Doomsday Preppers

[Alexander's Horse]

Anyone know any of these people?

The re-election of Obama seems to have given the movement new impetus.

[Hauldren Collider]

I know people who joke about buying guns for the apocalypse, but because they are college students, never seem to get around to it. Other than that, no.

[Dinner]

Mormons have always been preppers as their church wants every member to have a one year's supply of food on hand. This is a hold over from the 19th century when Utah was the frontier and so if you had a crop failure you were screwed unless you had extra stored up. In the 90's white power nutzis started stock piling stuff in preparation for their prophesied race war which thankfully they were never able to make happen but the prepper movement spread to right wing militia types (loads of neo-Nazis in those groups) and from there to right wing fundamentalist Protestant Christians who thought the end of days was at hand. Since Obama took office all sorts of right wing nut jobs have been spurred on by talk radio hosts that the end of the country is at hand since a "communist fascist Muslim negro" is now in power.

That there are so many dopes willing to trade their life savings for canned food you know see all sorts of con men selling over priced junk to these rubes. Even Jim Bakker, the former television evangelist who was convicted in the 80's of fraud and embezzlement, has gotten in on the act selling over priced prepper crap which anyone could pick up at Walmart for half the price. There have always been some sane people who were just storing a bit extra in case of a natural disaster or extended power outage or something but those people tend to have no more than 30 days worth of stuff on hand while the nutjob preppers case in their life savings to buy a 2 year supply of spam and enough ammo to fight a war. In fact many of them are preppering for a war as they as so deranged they believe the election of a black man means the destruction of the country and that Mad Max is in their near future.

To get an idea of what sort of lunatics they are watch the National Geographic Show "Doomsday Preppers" and realize those are the most sane of the people NatGeo could find.

[Aeson]

I have a lot of wooden stakes. So I guess I'm prepped for if Doomsday happens to be brought about by a plague of Vampires. (Plague of locusts too ... we have sprays for that.)

[Aeson]

My parents are Mormon, and have about 1-2 years worth of food storage. Maybe 30 days of water. There's a spring not too far from the house so it's not as big a deal. My dad has a few guns, but they're for varmints and occasionally hunting.

I wouldn't call them preppers, since they don't pretend that there's any soon-to-be Doomsday. Most dried/canned foods can keep a year or two easily enough, and you just rotate stock. It really makes sense when you have a big house with lots of room for storage, can buy cheaply in bulk or on sales, and/or live in a rural area.

[regexcellent]

I find it amazing how Oerdin manages to turn every conversation into one about partisan politics, specifically "lol look at these dumb people who disagree with me."

[Tuberski]

Mormons have always been preppers as their church wants every member to have a one year's supply of food on hand. This is a hold over from the 19th century when Utah was the frontier and so if you had a crop failure you were screwed unless you had extra stored up.

Or if a hurricane hit and left 60 million people without food and shelter, or earthquakes, or tornados or when the four horseman of the apocalypse appear.

ACK!

[Dinner]

I find it amazing how Oerdin manages to turn every conversation into one about partisan politics, specifically "lol look at these dumb people who disagree with me."

Stop being a dunce and go visit some of the "prepper" forums. You'll notice virtually all of them are right wing nutjobs and more than a few of them are neo-Nazi/White Power types. One of the larger forums I visit has a prepper forum and I've actually spent a fair amount of time reading those forums and have found this to be true. If you'd like I can provide you with a link to one of the forums and all you'll have to do is read it to see I am correct. They're rather open about it.

[Dinner]

Or if a hurricane hit and left 60 million people without food and shelter, or earthquakes, or tornados or when the four horseman of the apocalypse appear.

ACK!

I consider the FEMA recommended 30 days supply of nonperishables to be safe and prodent. Where it gets crazy is when the people just become hoarders stalking every square inch of their houses with prepper stuff because they believe the end of days are coming, a race war is coming, some irrational fear about having a black President, or other such nonsense. It's pretty routine to see people on the prepper forums (like City-Data's prepper subforum) saying everyone must move at least 8 hours away from any city and live in BFE other wise "the welfare zombie democrat voters" will kill them to take their "supplies" when Obama destroys the economy and drives everything into hyper inflation. They're just raving loons especially when they say everyone should cash out their 401ks to do this.

Making preparations for reasonably likely turn of events (like a natural disaster) seems good but spending all of your retirement money out of fear of some highly, highly, highly unlikely event (like the end of the world) is just irrational.

[Tuberski]

I'm glad you find it prodent to keep 30 days of food. Mormon can also share their stash.

ACK!

[snoopy369]

I think stalking was a much funnier mistake, personally.

[Tuberski]

I think stalking was a much funnier mistake, personally.

Stalking is just a word he used incorrectly, prodent isn't a word.

ACK!

[snoopy369]

Which is why it's funnier...

[Felch]

Prepping is awesome if you can afford it. What better thing to spend money on than canned food, guns, weed, guns, ammo, more weed, possibly some candles, and a board game or two. Be prepared.

[Alexander's Horse]

Most of the preppers I saw on TV were either mentally unbalanced or physically unwell, or both, and looked like they would stand little chance of survival in a real emergency. They seemed to have translated some personal crisis into a form of what the shrinks call hyper-vigilance, something similar to what hoarders do.