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I think that the mindset of the people in the area is one of the most important things to consider. Are they the independent minded, rights respecting kind of people that make government bureaucrats cringe? These are the kind of people I would like to live among.
Personally, I can handle heat better than cold. I would rather be down South than close to the Canadian border!
Are they the independent minded, rights respecting kind of people that make government bureaucrats cringe? These are the kind of people I would like to live among.
High Plains, I'm curious if Texas residents subscribe to the currently held view of exceptional drought conditions becoming the "new normal" in their state, and how they are factoring in sufficient water availability in the event of "economic collapse."
Do you feel your groundwater supplies are reliable? If you farm or run cattle, what are your plans if the rains don't come at the end of this La Nina period or return to their expected levels?
I guess I got to thinking about this subject in more depth after realizing it's June 1st and STILL RAINING HERE in the Pacific Northwest, as it has almost all spring, thanks to that same La Nina.
High Plains, I'm curious if Texas residents subscribe to the currently held view of exceptional drought conditions becoming the "new normal" in their state, and how they are factoring in sufficient water availability in the event of "economic collapse."
Do you feel your groundwater supplies are reliable? If you farm or run cattle, what are your plans if the rains don't come at the end of this La Nina period or return to their expected levels?
I guess I got to thinking about this subject in more depth after realizing it's June 1st and STILL RAINING HERE in the Pacific Northwest, as it has almost all spring, thanks to that same La Nina.
Funny that you ask. I just came in from the back of our property because my old Ford tractor quit on me in the annoying wind. I also came in for a cold glass of tea and tools before I go out again.
Anyway I am sorry to say, that as a former government scientist, I do not follow current scientific theories and even more apologetic that I am unfamiliar with the one on current U.S. drought conditions. I found that during my time (1960s-1990s) of involvement in the sciences that political agendas overrode objective scientific thought. The situation has definately gotten worse so I now just try not to be whip-sawed by environmental theories.
Regarding the article, I recall times in the mid-1960s that were as dry, dusty and windy as they are now. My wife and I recall our days of dating in the mid-1960s and having picnics on live sand dunes around Muleshoe, Texas. The spring and fall winds howled incessantly day and night. I wondered back then how anyone could live in such a place. Those dunes and winds of the 1960s soon disappeared and for the past forty years, have remained scarce. Just a few years ago the southern High Plains, a place that averages 15 to 18 inches per year, received over 50 inches of rain in one year. Two winters ago, the unpaved roads around here stayed muddy all winter. This year has been more like 1968.
Around here rain comes at a premium and it has been that way at least since the flrst settlers moved out here. Two nights ago we had a 90% chance of rain yet I did not see even a drop hit the ground. The unfortunate side of this story is that anyone who pretends to be able to predict the weather on the Texas/New Mexico High Plains, for more than an hour in advance, is not to believed. Another side of this story is that farmers in general, at least in west Texas, are notorious for moaning more than the spring winds.
But to get us back to the subject at hand; the Texas/New Mexico High Plains, and certainly the rural portions, are not a place for those faint of heart and without faith. I have no reason to believe that those tornadoes now devastating areas to our northeast will not soon return to the Texas High Plains where they are not missed.
Well, the best of luck to you on keeping a strong heart and faith in a return to pre-La Nina conditions, and I wish we could send you some of our precipitation.
I have a friend in Trinidad, Colorado who swears by xeriscaping to conserve precious local water supplies, and there's an article about that for your area:
Well, the best of luck to you on keeping a strong heart and faith in a return to pre-La Nina conditions, and I wish we could send you some of our precipitation.
I have a friend in Trinidad, Colorado who swears by xeriscaping to conserve precious local water supplies, and there's an article about that for your area:
(Sorry for the thread drift -- now back to our regularly scheduled ECONOMIC COLLAPSE SCENARIO.)
I have faith but I also believe in conserving water, although my water here in Texas is free. I do not like rocks for xeriscaping yards or large areas because of the heat they generate but I have partial rockscapes at my Albuquerque home. Here on the Texas farm I water only my few trees and have never filled the +120,000 gallon above-ground steel swimming pool that was here when I bought the place. I plan to make the pool into a round barn. At my home in Albuquerque, I also have changed out the builder-supplied Kentucky blue grass for drought tolerant Bermuda.
I guess I should further say that the round barn will be used to park my ethanol/solar-powered ATV to be used after the ECONOMIC COLLAPSE?
Your correct her statement is important, and is correct. So many fail to get the basic understanding and for it we get liberalizim
There are leaders, which I find don't really intend to be leaders, that can and will lead in times of need. There are leaders who want to be leaders and don't do well at it.
Then there are followers who can't seem to get much done with out being led, and last there are those who just need to get out of the way.
SCG is as I said a while back a Breath oif Fresh Air.
[1] Private property and real estate are mutually exclusive. One is absolutely owned (and constitutionally protected), the other is held with qualified ownership. Check your state's constitution for the delegation of the power to tax. It will refer only to estate held with qualified ownership.
[2] The law is the law, not what you were led to believe it is. Take some time and visit your local county courthouse law library.
[3] What fact led you to conclude that a cooperative enterprise is synonymous with collective ownership and / or a commune? Private enterprises can cooperate or compete, constructively or destructively.
Also, I previously stated that such cooperatives should be intolerant of parasites (i.e., lazy individuals).
Alas, my friend, wishing so does not make it so. You can get together 5 hardworking, industrious couples, who are determined to form a co-operative enterprise, and who have equal amounts of everything. Within a short time, someone will want to bring in their pregnant-and-unmarried daughter with three children, and will want her excused from work because she has those children and is too fragile to work 'right now'. Someone else will want to put up their brother/sister/father/mother/uncle/aunt cousin, and swear that they won't stay long, won't be a burden, won't cause trouble... and they will turn out to be a white supremacist/drug dealer/user/alcoholic/drama queen who causes trouble for the whole community. It is the nature of the beast. What accomodations will the co-op make for those who are functioning at optimum, and then have an accident where there is permanent injury or even death? Do you kick the disabled worker/parasite to the curb, or tell his equally devoted wife that she can't be there any more unless she can live up to her end of the agreement? At what point do you decide to take care of this one and not that one? At what point do you decide that someone who has worked for the co-operative isn't working out and must be told to leave - losing not only the investment of their years of work, but anything they have built that benefits the co-op? Do you really think someone is going to devote 2,3,5 years of their life to something and not get something lasting out of it... even if they have to resort to a lawsuit to do it?
ANY co-operative enterprise, be it a business partnership, farm, donut shop, or commune, has inherent difficulties because of the human component. Unless you have lines strictly drawn - as in business partnerships with legally enforceable rights and privileges, written down and nominally agreed to by both parties or all concerned - you will have trouble. (And even with mutually-agreed-upon documents in place, you will still have trouble - ask Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.) Some folks will feel that they do all of the work, while others will be perfectly happy to work their agreed-upon hours and not one whit more. Some folks will want to rebel against any authoritarian enforcement of rules (even if they agreed to them in the beginning!) while others will subtly sabotage it to reinforce their own need for feelings of superiority.
Unless individuals have their own property, their own freedoms with their concurrent own responsibilities, and even the ability to sell out and leave (and at least partially attempt to regain their investment) if they find that they cannot/do not wish to live in or participate in the general direction of the community; any such partnership, no matter how well-regulated, understood, or agreed upon initially, will fail. No matter how minor or major, how plebian or far-flung, the goals of any co-operative are, without individual freedom and personal responsibility (not merely the responsibility for the co-op as a whole) - individuals who participate will lose, especially if stressors like the collapse of the economy, output or crop failure, or even illness or injury come into play.
Even our local farm co-op recognises this. One pays to be a member, and enjoys the benefits (like mass purchasing power, and sales power) and follows the rules - but every member is ultimately responsible for his/her own property, investment, crops, or animals as well as any parasitic family member or friend whom they invite onto their own property, to share in their own investments, work, effort, or home. The co-op doesn't take that hit. Membership is a choice of a personally responsible party, and the member has access to the group's firmly delineated benefits, and no access to its funding (other than things like group crop insurance) or its support... as long as the member pays his or her dues on time and in full. The co-op is not responsible for each individually-owned farm or ranch nor how it is run; each individual is responsible for him/herself, and his/her own success and/or failure.
Reading the law as it is, and not assuming what is not there is not "wishing".
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCGranny
Alas, my friend, wishing so does not make it so. You can get together 5 hardworking, industrious couples, who are determined to form a co-operative enterprise, and who have equal amounts of everything. Within a short time, someone will want to bring in their pregnant-and-unmarried daughter with three children, and will want her excused from work because she has those children and is too fragile to work 'right now'. Someone else will want to put up their brother/sister/father/mother/uncle/aunt cousin, and swear that they won't stay long, won't be a burden, won't cause trouble... and they will turn out to be a white supremacist/drug dealer/user/alcoholic/drama queen who causes trouble for the whole community. It is the nature of the beast. What accomodations will the co-op make for those who are functioning at optimum, and then have an accident where there is permanent injury or even death? Do you kick the disabled worker/parasite to the curb, or tell his equally devoted wife that she can't be there any more unless she can live up to her end of the agreement? At what point do you decide to take care of this one and not that one? At what point do you decide that someone who has worked for the co-operative isn't working out and must be told to leave - losing not only the investment of their years of work, but anything they have built that benefits the co-op? Do you really think someone is going to devote 2,3,5 years of their life to something and not get something lasting out of it... even if they have to resort to a lawsuit to do it?
ANY co-operative enterprise, be it a business partnership, farm, donut shop, or commune, has inherent difficulties because of the human component. Unless you have lines strictly drawn - as in business partnerships with legally enforceable rights and privileges, written down and nominally agreed to by both parties or all concerned - you will have trouble. (And even with mutually-agreed-upon documents in place, you will still have trouble - ask Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.) Some folks will feel that they do all of the work, while others will be perfectly happy to work their agreed-upon hours and not one whit more. Some folks will want to rebel against any authoritarian enforcement of rules (even if they agreed to them in the beginning!) while others will subtly sabotage it to reinforce their own need for feelings of superiority.
Unless individuals have their own property, their own freedoms with their concurrent own responsibilities, and even the ability to sell out and leave (and at least partially attempt to regain their investment) if they find that they cannot/do not wish to live in or participate in the general direction of the community; any such partnership, no matter how well-regulated, understood, or agreed upon initially, will fail. No matter how minor or major, how plebian or far-flung, the goals of any co-operative are, without individual freedom and personal responsibility (not merely the responsibility for the co-op as a whole) - individuals who participate will lose, especially if stressors like the collapse of the economy, output or crop failure, or even illness or injury come into play.
Even our local farm co-op recognises this. One pays to be a member, and enjoys the benefits (like mass purchasing power, and sales power) and follows the rules - but every member is ultimately responsible for his/her own property, investment, crops, or animals as well as any parasitic family member or friend whom they invite onto their own property, to share in their own investments, work, effort, or home. The co-op doesn't take that hit. Membership is a choice of a personally responsible party, and the member has access to the group's firmly delineated benefits, and no access to its funding (other than things like group crop insurance) or its support... as long as the member pays his or her dues on time and in full. The co-op is not responsible for each individually-owned farm or ranch nor how it is run; each individual is responsible for him/herself, and his/her own success and/or failure.
You're arguing about your own "objection", not what I wrote:
Quote:
SCGranny wrote: When one signs away one's welfare and profits to a commune, one is only as strong as the weakest link, laziest or most unstable participant.
In the previous post, I specifically referred to PRIVATE PROPERTY, which, by definition, is absolutely owned by an individual - NOT a group.
"PRIVATE PROPERTY - As protected from being taken for public uses, is such property as belongs absolutely to an individual, and of which he has the exclusive right of disposition. Property of a specific, fixed and tangible nature, capable of being in possession and transmitted to another, such as houses, lands, and chattels."
- - - Black's Law dictionary, sixth ed., p.1217
"OWNERSHIP - ... Ownership of property is either absolute or qualified. The ownership of property is absolute when a single person has the absolute dominion over it... The ownership is qualified when it is shared with one or more persons, when the time of enjoyment is deferred or limited, or when the use is restricted. "
- - -Black's Law dictionary, sixth ed., p. 1106
I stipulate that since 1935, few Americans, if any, have private property ownership (thanks to FICA), so one's exposure to the law that protects private property rights will be nil.
Go read the law, yourself.
Find one law that overturns the protections afforded to private property (absolutely owned by an individual).
But remember, estate is mutually exclusive with private property. Estate is held with qualified ownership, and thus subject to taxation and restriction. (Check your own state's constitution for the explicit delegation of power to tax - it will be restricted to estate -aka "real and personal property".)
Jetgraphics, you keep insisting that the right of governments to tax eliminates private property rights - and you have a point, as I agreed with you before - anyone can have their property confiscated, at any time, for any reason, even if the reason is against the Constitution.
However, governments will NOT do so en masse unless it is within their interests to do so - and unless they can control the uprising that would naturally come from such an en-masse confiscation. Insisting that "no one really owns their own property!" as a reason to not try to own property, or not develop it for one's own needs, is arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and isn't productive.
As long as everyone still believes that they have rights, not only the right to own property but the right to protest government to address their grievances and the right to vote the criminals in and out, they will continue to do the same. It won't be until the government decides to show its hand, and prove to all and sundry that they have taken away their rights and made them 'privileges' that can be renounced - and they renounce them - that the problem will arise.
In other words, as long as one pays the taxes, one can enjoy the fantasy of owning property. Do I admit it is a fantasy? Of course. But as long as the government dares not show its hand - except in it's occasional "tax sales" - then I will continue to pay my taxes and enjoy "my" property. To do otherwise - to not rub blue mud in my belly button, and to insist that the political gods are not gods at all, but magicians and thieves - is teaching a pig to dance. It wastes my valuable time and annoys the pigs.
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