Neither Prepper nor Faithful Sheep

The false dichotomy is one of the favorite rhetorical tricks of those in the American left.  We are told people must either love Obama as a great leader or secretly hate him because he is black, or that people must either approve of homosexuality fully and joyously or condemn it as a sin, or that people must either favor state control of the health care professions and industries or want their fellow citizens to suffer without access to health care, and so on.  Sad to say, there seem to be enough people with poor enough analytic skills that they often get away with it.

 

We get another example from the traditional financial media – the false dichotomy between  fully trusting the establishment’s politicians,bureaucrats,  and financiers and becoming a whacked out “prepper” who thinks civilization or at least the world’s economy is about to collapse.  Every false dichotomy hides something and diverts attention from other real possibilities and options. In this case it allows writers serving the establishment to avoid both serious questions about how competent and trustworthy those politicians, bureaucrats,  and financiers really are and serious reasons why people might want to  take a few precautions and acquire a little insurance against trouble even without believing crazily in a coming  economic apocalypse.

The recent financial crisis and the reactions to it from both Republicans and Democrats should  be enough to justify some skepticism about the competence of the politicians, bureaucrats, and financiers, irrespective of worries about a total collapse.  And since it is fairly obvious that we now have the most dangerous, aggressive, mendacious, and anti-growth government since at least the 1970’s, there should be some doubts about its trustworthiness quite apart from any apocalyptic concerns.

As to taking precautions, one does not have to believe civilization is about to end to see value in storing  some food. All one has to do is notice that storms, labor problems, or government policies and decrees can disrupt deliveries of food to grocery stores. One does not have to believe the dollar is about to become worthless to see value in holding a portion of one’s assets in precious metals. All one has to do is notice that governments around the world are on a binge of printing money,  that all major currencies in the world are fiat currencies, and that under present political condition holding some of one’s wealth in an anonymous and hard to trace form might not be a bad idea. One does not have to believe the civil order will collapse or the government will become totalitarian to see value in being armed. All one has to do is notice that there are criminals  out there who want to do others harm and that an armed citizenry is the surest defense against  any government’s tending toward tyranny. One does not have to be a prepper to see value in being prepared for trouble. All one has to do is notice that trouble sometimes comes and be willing to act on that information.