Don’t fear the SWAT team
If a picture paints a thousand words, this would be the image to explain the immediate purpose of our Sustainable Farm Club:
The purpose of our Farm Club is at least three fold:
A refuge in a strange and difficult time.
A worshipping village for Orthodox Christians (and those who appreciate us).
A deliberate shift to a simpler, more natural, and more human lifestyle.
While there have been many discussions on which of these three gains the priority, we have concluded that the reality of reason #1 is why we have finally made these real decisions, ponied up real money, and finally gone from utopian dreaming to tangible actions. The meme got our butts in gear.
What will you actually do when this meme comes to fruition? I’m not going to take the time to find links documenting how this is already happening in Austria, Australia, and communist areas like Canada, New York and San Francisco. If you still don’t think this could happen in your world soon, then you are not my audience. My audience is already concerned. Their question is not if and when, but what. What do we do about it?
Join the Orthodox Christian Sustainable Farm Club of Tennessee
Well, you see what I’m doing about it. I obviously believe it is the best solution, and I encourage you to get off the pot and consider joining our Orthodox Christian Sustainable Farm Club. What are the other options?
Compromising your core beliefs and convictions. (This is what I think 95 percent will do, ultimately.)
Buying and selling in some kind of black market, which will eventually implode.
Getting a “valid” close friend or family member to bring you supplies—similar to the above.
Buying your own few acres. This is tricky, hard to do without a group purchase like ours, and impossible if you wait too long. And do you know how to butcher a pig?
Do nothing, and just consider this your inevitable fate.
I may write a separate article about the last one. I know several people in that category. It’s tempting. (We have a lot of prayers in Orthodoxy that mention the sin of “despondency”). But it’s not the right path.
The right path is to listen to the Lord and move forward. The path I am proposing is a positive, reasonable path where you can provide for yourself and loved ones, and also provide for your neighbor as the Lord blesses.
Some may quibble that Christians should simply live day-to-day and not worry about tomorrow. There is obviously some truth to that. Conversely, let me remind you of what Jesus said in Matthew 24:16: "Let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” He didn’t say to just stay put and let the Roman army kill you with the rest of Judea. There is a time and place to prepare for danger and act accordingly. In the next chapter, Christ tells of the five wise and five foolish virgins. "Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” There is a place for listening and being prepared.
Others may wonder why it is wise to put so much effort in a remote place with land and water when Big Brother will find you, regardless. The point is not pointless, I admit. However, back to the original meme of this blog post. It is my contention that the future will not look so much like SWAT teams knocking down our doors. (There WILL be some of that—we’ve already seen it in Australia.) It will look more like soft totalitarianism, where digital tyranny will rule the day.
In this day of manpower shortages, lack of police support and soft men, governments are not going to be as motivated to track down people in the hinterlands. This will especially be true in the Second Amendment-happy Southeastern U.S. While not beyond the pale, I see a 95 percent chance that Karenesque officials will lay off the SWAT team strategy and use the easy tyranny available to them by keystroke—not shoe leather, hard work, and risked lives. It will primarily be soft, digital totalitarianism.
So you refuse to comply? Click. No debit card for you. (Cash not accepted.)
Still refuse to comply? Click. No electricity for you.
Still? Click. No water for you.
All these measures are within the fingertips of Big Sister Karen, who currently won’t let good tax-paying citizens eat in a New York restaurant. It will get worse.
What will you do?
Does my bug out strategy sound like a form of despondency to you? A stoic realization that the world is coming to an end? That would be easy to conclude. However, you would be wrong!
I believe this refuge strategy is for a period of time—10, 25, 50 years of weirdness—and then we can move forward again with building a reasonable civilization and discipling the nations in Christ. I will discuss this more in a future article, where I explain my next book project, a commentary on the book of Revelation, which I hope to be useful 500 years from now.
To help civilization get beyond the darkness and avoid this rough patch, join the Sustainable Farm Club of Tennessee.