It's amazing how, even a month after Roy had an epic post about "The Citadel", leading to an epic comment thread, the topic still fascinates. Of course, coverage on Fox Nation of "The Citadel" and Glenn Becky-becky-becky-becky-stan-stan has put this project back on the cognitive map that is "teh t00bz". Perhaps my favorite bit out of the "Citadel" blog was this excerpt from a September post:
The post below discusses the very real liklihood of refugee children who will come to our gates.
Of course we will give as many sanctuary as possible.
What of their adults? Perhaps Liberals who did not prepare and only in the Hell of civil war truly understand that their values are stupid? Do we accept their children and tell the parents to walk back toward Hell? I have no intention of sharing my bread with a stupid Liberal who is dying because of his/her stupidity. But his kid may be a different story.
This is nothing more than a "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" fantasty of refugees making their way across the ruined landscape from Berkeley to friggin' Idaho, the foolish adult liberals lamenting their failure to stock up on an emergency kombucha supply, only to be told by the lordly right-wing Masters of the Citadel to go to hell... more in sorrow than in anger, of course.
Most of these "Prepper" SHTF yearnings are like the fundieloons' Rapture fantasies- the appeal to the lizard brainers is the idea that YOU will suffer. You are the one in the Lake of Fire for Eternity, you are the starving refugee staring down the barrel of an AR-15 while the "prepper" sits like a soft, pinkish "Smaug" on his mountain of Spam cans and tells you to leave or he'll shoot. It's the worst sort of fantasy- they desire for the whole world to go to pieces so they can lord it over those they perceive as "enemies". It's a juvenile fantasy, akin to a junior high schooler's "yeah, she'll regret not going out with me because I'll be rich and famous someday".
I don't want the world to come crashing down around me, no matter how well I "prepare" for such a calamity. Those who do are tragically paranoid and delusional, and in one case, the paranoid delusion actually brought a "Hell on Earth" scenario to a couple of dozen families.
UPDATE: I took a walk in the snow through my beautiful work-site and had a sobering thought... for some of the survivalists, it's not the idea of sitting Smauglike on their mountain of Spam cans that appeals, it's the very idea of shooting a black person, a brown person, or a liberal that appeals to them. Scratch below the surface of even the polite ones and the violent urges appear- Liberal Hunting Permit, anyone?
I want the world to come crashing down.
ReplyDeleteAprès moi, le deluge!!
"fantasty"
ReplyDeleteThis is a mistake, yet it works.
That's their dream, B^4.
ReplyDeleteRemember the Katrina bridge?
~
Fits right in with Stand Your Ground laws.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to think of any example in history of this scenario. Have there been any recorded examples of communities that have barricaded themselves away from the rest of civilization against an actual civil war or chaotic unrest, and done so successfully?
ReplyDeleteOf course walled medieval cities defended themselves against foreign invaders, but I don't believe that part of their credo was to turn away civilian refugees.
has there been any example in history of a community turning its back on its fellow citizens in need? And how well did they fare? Just curious.
Aunt Snow asks the same question I keep asking. And to drill down a little further, where do these idiots expect the government representatives to actually GO? They have always disappeared in these fantasies, but how? Local, county, state and federal authorities, law enforcement, firefighters, EMTs, bureaucrats and political leadership all vanished, leaving the well armed prepper free reign over his domain, the final arbiter of life and death in a scorched and desecrated land.
ReplyDeleteOr something. I'd like to hear them try to articulate how this supposed "economic collapse" or "civil war" is supposed to come about. That would be good for extra chuckles...
what mikey said. Besides, haven't we been through this whole 'economic collapse' thing two or three times already, and the civil war thing once or twice?
ReplyDeleteNone of those cases resulted in anarchy. OR in guilt-wracked liberals begging for Walled Ubermen to save their beloved children.
Although at least one of them resulted in a LOT of killing of brown people, so maybe that's why they have such affection for the trappings of that episode.
Balloon Juice had a diagram of the Citadel which inspired a new round of pointing and laughing. The resemblance to a cartoon of a fortified city was remarkable. A moderately studious teenager with a D&D fascination would be scornful.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there was no provision for ...provisions, and no provision for waste treatment. There was, of course, a gun museum and a gun factory and a gun amphitheater! I assume there was gun cake.
I assume there was gun cake.
ReplyDeleteThe gun cake was a lie!
Unfortunately all the yellow gun cake was bought up by Iraq for their nukular program. Or was it Iran? I can never keep that straight.
ReplyDelete"for some of the survivalists, it's not the idea of sitting Smauglike on their mountain of Spam cans that appeals, it's the very idea of shooting a black person, a brown person, or a liberal that appeals to them" Sometimes they don't even try to be subtle about it.
ReplyDeleteHave there been any recorded examples of communities that have barricaded themselves away from the rest of civilization against an actual civil war or chaotic unrest, and done so successfully?
ReplyDeleteDo fictional accounts count?