Because it is already too late this year to implement martial law, since the prevailing government-media story is that Y2K will be a bump in the road. Even the sheeple won't sit still for abrupt imposition of search and seizure with so little groundwork being laid ("wait a minute, you've been saying Y2K is nothing.")

Making the judgment that there is still an outside chance Y2K will be < 6 and that banking/market panic is the TEOTWAWKI scenario, the government is willing to punt on hassling GIs. The only window of vulnerability might be November-December 1999, but there isn't enough time to pull it off and, besides, the merchants have got to have one last happy Christmas.

If Y2K >= 8 early next year, it will be too late to take supplies because "all government will be local." That is, there may be local problems (your milage will vary) but no federal ability to take supplies.

They'll be too busy printing money, fighting Saddam and trying to keep the cities bottled up.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 09, 1999

Answers

the trick here is going to be what happens if it's a 4.5 - 5.5 which would be just severe enough to cause some civil unrest, yet not so disorganized as to preclude federal action.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 09, 1999.

Gotta disagree with you here BD.

Martial Law - that's where there's a lot of people pointing guns at you.

If just enough civil unrest (in any form) happens anytime, the sheeple will ASK, BEG, and the DEMAND martial law.

I don't think it's every "too late" for the power-lords to hop at the chance to get their servants to go point guns at people. They've been training and equiping them a lot the last few years and teaching the sheeple to fear them.

-- Greybear

- What state is it that has "Live free of Die" on their liscense plates. Gotta love those folks.

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), February 09, 1999.

Greybear, it's New Hampshire.

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), February 09, 1999.

I really hate to admit this. But the more I think about Y2K, the more I hope that it will be (on that infamous 1-10 scale) either a three or less (of course!) -- or a six to eight. Not the middle, I pray...

This is because to me, the middle class type working paycheck to paycheck single mom with a small child, renter with lots of debts and lousy credit, it's a matter of dealing with it.

If it's on the low end of the scale, I figure me and the 2.5 year old girl (terrorist in training with a sweet face) will be okay. It'll be hard, the economy will suck, but we'll survive. I'm intelligent, I'm versatile and skilled, I'm a damn hard worker, and I'm planning ahead -- as much as renting and not having much money allow.

If it IS pretty bad, my preparations will (hopefully!) suffice for at least a couple months; my local gunlord-ammo fiend has already agreed if things get bad he'll show up here and supply me more security than I could possibly buy, in exchange for me planning for his food.

(By the way I have a number of friends who currently work in gov't intell. No matter what you hear on the outside, on the inside they've been told [more than one agency here] to prepare for at least 3-4 months of food, water, toiletry/sundries, ammo, and cash on hand.])

If it's terrible, NOBODY is going to be paying rent. Nobody. If nobody is employed, if power is out in our whole region, my landlord is going to know there is no way I could pay, and there's no way anybody else could either. This minimizes MY personal danger. She won't be going through a court process to evict me -- ha! She is going to be more worried about feeding herself and her child than walking 12 miles to tell me to get out of the house she rents me on behalf of her mother the owner.

If it's "just bad enough that everybody is in the same boat," I think I will fare better than if it's bad enough to completely RUIN me yet leave a percentage of the population doing well enough that rather than banding together as little societies to survive, a few do fine and the rest starve.

If it is middle-of-the line, bad enough that mostly, prices go into the stratosphere, I lose my computer-job and can't even get a job as a clerk for minimum, and no food is available for a LONG time etc. (or I can't buy it when it is), can I survive that? Can my baby? Can my landlord?

For some reason, I see the "middle scale" potential of Y2K as being as dangerous to me as the extreme end of it.

In bad situations, people work together. It's a species trait, if it didn't exist humanity wouldn't exist. It will happen more than most people on boards like these expect it to. But it has to be BAD ENOUGH to cause that need for socialization-based survival-work across the board.

I don't want martial law, from which we would never recover, everybody surely knows that. I don't want destruction and despair. I'd rather it be mild and workable. But sans that probability, I hope it is at least bad enough that my neighbors, my landlord, and my community are in the same boat I am likely to be in. At least then I will stand a chance at being part of a whole community working toward survival -- rather than one more single mother and child drowning in a quicksand economy too bad to fix but too good for official powers to admit is useless.

If a whole community works for joint wells, massive gardening, socialized child care and work and other issues that groups must contend with, that's livable. But if less than 70% of the people are hungry, that's not going to happen.

Not sure I'm explaining this very well.

On the bright side, at least I live in a tiny town 50 mi. from the city.

PJ

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@zmatrix.com), February 09, 1999.

PJ-

If you can make it to Indiana, you and the 2.5 yr old terrorist in training can stay with me and my family. Just prepare yourself for life with 6 children :) You are most welcome. Seriously.

Blessings...Mercy

-- Mercy (prepare@now.com), February 09, 1999.

Mercy, I was glad to read your post. I've been having concerns about this board lately. Too much negativity. Too much bashing. Not nearly enough "we can get thru this together". Thanks for the lift.

-- (littleengine_th@_could.com), February 09, 1999.

Greybear and others --- hey, no need to be kind. Your points have occurred to me. Maybe I should have been explicit but this and the accompanying "contradiction thread" were sincerely intended to provoke some game planning. I personally believe this matter could go either way, hence the threads.

Obviously, whichever way it goes, we need to do what we gotta do with our supplies .......

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 09, 1999.

PJ,

"socialized child care and work and other issues that groups must contend with, that's livable."

Take a lesson from history. "Socialized" does not work. Early settlers tried it and starved the first year (Why should I work hard for the likes of Lazy Guy?) and when they woke up come spring they allowed everyone to gain as they would through their own personal effort, not community effort or community-ism. Help and assistance in the community yes.

-- Freeman (freeman@cali.com), February 09, 1999.

Well said Freeman. Little engine: What you perceive as negative and bashing to me sounds like self preservation. Everyone's situation is different. When you have a community that is telling people to be self-sufficient, that's exactly what people who GI will do. I can't take care of people in my neck of the woods who refused to listen to me 18 months ago. Is that being negative? No, you wipe the dust off your feet and move on. So why should they become my problem? If I am self sufficient, what could they possibly offer me in a way of supplies, food, protection, etc? What could they do to help me? After all, I'm the one with the food, supplies, guns and ammo. Now you think that I am being negative and bashing you. Think what you will, but this is the reality of it.

"Anyone living within 5 miles of Burger King is hamburger." Bardou

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 09, 1999.

Is it not ironic that we are more worried about whether or not our elected goverment officials will be stealing through Marshall Law our supplies then we are worried that looters will be the thieves. Come on, it can't be. Say it isin't so.

"If people let Goverment decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodys will soon be in a state as our the souls of those who live under tyranny." Thomas Jefferson

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppresive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some time be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C.S. Lewis

The only problem I have with this quote is "moral" busybodies. Today those busybodies are the most immoral corrupt people on earth.

Is it not a wonderful time to be alive? I would not trade this lifetime for any other period in history. May God cleanse the world of corruption in my lifetime. May Gods will be done in my life.

Mike

-- flierdude (mkessler0101@sprynet.com), February 09, 1999.

PJ,

I agree with your "hope" that things go could go to the middle of the scale. Unfortunately I believe that as far as *probabilities* go we are looking at an inverted bell curve.

And BTW, when mine were 2.5 they ALREADY WERE terrorists and we were trying to deprogram them.

bardou,

We're holdin hands on this one.

Sigh, what I wouldn't give to have about 10 or 15 of the best (means agrees with me) of you around me as neighbors. I might actually feel like I had a chance.

-- Greybear

- Got water?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), February 09, 1999.

Flierdude: I fear the thugs coming up the hill because that means I have to shoot them if they decide to invade my property. Hopefully they'll get picked off before they get this far. Thanks Greybear, if you were my neighbor and showed initiative we would be holding hands! I too wished I had neighbors who GI, but that's the reality of it all, and it's every man for himself.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 09, 1999.