Hugh,
First of all, welcome to the blog. I was impressed by your credentials and have enjoyed reading your comments these past few days. However, I do have a bone to pick. Gee, no grace period?
In the Friday, Jan. 24 issue of SurvivalBlog you said, “If our civilization reaches the point of collapse, the lawlessness will, by necessity, be relatively short lived.” In a devastating collapse, I would expect a couple of waves of large-scale “die-offs” fairly early. I think that this is where your theory comes from.
However, to say that lawlessness would be short lived doesn’t take into account the many scenarios where conflict between individuals, groups, quasi-governments, and remnants of government might develop. Perhaps there could even be some encroachment by other countries. Zones of control or fiefdoms are sure to be formed. Conflict between these entities, and within them, can be expected. In the same blog there was a reference to Mexican citizens rising up to reclaim their society from drug lords. It has taken decades of fear, oppression, and murder for them to finally have the wherewithal to do this. I applaud them. It could be that their success will be short lived, but hopefully not.
In the Middle East and in much of Africa, war zones are a way of life. We should not expect it to be different here. We might hope for short-term, but count on and plan for long-term. – Z.
HJL Replies: Thank you for the kind words and the feedback. It’s always difficult to predict what the worst case scenario will be. It is entirely possible that, if a collapse of society occurs, extended periods of conflict could be encoutered. In the absolute worst case, we may face years of such conflict. However, the very spirit of patriots will not allow such evil to perpetuate like what we see on the African continent. Today, patriots are mostly still trying to affect change from within the system. Even though the government/elite have shown a propensity to throw the constitution to the wind when it suits them, patriots still believe in the Rule of Law. If society breaks down to the point where the Rule of Law no longer applies, they will work to replace the broken system with one that does work. I couldn’t give a timetable on such an endevor because it simply depends on how broken the existing system turns out to be and how far society collapses in such a situation. I do agree with your statement that “We might hope for short-term, but …(should) plan for long-term.”