Not a prepper, but… I was thinking about preparedness.

[Flyjunky]

I was around during the pandemic. Worked in an ER during the entire pandemic.

Outside of having to wear a mask at work, I wasn’t forced to do anything. I never wore a mask outside of work, not once. I’ve never received the vaccine and I still work in a hospital. I’ve been promoted twice over the last 2 years. So, talk to me about control.

Proud of you.

Now, tell me how many others followed the useless rules and vilified those who didn’t wear their mask? Do you remember it was a pandemic of the invaxxed? Kids taking off their masks for a bite of food and then put it back on while chewing, all the 6’ lines separating people in stores, kids in their own plastic bubble in school, wearing a mask into a restaurant but then able to take it off once you sat down, etc….want me to go on with the other 1000 things? Yeah, no control was exerted on people. Good grief, how easy people forget. Compliance was the point! I’m glad you didn’t follow.

 

[displacedtexan]

Proud of you.

Now, tell me how many others followed the useless rules and vilified those who didn’t wear their mask? Do you remember it was a pandemic of the invaxxed? Kids taking off their masks for a bite of food and then put it back on while chewing, all the 6’ lines separating people in stores, kids in their own plastic bubble in school, wearing a mask into a restaurant but then able to take it off once you sat down, etc….want me to go on with the other 1000 things? Yeah, no control was exerted on people. Good grief, how easy people forget. Compliance was the point! I’m glad you didn’t follow.

I wish we'd go back home to 6' spacing in lines.

Your bologna and wonderbread ain't getting rung up faster because you keep accidentally bumping me with the buggy.

 

[SamG]

Now just to think about where I am going to go when it happens…

 

[timekiller13]

Proud of you.

Now, tell me how many others followed the useless rules and vilified those who didn’t wear their mask? Do you remember it was a pandemic of the invaxxed? Kids taking off their masks for a bite of food and then put it back on while chewing, all the 6’ lines separating people in stores, kids in their own plastic bubble in school, wearing a mask into a restaurant but then able to take it off once you sat down, etc….want me to go on with the other 1000 things? Yeah, no control was exerted on people. Good grief, how easy people forget. Compliance was the point! I’m glad you didn’t follow.

My point is, there was no real loss of rights.

My kids went to a school that never wore masks, ever. You could if you wanted to but that’s it.

People made a choice. Most people didn’t think it was worth fighting over or agreed with the mandates and spacing and all the other crap. Those of us that didn’t agree just kept keeping on. If I walked up to a business that had a sign that said “masks required” then I turned around and went somewhere else. I supported the hell out of local businesses who didn’t care about the stupidity or hysteria. FYI, none of those businesses got fined, or shut down and no one was sent to jail.

I remember when the vaccine came out and the hospital was encouraging for staff to get it. People said they felt “pressured.” That was a BS, they may have felt peer pressured but the hospital didn’t pressure them at all. I went to HR and said “I’m opting out of the vaccine.” They handed me a piece of paper to sign and that was that. Never had anyone ever mentioned it again. No religious exemption, no medical exemption, no temper tantrums. I just said “I don’t want it.”

 

[Yoder]

Is there 50 or a couple hundred?

From what I understand there are thousands of these transformers. 50 of them are critical. If we lost any 9 of those 50 at the same time, would have a huge problem. These can weigh hundreds of tons. Imagine trying to replace them with the grid down. No power, no gas and who would do the work? All communications would be down. I know I wouldn’t leave my family. I can only imagine what kind of chaos would be happening. This podcast has the guy who made the documentary.

 

[Yoder]

My point is, there was no real loss of rights.

My kids went to a school that never wore masks, ever. You could if you wanted to but that’s it.

People made a choice. Most people didn’t think it was worth fighting over or agreed with the mandates and spacing and all the other crap. Those of us that didn’t agree just kept keeping on. If I walked up to a business that had a sign that said “masks required” then I turned around and went somewhere else. I supported the hell out of local businesses who didn’t care about the stupidity or hysteria. FYI, none of those businesses got fined, or shut down and no one was sent to jail.

I remember when the vaccine came out and the hospital was encouraging for staff to get it. People said they felt “pressured.” That was a BS, they may have felt peer pressured but the hospital didn’t pressure them at all. I went to HR and said “I’m opting out of the vaccine.” They handed me a piece of paper to sign and that was that. Never had anyone ever mentioned it again. No religious exemption, no medical exemption, no temper tantrums. I just said “I don’t want it.”

My company gave us three months to get vaccinated. Anyone who refused was fired. Is that "pressure"? I DIDN'T WANT IT. People in my family were fired from Healthcare jobs and others were forced to get it or lose their jobs. Brought to you by Pfizer.

 

[displacedtexan]

My company gave us three months to get vaccinated. Anyone who refused was fired. Is that "pressure"? I DIDN'T WANT IT. People in my family were fired from Healthcare jobs and others were forced to get it or lose their jobs. Brought to you by Pfizer.

That's a private company doing what it wants.

Free market is great until it's not.

 

[timekiller13]

My company gave us three months to get vaccinated. Anyone who refused was fired. Is that "pressure"? I DIDN'T WANT IT. People in my family were fired from Healthcare jobs and others were forced to get it or lose their jobs. Brought to you by Pfizer.

Private company can require whatever it wants.

Don’t like it, go find somewhere else to work. Plenty of places out there that didn’t require vaccines or anything like that.

 

[Crowmangler]

From what I understand there are thousands of these transformers. 50 of them are critical. If we lost any 9 of those 50 at the same time, would have a huge problem. These can weigh hundreds of tons. Imagine trying to replace them with the grid down. No power, no gas and who would do the work? All communications would be down. I know I wouldn’t leave my family. I can only imagine what kind of chaos would be happening.

I can't speak intelligently about this subject but what I've seen in commercial construction for the past 6-12 months is that it's almost impossible to get meter bases, switch gear & normal sized breakers which is holding up numerous projects from progression and completion. I can only imagine the clusterfark of trying to replace major specialized components

 

[*zap*]

Longer term nationwide grid down via the main transformer's having 'issues' would get crazee fast...30% of the population would die in the first few months.

Even a weeklong event like that would be a huge problem...worse if in middle of summer or winter...

 

[ScreamingPotato]

I haven't read the thread, but one of the things we've been doing recently is canning a lot of our venison and game. It's super versatile to use in a myriad of dishes and no refrigeration obviously. Fuel/gas is a bit of a big one. Here in Texas we had the "big freeze" a while back and had no power for 4.5 days here at the house. I figured I was prepared with a generator and a can of gas, ran it primarily for the fish tank (expensive reef tank) for about a day, and the inside fridge and the kiddo played some video games. I filled the tank after running a day and ventured out to get more gas, but duh there was none to be had. It took a while but we found a station that was only taking cash and was able to fill up two cans. We cooked outside with our camping gear, stoves, grills, etc... and actually had neighbors come over asking if they could cook on our grill when they smelled/saw the smoke. Nobody here has gas stoves, all electricity, and nobody else had generators so they couldn't cook anything if they didn't have a grill. One thing that hit me pretty good was that it only took that short time for the neighbors to notice I had a cooking mechanism and come calling, in a true disaster that'll get me killed PDQ probably.

 

[*zap*]

canning is good for storing food but it takes away 30% of the nutritional value of that food.

 

[Crowmangler]

as screamin tater mentioned: generators with no fuel = no bueno. If you can swing it get a dual fuel generator. Propane can last a long long time without going bad like gas & diesel. I got a 100 # cylinder tank & filled it up. It's not cheap but plan to get at least one per year for a while.

 

[ScreamingPotato]

as screamin tater mentioned: generators with no fuel = no bueno. If you can swing it get a dual fuel generator. Propane can last a long long time without going bad like gas & diesel. I got a 100 # cylinder tank & filled it up. It's not cheap but plan to get at least one per year for a while.

I'd like to add to my post, we have an off grid cabin on an island at the coast and the more time I spend down there the more I fall in love with the solar power I have down there. I'm going to toy with some DIY solar and water collection systems here at home because I'm impressed with the self sufficiency that cabin has. I can go down there for a month at a time and never need to fire the generator unless I want to run the a/c unit.

 

[ChrisS]

I see this thread brought out the true believers ... as expected.

The best way to be prepared is to sell doomsday supplies to the preppers. Make a mint, that's why guys like Ben Shapiro are hawking that crap. They know their audience.

That John Seymour book is great though. I keep that one in the outhouse next to my composting toilet for prepping.

 

[moxford]

@timekiller13 you were not in California then, especially Santa Clara county. Huge loss of rights, bordering on lockdowns. Gov't mandates on what companies HAD to implement. I had to have a piece of paper in my car in case they stopped me for being on the roads. No joke.

Just because you didn't see it does NOT mean it didn't happen.

 

[timekiller13]

@timekiller13 you were not in California then, especially Santa Clara county. Huge loss of rights, bordering on lockdowns. Gov't mandates on what companies HAD to implement. I had to have a piece of paper in my car in case they stopped me for being on the roads. No joke.

Just because you didn't see it does NOT mean it didn't happen.

So leave Commifornia.

I was prepared to move my family to another state if it came down to that.

I was ready to change jobs and even change careers if I had to. There were plenty of options out there . People just weren’t comfortable leaving their bubble.

 

[HONEYBADGER]

My point is, there was no real loss of rights.

My kids went to a school that never wore masks, ever. You could if you wanted to but that’s it.

People made a choice. Most people didn’t think it was worth fighting over or agreed with the mandates and spacing and all the other crap. Those of us that didn’t agree just kept keeping on. If I walked up to a business that had a sign that said “masks required” then I turned around and went somewhere else. I supported the hell out of local businesses who didn’t care about the stupidity or hysteria. FYI, none of those businesses got fined, or shut down and no one was sent to jail.

I remember when the vaccine came out and the hospital was encouraging for staff to get it. People said they felt “pressured.” That was a BS, they may have felt peer pressured but the hospital didn’t pressure them at all. I went to HR and said “I’m opting out of the vaccine.” They handed me a piece of paper to sign and that was that. Never had anyone ever mentioned it again. No religious exemption, no medical exemption, no temper tantrums. I just said “I don’t want it.”

This guy will be the one checking under his neighbor's floorboards when the time comes.

 

[Rich M]

My point is, there was no real loss of rights.

My kids went to a school that never wore masks, ever. You could if you wanted to but that’s it.

People made a choice. Most people didn’t think it was worth fighting over or agreed with the mandates and spacing and all the other crap. Those of us that didn’t agree just kept keeping on. If I walked up to a business that had a sign that said “masks required” then I turned around and went somewhere else. I supported the hell out of local businesses who didn’t care about the stupidity or hysteria. FYI, none of those businesses got fined, or shut down and no one was sent to jail.

I remember when the vaccine came out and the hospital was encouraging for staff to get it. People said they felt “pressured.” That was a BS, they may have felt peer pressured but the hospital didn’t pressure them at all. I went to HR and said “I’m opting out of the vaccine.” They handed me a piece of paper to sign and that was that. Never had anyone ever mentioned it again. No religious exemption, no medical exemption, no temper tantrums. I just said “I don’t want it.”

Me thinks you were very fortunate.

Folks were arrested for going into their backyards during the pandemic - their neighbors called the cops. Prisoners were let out of prison to make room for the folks who didn't comply in areas - churches were big and they arrested church goers.

Me and a couple other folks at work are the only reason we didn't get a vax mandate - no vax no job. Lots of places did that - remember the hospital workers? Saving the world and then vilified if they didn't vax. My wife was in hospital during that time and they didn't have enough folks to staff it due to the new vax requirement - it was vax or no work.

Not sure where you are at but I'm in FL and we were lax on a lot of things about covid. Well, not dumbasses running their mouths if you didn't wear a mask - I'd ask em why their mask isn't working. And people still wearing the masks - the social experiment revealed 30% blind compliance, 30% hell no, 30% if I have to. There's about 10% who are still wearing them.

Do you really wonder why we don't have enough airline pilots? They did vax mandate and many pilots said no so they were let go.

They were paying folks $600/wk on top of unemployment to stay home. Some states were still doing that earlier this year (NY and MA come to mind). And folks can't figure out where the good workers are.

Don't forget this stuff - just cause we had a good go of it and didn't lose our own individual rights - vast areas of the country did.

This is just what I've seen and experienced. I can't imagine being held prisoner in your own house or why the social experiment was performed.

 

[eddielasvegas]

“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” should always give all of us a long, long pause.

And I'll close with this quote: "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."

Live your life like you choose but never forget the above if you value individual freedom and our constitution.


Eddie