inflation, gas prices and the rural economy in WY - group prep and defense?

[Bret]

Going door to door and doing searches without warrants are constitutionally illegal in New Orleans yet it happened.  If there is martial law it will be with tanks, guys with guns, etc.  This makes it harder to argue the constitution while it is happening.  As I said this would be a worst case scenario, I also stated that rural areas would see far less of this than urban areas due to limited man power.

[Crappiewy]

New orleans isnt Wyoming.
A past Wyoming govenor was once asked why he didnt support a certain bill. His response was that He had to shop at wall mart too..

[Bret]

You are right it is not, nor is Sampson Alabama where the military were patrolling the streets in 2009 WY, however I am unsure that WY would do an armed rebellion against a US Army deployment of tanks especially since doing so would likely endanger the very people he is sworn to protect.  Even if they did, or if the US Army was ordered to leave WY alone that would still limit other cities populations.  Salt Lake City for example may be placed under martial law, Denver may be.  There are not that many larger cities that would have hoards leaving in all directions, some ending up in WY if essentials became scarce.   I would also not count on it being limited to just 2 divisions of soldiers since insurrection or rebellion is grounds for the president (any president, this one, the next one the one after that) to order troops in and it could be that failure to institute martial law, and certainly an armed response to prevent martial law from being placed would be grounds for more troops.  I do not think this is something that can be dismissed by merely stating it is not constitutional to do road blocks in the state.

My point is still valid though, there are 2 divisions of US Army soldiers tasked with martial law due to "civil unrest" in response to "economic collapse" (although I bet the reasons are not limited to that alone).  Martial law has occurred in the US in the recent past so it is not like it would be unheard of for it to happen again.  If it did happen it would give some protection to the rural people since they could not be placed under martial law effectively due to limited resources.  The wandering bands of people looking for anything and everything they could possibly get would at least in part be contained limiting the numbers of groups looking to raid homes and small cities for food, water and other supplies. 

If you are a prepper this should be one contingency that is not ignored.  Being in a city means you could become trapped, being out of one could mean you are cut off from support like food drops and what not.  Food travels an average of 1500 miles farm to dinner table in the US.  Even if you are not importing food that means those who rely on the export for income would see a drop in their revenues, in their ability to buy the things they need.  There are a lot of ramifications that occur even if it does not mean tanks on your particular street.  Those could be good or bad depending on exactly where you are and what your supply lines are. 

If you believe that martial law can never happen in WY then one way to look at this is to say that you have to stock up on anything you cant produce yourself, such as salt, toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.  I think it likely to say that it can and probably will happen in at least some areas which could affect the transport of goods.

If you think it can occur you may want to look at developing a communications system free from the standard methods (internet, telephone, etc) as those can be shut down (look at the "internet kill switch" legislation which applies to "critical networks" and extends beyond the internet - that wont die and some version will eventually pass either by executive order or by legislation).  That communication system can allow for people to give an early warning that it is coming so they can prepare in whatever way they think is appropriate for the potential house searches for weapons or other items as well as letting people know today is not a good day to go to town.

[Crappiewy]

You have obviously never been to Wyoming.

[pedro wyomiing]

Bret,
I must agree with Crappiewy.  Who needs a food drop when you have enough groceries, toiletries and sundries for a couple of years.  Most rural folks here are prepared for winter living.    I go to town once a month to check the mail.  If all commo went silent, that would be a good signal to break out the shortwave gear.  Two divisions for civil unrest would be taxed to the limit of manpower trying to herd the sheeple in just a few large cities.  To beat down a rural rebellion in the rockies would require a major military action on par with ops in Afghanistan. I do not put it past the regime, present or future to do this.  But, this would be a flashpoint that would have very far reaching consequences.
Consider this...if it were your town, family, or friends attacked by us military forces, what would you do?  We already have a posse commitatus Act forbidding this. Suspension of any part of the constitution and deployment of ANY ARMS in Wyoming would have disastrous results.  For both sides.
pW

[Bret]

"normalcy bias" strikes again.  Those who want to get the point can read what I typed, those who want to ignore it are similarly free to do so.

[Bret]

I have been thinking about this for a while now and think I discovered why my point was lost.

Who needs a food drop

I was not saying you should need one, I was saying that you should plan for not having one and if you see as I see a general movement towards gearing up for martial law by the feds (and some states) that you should also rely on imports/exports not happening.  It is more than food as well as I indicated with the animal feed and diesel fuel for tractors it is also medicine and other items.  Some you can stock up on, some you cant, some you will just run out of particularly medicines.

I was stating originally that martial law is something that could be done in the bigger cities which goes against something said in one of the original posts that no one seemed to comment on yet.

Consider this...if it were your town, family, or friends attacked by us military forces, what would you do?  We already have a posse commitatus Act forbidding this. Suspension of any part of the constitution and deployment of ANY ARMS in Wyoming would have disastrous results.  For both sides.

As for this, a lot of people in many countries - even this one, have said similar things.  In many cases in ends with people just consenting.  Take for example the repeal of the possee comitatus act under Bush (it was brought back a while later).  This was hidden in a defense appropriations bill (I validated its repeal when people first started talking about this and it was really buried, even knowing it was there it took me a long time to finally find it, in an air force appropriations section if I recall correctly).  I did not validate that what was brought back was the same version.  Insurrection or rebellion is grounds for calling forth the militia (article I section 8 clause 14) and with modern interpretation of that phrase it is likely that it would not be the same militia that was originally intended. 

The act itself http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/67/1385

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

That does not sound like the absolute preventative measure many make it seem.  I also do not know what the patriot act did (an act of congress) in terms of allowing the military to operate if it is arbitrarily declared that domestic terrorism is all over the place (whether or not it really is since terrorism has no real definition its whatever some bureaucrat says it is on that particular day).


You also have things like:
http://www.fundamentalsoffreedom.com/fswforum/index.php?topic=8987.0
http://www.fundamentalsoffreedom.com/fswforum/index.php?topic=11986.0
http://westernfrontamerica.com/2011/09/10/federal-government-declares-war-nation/
http://www.fundamentalsoffreedom.com/fswforum/index.php?topic=7395.0
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/senate-to-vote-on-legislation-that-allows-u-s-military-to-detain-americans-without-charge-or-trial_11252011

The list goes on and on and on.  So to reiterate something I said earlier.  If you believe that martial law cannot and will not be applied you still need to be prepared for the interruption in commerce.  If you believe that martial law could be imposed then you should similarly plan accordingly.  I also stated and I firmly believe that it would be constrained to the larger cities negating a stated fear early in this thread about people coming up from Denver for example. 

[Crappiewy]

People dont comment to your story because is is just that. A story.
You dont know Wyoming or its people yet you make assumptions based on non facts.
The vast majority of people in Wyoming dont live in cities. Only about 20% do. The rest are farmers, ranchers or engineers of some sort. Food will not be a problem. They are used to being able to feed themselves for at least 6 months of winter.
We are not worried about the Feds sending troops because there is no reason for them to do so. There is nothing here that they would want. If there is a collapse the troops will be busy elsewhere.
Denver is a long ways from Cheyenne. Even so most people would go south. Not north. Most people in Denver envision Wyoming as a cold wastland. Not a place to go for food or shelter. Too many historic horror stories about people going north just to freeze to death.
Being a native Wyomingnite I can say that most natives are hardy people and for the most part dont like outsiders or people trying to change things. They dont like others trying to tell them what to do. Add them to the people who have been moving here in the last 15 years who are mainly people who are very dissatified with the politics at home and many have had problems with the police states that they came from and you have a pretty unwilling population. You cant control people who dont want to be controlled. This is not California.
.

[Bret]

Being a native Wyomingnite I can say that most natives are hardy people and for the most part dont like outsiders or people trying to change things.

If you are not going to read what I typed I am not going to discuss it with you.  You made several incorrect assumptions in your response, you used a condescending agreement which makes it sound like you are correcting me even though I said the same thing.  You appear to be just looking to argue for the sake of arguing.  That is not the WY people I remember and I hope you do not represent the atypical WY person, I hope it hasnt changed that much in the last 20 years. 


That explains why you are actively trying to discourage me from participating in these forums.  I represent change, I am not native.   I get it I am not "one of you" therefore I deserve your disrespect, while I disagree with your actions I understand where you are coming from and why you have done that on multiple threads in response to anything I say here.  I understand why you follow me around on these forums, not knowing anything about me but making incorrect comments based on your assumptions to put me down.

I do formally request that you stop doing that, that you stop following me thread to thread putting me down, that you do stop making assumptions to justify putting me down.  You do a disservice to this forum to act the way you do, my experience in WY was that the people are generally friendly, respectful, not looking to fight just to fight, you are the opposite of those things and can cast a shadow on the population of the state if this forum is the first and only experience someone has with people from WY.  Just because someone is not a native WY does not mean they are inferior to you so I request that you stop acting like it, at least towards me.

[Crappiewy]

You read way too much SHTF fiction.
Anyhow. You arent going to find too much help in starting your Indian reservation. Most people here arent really much for joining anything. They are INDIVIDUALS. Not followers.

[Bret]

it is clear that you are just trolling, you have some real problems you should address.

[Paul Bonneau]

Um, we have a rather low tolerance around here for personal slights. Just thought you'd like to know...

[pedro wyomiing]

it is clear that you are just trolling, you have some real problems you should address.

Who the hell is trolling, Bret?

I am here to network with MY NEIGHBORS in prosecuting liberty in MY HOME.  I have read a LOT of posts here by well intentioned folks who have NO CLUE about life here.  As to why your "point" was lost...you start out with the position that we are a bunch of deluded sheep. 
We generally are intolerant of outsiders preaching to us about the way things are... elsewhere...and how we "should" be doing it.

pW

[Bret]

you can be as intolerant as you want, I am not going to take your bait and get into an argument about this even when you invent things like the deluded sheep comment.  You are an angry person for some reason over the fact that I addressed comments made before me in this thread.  That is fine, I am not going to  comment on this anymore.

As for who is trolling it is clear that it was to the post previous to mine, it is clear that it is over bringing up stuff from other threads into this one and mischaracterizing them in an attempt to start an argument is what I was referencing as trolling.  Further the post I made previous to that indicated that there was the same activity going on in other threads, which is perhaps what caused the consolidation. 

[Crappiewy]

you can be as intolerant as you want, I am not going to take your bait and get into an argument about this even when you invent things like the deluded sheep comment.  You are an angry person for some reason over the fact that I addressed comments made before me in this thread.  That is fine, I am not going to  comment on this anymore.

As for who is trolling it is clear that it was to the post previous to mine, it is clear that it is over bringing up stuff from other threads into this one and mischaracterizing them in an attempt to start an argument is what I was referencing as trolling.  Further the post I made previous to that indicated that there was the same activity going on in other threads, which is perhaps what caused the consolidation. 

 

What makes you think that we are not prepared...... ?

This is Wyoming. Prepardness is a way of life. Just having your car break down in  the middle of winter can mean your death.
Most people in Wyoming are more prepared than the most up dated prepers in a place like California.
And like I said before. Unless Yellowstone blows, No one is coming here. They never have and they never will. There are reasons for the 500,000 population count.