Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal

State representatives in Wyoming recently advanced legislation to launch a study into what they should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.

According to the Star Tribune, House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote on February 24. It creates a state-run government continuity task force, “which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.”

The Star Tribune goes on to say an amendment by Rep. Kermit Brown calls on the task force to “also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.” (uh, Wyoming is landlocked, so why and aircraft carrier?)

That bill was rejected 30-27 by the Wyoming House of Representatives on Tuesday. It’s just as well; in a collapse scenario, government is the last entity to look to for help (actually, they're not even on my list of sources). All governments know how to do in response to emergencies is confiscate guns and lock down society. In the event of a collapse, I would wish the government to leave me alone. History has shown in times of dire need, government is not a help, it's a hindrance. Does anyone remember the government “assistance” after Hurricane Katrina? It was a debacle.

Any type of collapse of the magnitude Wyoming is envisioning will collapse the government itself and decentralize power into the hands of the people. Paychecks will not cash and grocery store shelves would be conceivably empty. The police - and employees of other public service departments - will not show up to work because they'll be too busy staying home to protect and (find a way to) feed their own families. Remember, grocery stores only stock about three to five days' supply of food for their respective customer base. Try going three weeks or three months without food deliveries and see how motivated government officials are to show up at work with their bellies growling.

Note in the story cited above, the government's primary objective was to "examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier."

How is that going to produce food and feed anybody? Again, all governments know how to do is use overwhelming physical force to coerce people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do. That’s not a blueprint for a strong, self-sustaining society; it’s a blueprint for soviet-style gulags.

While roving gangs of looters will be a problem in a collapse scenario, they have always been and will always be a problem. It's at least easier dealing with roving gangs of private looters who don't have badges and jails (i.e. a publicly granted monopoly of force to steal from and imprison their victims) than it is dealing with those who do.

At that point, private citizen groups will form their own protective agencies to protect their rights and property - a task that municipal and State police once had as their primary mission, but now have become nothing more than revenue agents and enforcing officers tasked with upholding the whims and edicts of a few lobbyist-controlled legislators - rather than the actual people they hold charge over.

Our economy has, for all intents and purposes, already collapsed. Major machine tooling industries have all essentially moved to China. We have no real manufacturing industry left in the U.S., or the ability to tool it up if we had to. Food is produced by large corporate farms that grow Frankenfood—genetically modified food crops that are poisoning society with crops that have their pesticides growing within them (and then we eat it!). You think the government is concerned about your health and well-being? They’re the ones who allowed those genetically modified crops to poison the food chain to begin with.

We have longer food and soup lines today than we did during the Great Depression; the only reason we don’t see those lines is government has figured out how to merge those food recipients with paying customers into the grocery store lines using welfare checks, food stamps and now electronic benefit transfer cards. When those avenues of income are disrupted, think of how many hungry, desperate people will be thrust into the street; people who have grown dependent on and trusted government to take care of them now having their faith shattered and being forced overnight to figure out a way to fend for themselves. I’m not intending any disparaging remarks toward people on public assistance here. I’m merely noting that there is a class of people who have been made dependent on a government—due primarily to government policies that have destroyed our economic and manufacturing base and encouraged people to live on government welfare—who will have to finally take care of themselves with little to no developed and honed skill sets to enable them to do so.

That is not a blueprint for a successful or sustainable society, either.

Food and guns are not the only items one needs to prepare for an economic or societal collapse. Those who are interested in sustaining themselves and their community also need to consider alternative arrangements for medical care, water filtration and purification, electrical generating capability and alternate forms of communications when cell phones and internet are no longer working (those will be the first to go in a collapse scenario).

Keep in mind the government looks with disdain on anyone who is preparing to take care of themselves without government help. The government now exists solely to perpetuate its own existence. It does that by exercising control over people. People who can provide their own food, water, communication and personal defense do not need government the way those who have grown dependent on it do.

It is for this reason the Department of Homeland “Security” is now targeting those who prepare themselves and their families and labeling them as potential terrorists. It’s not that those who are preparing are planning on doing bad things to government, it merely means people who are self-sufficient do not need government and that will indirectly affect the government’s power base. So, in a roundabout way, the DHS considers anyone who threatens the government’s power base as a “terrorist” to government.

If most people were self-sufficient, most government bureaucrats would lose their jobs because they would no longer be needed. That is where the true terror occurs for government bureaucrats —the terror of having to go out and earn a living producing a product or providing a service in the real world for their daily bread, rather than relying on coercive police power to steal it from others through taxation.

A societal collapse will show government bureaucrats and politicians are just as ill-prepared to take care of themselves as those they have enslaved via government welfare systems. That is the true terror of an economic collapse—and one that all government bureaucrats are trying valiantly to avoid.

More editorials by David Deschesne