Tactical Wisdom: Responsibility
originally written by Joe Dolio and published to Tactical Wisdom – NCS
Last week, I re-read Surviving Home, Book 2 of Angry American’s Survivalist series. It reminded me of the image above and a lot of the commentary we hear after disasters in America. The first complaint we hear, even from our so-called “limited government” allies, is “Why isn’t the government here? Why didn’t they warn us? Why aren’t they feeding us?”. I decided it was time for another of my tough-love commentaries.
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that your family is fed, has water, has shelter, and is kept secure? Is it the job of the government?
As I often do, I turned immediately to the Ultimate Tactical Handbook and found the answer in a memory verse from the Every Man A Warrior Leader program:
Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:8
Boom – there it is. Straight from the Apostle Paul – God’s instructions. YOU are responsible. If you fail to provide for your family (food, water, shelter), then YOU are worse than an unbeliever. You have denied the faith by not being prepared. The Mormon Church understands this and that is why they are the largest owner of farmland in the US.
Some of you are thinking, “Yes, food and shelter, sure, but we have police and National Guard for security”. Wrong. Those entities exist to protect the GOVERNMENT. Some might say to protect public order, but in recent history, every time public order has gone away, these groups have fallen back to defend government buildings and infrastructure, not YOU. Ask the good people of Maui how relying on them is going.
Guess where we can find this answer? Yep, the Tactical Wisdom from the Ultimate Tactical Handbook:
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.
Luke 11:21
Once again, you are responsible to be strong, be fully armed, and to guard your own house. The Book also warns against being a lone wolf and not having a mutual assistance group or some other tribe to help defend you:
But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.
Luke 11:22
I know, some of you will comment that Jesus was speaking in a parable, but are parables not a way to use real life examples to illustrate a point? In fact, when Jesus explains this parable of the strong man to the crowd, He further drives home this point:
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
Luke 11:23
Apply that in this context – gathering together with a community of like-minded people strengthens all, yet remaining alone and apart will cause you to be scattered to the winds. Have a community. Take responsibility.
But do we really need to focus on security? Consider your neighborhood. Where will people get food after 5 days of no power? Once all the convenience stores are looted, where can they find food within walking distance? YOUR HOUSE. Yes, it can get that bad and QUICKLY.
In Surviving Home, Morgan notices that only he and his few friends are doing all the work of protecting their neighborhood. Other neighbors notice that Morgan has food and solar power, and begin to demand that he “contribute to the community”. I’m sorry, but that’s just not how this works. After one particularly bad raid on the community, the non-contributing people complain about how long it is taking the fighters to bury the bodies of the bad guys and Morgan asks them why they don’t help. The crowd says “that’s not our responsibility”. Morgan points out that if they aren’t going to fight, they need to contribute in some way.
You know where else that sentiment is explained? You guessed it, the Bible. When explaining how Christians should approach idleness and charity, Paul cautioned the Thessalonians against encouraging sloth via freely giving out aid:
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12
If someone hasn’t prepared, it’s not your responsibility to feed them because you did prepare. Don’t let people guilt you into it. Every item of food you hand out in a crisis is a meal you won’t be able to eat later. Charity is good, as long as some work is attached. You want some Beanie-Weenie? Fine, I need a new pit latrine dug. 4 cans for a large hole sounds about right.
We all need to realize that the world situation is getting worse and start taking responsibility for our own readiness. No one is coming to save you, and you need to start making plans and preparations if you haven’t already.
The Hamas attack on Israel was a great example here. While most of the nation was unprepared, Inbar Leiberman wasn’t. When she saw the violence beginning to unfold, she didn’t wait for the government to come. She passed out her arms to her crew. She set up defensive operations just like in TW-03 all over her Kibbutz to ensure it could withstand an attack. She then took her best fighters and set an ambush (see TW-04 for this) Four hours later, over 2 dozen Hamas fighter were dead, and she had lost zero personnel. She killed 5 personally. Be like Inbar.
One of the best way to get prepared is to develop a communications plan and start attending training. If you can’t reach each other, you can’t help each other. Even with a small neighborhood, it’s way easier to call from the front to the back by radio than by shouting. The best place to start is with NC Scout’s RTO and Advanced RTO Course.
Make sure that you have at least a 14 day food supply and a full tank of gas at any given point. Build from there. Develop a security plan. An escape and evasion plan isn’t a bad idea either. Pay attention to the news, even though it is depressing, you need to know what’s going on in the world.
We’ll write about escape and evasion plans later this week and follow it up with a supporter livestream next Friday (Nov 3rd) on Locals.