“OpsNormal” is the “SitRep” 🙂

Yeah, we’ve adopted all kinds of cool jargon. Actually it makes a whole lot of sense and improves our communication a whole lot. Keeps things clear, concise, easy to understand, and brief on the radio. I can hardly believe that we are the same folks now that wandered in here almost a month ago. And that is the real story. But, let me go back to the whole community thing to talk about how we organized.

When we first showed up the situation was a mess and so were we. We were a mess physically, mentally, and spiritually. We had seen more violence and cruelty that anyone of us (except maybe Jared) could have imagined. We walked all the way here, constant stress, and absolutely no plan on what to do or how to do much of anything. All we knew at the time is we had to get out of Las Cruces before the gangs took their revenge on me…and guilt by association, everyone else in our little family. Then there was dealing with the scene here with Bill and Linda. That was as ugly as I could ever have nightmares about, the kind of stuff that Quinten Tarantino movies are made of.

It took as a full day of just sitting around to finally get it to the point where we could start even talking really. We call is “Z-Day”, short for Zombie Day.

Several of us preppers had been regular visitors to AHTrimble.com and learned a lot there. We learned the 7 common risks/threats were violence, injury/sickness, no communications, no organization, dehydration, exposure, and starvation. We even had a notebook of printed articles to refer to. Lisa had remembered our Apocalypse Book. A book with the most critical information to refer to if the whole world fell apart. Kind of a TEOTWAWKI primer. It has paid off immensely! Little did I know Bill had a copy of it on the shelf in his cabin. Who would have thought it?

On the morning of the second day we held our first meeting. All the adults got together and we decided to talk about what we were going to do. First thing that happened was almost all the teenagers showed up, they wanted to know what was going on and what we were talking about. A couple of the adults tried to run them off, there was this big argument, Mel made a great argument that they should be involved and had a “right” to be. In the end it was formally decided that anyone 13 and older would be part of “the body” and allowed to participate in all discussions and votes. Seemed only right to me…considering where the world is right now.

So we started talking about what the first things to do were. Based on the Common 7, we immediately posted two guards to watch out for unwanted guests. Then we dug out the medical supplies we had, and made up a couple of med kits. One was given to Kim, the other to Daniel. I knew then that Bill had to have more medical supplies hidden around here somewhere, I just had to figure out where.

Then we started talking about organization, who would be in charge, who would do what, etc. That’s where it got heated…to say the least. I won’t identify people by name but there were some arguments, name calling, and it was obvious that some folks wanted to be in charge, or at least not have others telling them what to do. It was Jim that saved the day.

He started talking about “principles” and it was amazing how fast we could agree on certain things. For the most part we all agreed on rights/liberties/freedom, government sucked, violence was ugly and rarely was the answer, and the most important things were family, God, and our group. I started talking about LIPS (learned from AHTrimble.com) and we all agreed on that for a priority setting methodology. Then we switched back to Jim.

First thing he wanted to do was establish some basic “laws” to govern our behavior. At first most objected, especially me. The last thing I wanted was a bunch of “laws.” It was all too powerful government that got us into this mess to begin with and I didn’t want to start that up all over again. So I started in on the first thing we needed was to establish “rights, liberties, and freedoms.” All agreed, even Jim.

It was simplified to the fact that everyone has the right to life, liberty, property, and happiness (i.e. self-determination).

Life – A person has the right and responsibility to defend his own life and that of others.

Liberty – No one can become a slave of another, or deprived of their freedoms without the due process of a justice system.

Property – A person has the right to own and possess property (things) and not be deprived of them or their use. And further, a person has the right to defend that property from someone taking it away. However, due process of a justice system can take a person’s property under certain, albeit rare, circumstances.

Happiness – A person has the right to self-determination. To live their life unencumbered by other people, especially government, as long as the execution of their rights don’t infringe upon another person’s rights.

This suited me just fine because it fell right in-line with libertarianism. But, in today’s world people abuse the term/label libertarianism to the point that it means anarchy.  So I preface it with “civil society”, coming up with civil society libertarianism. Meaning lots of rights, freedoms, liberty, few laws, extremely limited government, but enough laws to keep society civil. An ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade.

That’s basically where we left it at the end of the day. Jim wanted to talk the next day about laws again, no one objected.

The next day it was obvious that folks had thought about it and talked in smaller groups. Some want to outline rules vs. laws. Others, wanted to create laws to ensure rights and freedoms. But, by lunch we had decided on just a few:

1. Parents were the sole authority in the home, the group would have no say in the matter. Of course the list of natural rights still applies to children…especially to children.
2. No murder. To mean that we would not kill an innocent The right to self-defense was a given…we could take a life to save a life.
3. No theft. Simply put meaning a person cannot take the property of another. And you could defend your property including to the point of taking a life.
4. No fraud. It started out as no lying but we also wanted to make sure some couldn’t use cunning, deceit, and half-truths, or incomplete truths to get gain over another. More clearly stated…fraud is a false representation of fact, including concealment or omission, to get gain over another.
5. And lastly, and most strangely, we will reserve Sunday for not doing anything. Well, there is still SecFor duties. But essentially, Sundays will be a day of rest…if at all possible.

That’s it! We think we can govern ourselves with those basic laws. I don’t see why not.

Gotta go…Lunch time!!

 

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