More reason to suspect that the gene pool of a certain segment of American males opted to take the muddy, zigzagging low road at the fork in the road to human evolution instead of the obstacle free, paved and straight high road:
Nuclear war. Volcanic eruption. Terrorist attack.
Though the scenarios of how an apocalyptic event would paralyze or destroy society varies, a group of like-minded individuals in East Pierce County believes a good defense is the best way to prepare for doomsday.
And some believe a good offense is even better.
“We’re not in it to stockpile. We’re in it to take what you have and there’s nothing you can do to stop us,” Tyler Smith says. “We are your worst nightmare, and we are coming.”
Smith, 29, is the leader of Spartan Survival. The group has more than 80 dues-paying members. Smith founded the organization in 2005 to train and prepare others on survivalism.
On Tuesday night, Smith’s story will be told on the National Geographic Channel survivalist TV show “Doomsday Preppers.”
If The Gadfly had the time and inclination to analyze and offer up all of the reality-based counter-points to this clown's reasoning, he would do so, but Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, over at Charlie Pierce's Esquire blog has a fairly reasonable summary and thus The Gadfly leaves the honor to him:
"Now you should know that I really do not have a problem with most of those that call themselves "Survivalists." By and large they are a harmless lot. They believe in a philosophy which is not unlike that of the Mormons. Being prepared for the worst, in their minds, is just common sense. And I can grok that. My whole adult life has, more or less, been devoted to the same general (if not specific) philosophy, albeit from a national perspective. Though I must say, we sort of part ways pretty early on.
And most of those who are self-styled "Survivalists" are what the much-lamented Douglas Adams would have called "mostly harmless." Which is also cool. You want to stockpile three years of food (which you will continually have to replenish as older stocks go out of date and mean that you would die if you ate them), or stockpile multiple years of ammunition (which unless properly stored in a climate controlled environment, will also go bad in just a couple of years), well then that is your right. Spend your money that way, enjoy. Buy that unused nuclear missile bunker. Support our economy by buying, over and over and over again, things that you were sure you would need in the next couple of years, starting in the late 1980s. By the way, how is that working out for you and your family?
The fact that a significant percentage of the people that follow this path cannot economically afford to do so, to restock and replenish unused resources every year, or that they choose to do so to the detriment of their own children's inheritance, is not really my problem. After all, it is a free country.
But that dude? The one who has a plan to actually attack other Americans to steal their resources (food, fuel, etc) when he thinks the end-times have come, well that is really absurd. But I see now that there is no denying, these people are out there, mostly contributing to the NRA apparently.
My personal favorite? His home-made body armor made out of kitchen floor tiles. Yea, seriously, you can't make this shit up."http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bateman-on-survivalism-123113
And of course it goes without saying -- shame on the National Geographic Channel for pimping these clowns and their apocalyptic buffoonery to begin with. Sure, it's their network and they can air any damn thing they wish, but please - just stop trying to pass this visual garbage off to the masses as "educational" television that is meant to expand the boundaries of human intellectual pursuit for the overall goal of the betterment of mankind.
Idiots.
----TFG
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