when shit goes down, pt. 1

this whole swine flu thing has been making me think a lot about 'when shit goes down.'

i'll define 'when shit goes down' as any scenario where society as we know it is basically leveled, and the normal order breaks down. nuclear attack, flu pandemic, natural catastrophe, etc. all count as 'when shit goes down' scenarios. i spend a lot of my idle time pondering what i would do, where i would go, who i would want with me, and so on.

there are tons of movies and books and video games about stuff like this, so getting an idea of what to expect totally isn't hard. (my favorite is 'the stand' by stephen king, but it's a fantastic genre all around.)

okay, when shit goes down, obviously we'll need the right supplies to prepare us for a post-apocalyptic world. choosing the right supplies depends a bit on what specific kind of apocalypse occurs, but generally, i think we can make some choices.

let's assume that staying put is a BAD idea. either because of infection (zombie, superflu) or radiation or just people going crazy from the shock of the apocalypse, being in a highly populated area will be more dangerous. more chances for crazy people to try to kill you for the stuff you have. more competition for scarce resources. so, let's assume you're Getting Away.

how do you get away?

some choices, with my pros and cons (we're going to say these are all stock and haven't been souped up into the mad max armored beasts they'll eventually become. we're not there yet.) :

a) atv
pros: much less gas than a car; good for going off road, but would be okay on a road; more easily maneuverable in tight spaces than a car; faster than a bike or people on foot; i'm not certain but i assume the engine is relatively simple; probably strong enough to pull a little trailer attached to the back, for gear; could potentially hold 2?.

cons: still needs gas, which will become more and more of a problem as time goes on; heavy enough to be a problem if it tips or gets bogged down or trapped somewhere - not light enough for me to unwedge myself; probably not faster than a car with a super-big engine; kids are constantly flipping them and getting killed so apparently that sort of thing is easy to do; might not be easy to modify for towing or better storage; not weatherproof; can't serve as shelter in a pinch; not terribly easy to replace, should you need to; really loud; can't hold more than 2, and 2 might not be very comfortable or realistic for longer trips.

b) motorcycle (would be best if it's okay for both streets and off-road)
pros: really good on gas; good for both roads and going over hills through fields and stuff; perfect for zipping through road blocks from abandoned cars; easy-ish to hide in bushes or something while you sleep; fast; fairly common, so easy to replace parts or the whole bike; lighter than an atv, in case of bogging down or tip overs; could carry two.

cons: again, still relies some on gas; probably still too heavy for me to EASILY lift or right or push by myself; dangerous - super easy to kill yourself on it; have to sacrifice cargo capacity for speed and maneuverability - the best we can do is a backpack and some saddle bags, which still adds weight and girth; not weatherproof at all, and very dangerous in the rain; can't serve as shelter; super loud; needs safety gear in order to be really safe, which will cut down on visibility and reaction time and add bulk; again, no good for transporting more than 2 people

c) 4wd van/truck w/shell (this includes monster trucks and hummers)
pros: huge, so it'd be harder for attackers to get at you; can hold tons of stuff and/or people; can be shelter AND transportation; weatherproof; can go off road; stll, fairly simple engines so minor repairs will be easy and scavenging for parts will be easy enough; would be strong enough to help bogged cars and trucks in your group if they got stuck; good for a family or people traveling with little ones who need full-time protection;

cons: HUGE, so you're basically married to it; useless in the city, because the major arteries in and out will be completely blocked, especially to something as big as that; will use an tons of gas; really tough to camouflage; unless it's bulletproof (which it won't be, realistically) it won't be any more safe from attack than something without walls and might even lull you into a false sense of security; still loud; more people = heavier = moves slower

e) regular bike (mountain bike definitely)
pros: really light; very maneuverable; fewer moving parts = easy to fix; easy to replace; could be outfitted with light saddle bags; great for on and off road; faster than people on foot; really easy to hide; no gas; quiet; could have a kid's seat attached to it if need be; no special protective clothing required; less threatening than most vehicles.

cons: relies on a certain level of physical fitness - if you're out of shape, or injured, you're in trouble; absolutely no protection of any kind; not fast enough to get away from anything with a motor so you'd have to rely on maneuverability; can't carry much gear, and certainly not enough to have a stockpile; not weatherproof; riding bikes will make you really tired and hungry and thirst - food is heavy, can be hard to find and often takes time to prepare, water is really heavy and could be hard to find; obvs carrying ability is limited to small kids;

g) on foot
pros: way easier to hide; can easily get through areas that no vehicle could make it through; nothing external needed aside from some really solid walking shoes; easy to find shelter anywhere (under a car, in a bush, up a tree); non-threatening (could be helpful if you meet skittish survivors)

cons: walking will require a lot of energy, which will require a lot of food, which can be hard to find, time consuming to prepare and heavy to carry; all gear, food, clothing, weapons, etc. must be carried on your body, slowing you down and possibly counteracting the benefits of maneuverability; slow as fuck, too much so to make it through wintry conditions safely, perhaps;

given my goals (speed, ease of fueling, ease of repair, maneuverability) i think i'd go for the street-safe dirt bike.

what about you? what would you choose? any vehicles i haven't thought of?

next note, i'll be pondering weapons.

why is this a free country?

i have been getting very upset about the lady who had octuplets.

are you familiar with the basic outline of the story?

here are a few links to get you up to speed. i'll meet you back here.

* a general article with just the basics.

* the mom did an interview and some serious issues are coming up.

done reading?

okay, let's discuss this because i am freaking out a little bit about this...

i am totally pro-choice. i absolutely support a woman's right to choose what she wants or doesn't want to do with her body. abortion is a really sticky issue and not a thing i think anyone should take lightly. ideally, every single person would be totally aware of the fact that they could potentially create a new life EVERY TIME THEY HAVE SEX, because aside from abstinence, there are always improbable accidents with any method of birth control. yes, you will most likely not get pregnant if you are using responsible methods of birth control, but since it's a possibility, don't do it unless you're prepared to deal with the results, soberly and seriously, whatever those results are.

so, compassionate fascism is a pro-choice system, mostly because we don't need more people being brought into the world just because they've already been conceived. there are far, far, FAR more children than there are healthy families to raise them all. if we had a population shortage or something, i'd be willing to adjusting the birthing policy, but given the current state of the environment, pro-choice all the way, with some rules. for example, if you have beyond a certain number within a certain length of time, you must meet with a reproductive health counselor to talk about what the fuck is wrong with your birth control methods. if you're not using birth control, you'll be given a shot, since you can't be trusted to manage it yourself.

anyway... i digress.

this crazy octuplets lady.

you guys, she's a nightmare.

she used her disability payments to get fertility treatments.
she already had 6 kids, 3 of whom had special needs of some kind.
she had bizarre plastic surgery.
she says she's going back to school to get her degree and she'll support her kids with student loans.
the medical costs for her babies' delivery and continued care was submitted to medi-cal.

she's making me so mad.

and she brings up the point: should it really be a free country?

the entire idea behind compassionate fascism is this: most people aren't smart enough to make good decisions for themselves so they need to have those decisions made for them. like raising kids, you need to be firm, kind, loving and absolutely The Boss. so, the government is The Boss. to the extent that you are living a life where you're not hurting others, not making people's lives worse, you're contributing to society, you're given plenty of freedoms. the stuff that the government would take care of will be stuff no one really wants to pay for themselves anyway, like health care or education. (p.s. lawyers would all be public servants.) but if you prove yourself to be a dummy who can't make good decisions for yourself, and given the effect that one person's idiocy can have on other people around them (like an alcoholic's effect on a family), your freedoms will be diminished steadily to the point where all your decisions are made for you.

so, should this insane baby hoarder be allowed to make decisions for herself?

no.

no, she should not.

read about her and try to tell yourself her kids are NOT going to end up completely fucked because of what a crazy person she is.

it reminds me a lot of michael jackson and his kids. i really believe that michael jackson loves his kids. he's probably more like a kid than an adult, it seems, so he probably cares for them very, very deeply and really wants the best for them. but are we going to trust his judgment on what's best for him, given he named on blanket and another one prince michael?

compassionate fascism (or whatever we're calling it) says no, sir. we're taking your kids away. we don't need to see evidence of your kids being in an unhealthy, completely bizarre environment, because we have seen the pictures of you and them on the internet. compelling and persuasive evidence. so, mj, we're taking your kids away, where they'll be raised by normal people who will let them be seen in public and isn't suffering from from PTSD from being raised by a molesting monster show biz dad. you can totally spend time with them! but you don't get to raise them alone, away from any kind of scrutiny.

under compassionate fascism, this craziness with the octuplets would NEVER happen.

i'm really torn about fertility treatments already, given the afore-mentioned population problems. we don't need more people, even born into loving homes. why not raise one of the tons of great kids, all around the world, looking for homes?

i know that many, many women dream of giving birth and find it difficult once they get started, and i know that when the time comes for me and shannon to do baby-making, i would have a very hard time if i found out i couldn't get pregnant.

however, i wouldn't consider fertility treatments. if it doesn't happen, so be it. we'll adopt a chinese baby or something. (they're really popular in marin.)

part of the reason our population woes are so serious is that no one freakin' dies anymore. everyone is getting brain transplants and life support and fertility treatments and intensive care. we NEED the weakest members of the herd to be picked off by predators, so the herd as a whole can survive. you don't want the weakest, fattest, slowest, stupidest members of the herd reproducing because they'll just make more weak, slow, fat, stupid creatures. death is basically the most natural thing in the world, and compassionate fascism sees population control as one of the most important issues facing human kind, and we act accordingly. that means no long-term life support for people who are in vegetative states. no life support for babies that struggle after a certain point. organ transplants will be severely limited. we need an attitude that people die and that, while it's very, very sad, it's also the way things are.

so, nadya suleman would NEVER have gotten fertility treatments. ever. in fact, once she had three kids she'd need to submit to some serious psychological testing to be allowed to have another kid. sorry, compassionate fascism takes baby-making seriously and it's not for nutbar drains on the welfare system.

also, that quack doctor who implanted her with all those embryos would be in jail. seriously. jail for a doctor means treating inmates in prison, while you're in prison. no reason for all the knowledge to go to waste. being a doctor means you have great powers and with great power comes great responsibility and you, mr. quack doctor, are misusing your powers and you are a jerk and a criminal and negligent and you're going to jail to treat inmate's STDs.

and nadya, i'm sorry, but you're being sterilized. people who really love kids have a few and then run a day care center or become teachers. they do not have more and more and more like they're running their own human puppy mill. that's hoarding, you weirdo, and you have proven you are not sane enough to make your own decisions, so we're going to make the decisions for you. we're taking your babies, because you can't afford to raise them anyway, and we're taking the three kids who have special needs, because you're not giving them the care they need, i am sure of it. you can keep your three able-bodied kids, but you're being assigned a full-time government nanny, who will be monitoring for any signs of you messing them up, and we'll totally take them away if we have to.

under compassionate fascism, it's not really a free country because most people are too dumb to manage the freedoms available to them, so we'll handle stuff so you can just hang out and watch 'ow! my nuts!' or whatever reality television you prefer.

wow, that was pretty serious wasn't it?
maybe you should watch that little kid on pain killers again, to clear the palette?

how about reading what mark lisanti has to tell us about the bail out? the socket-humping wasn't to my tastes, but i see where he's going with his comparison and also, that koala is holding hands with that guy!

the "theory" of evolution.

i am aware that there are people in the country, maybe even people that i know, who are on the fence about evolution. i am aware that that is a thing that some people think. but i still don't GET it. i can't help but mentally stutter over it.
"yeah, i know. but seriously, what? right. yeah. okay. i can understand that. but seriously, WHAT?!"
how should compassionate fascism address religious differences?
i say all religions are allowed, but the government is STRICTLY not involved in religious issues.
(accordingly, no religious governmental holidays. we'll come up with appropriate secular seasonal holidays, but none of this easter or christmas nonsense.)
so, our government's policies are informed by science, and things that are provable. if a test can be replicated, that's science.
miracles? not science.
perhaps miracles exist and happen.
but they aren't replicable, so they're not in.
stories out of a book that has a long history of being tinkered with by political leaders are not science.
they are stories.
they are fables, and absolutely appropriate to help one guide their behavior.
totally tip-top on that.
but they are not going to inform our governmental policies.
so, prop 8, no.
we just say across the board - it doesn't matter what your religion tells you, you don't get to LEGALLY disenfranchise any one group.
under compassionate fascism, we respect the role the religion plays in peoples lives and even celebrate it! yay, diversity of views and opinions!
but science isn't an opinion, it's fact.
like, concrete and provable.
so, darwin, not controversial.
yeah, he was a scientist, people.
evolution isn't a theory, and the fact that it contradicts your religion is not an issue for the government to deal with, it's something to be dealt with by each individual person.
i'm tempted to say there are no religious priivate schools allowed under compassionate fascism.
obvs we'll have public schools so awesome no one will need private schools. in fact, every school, of all different types (montessori, waldorf, french, performing arts, whatevs) will receive government funding, and what school you attend will be a matter of preference and not a matter of privilege. parents with no money deserve to have their kids learn fluent french if they want to, right?
no reasons for private schools.
um...we believe in school uniforms.
school doesn't need to be a fashion show, kids. that's what free time is for.
i haven't got a good solution to home schooling.
as a supporter of home schooling, i am reluctant to ban it, but the goal is to have public schools be so good that no one feels they need to home school.
i'll think more about that.
families for whom religion is really important are totally welcome to teach their kids whatever they want to about morality and such, but that's not what school time is for. school time is for preparing young people for healthy, successful adulthood. whether or not that adulthood is informed by religious belief is a matter for families to figure out.
i'm not sure about year-round school schedules, but i'm open to them.