Letter Re: Washington’s Retreat Potential

Sir: I may have something to add concerning Washington’s [retreat potential] ranking. I just left there last year and my experience has shown it have not only the Cali- syndrome but a lot of [liberal out-of-staters that have moved there are] are “Washingtonians In Name Only” (WINOs.) For married folks who have a relationship that is faltering, it is not good to be a man in Washington right now. The recent Brame shooting has given a wonderful opportunity for immature, greedy spouses to dump their hubbies into the prison system on trumped up domestic violence charges. Finding conventional work and …




Letter Re: Buying a Retreat Property and a Peak Oil Reference

I am fairly new to your blog, having been introduced by BulletProofMe.com. I have enjoyed reading it every now and then, and have been preparing for quite some time now. So you can imagine, I have most if not all the things you are talking about EXCEPT the place outside the cities, but that is being worked on as I write this, and HOPEFULLY we will buy some land soon. Just looking for the right place. Switching gears, I found some interesting information on Peak Oil, and why cheap oil is over forever. See the transcript available at: http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/BP/2005/1022.html – …




Letter Re: Military Installations as a Factor in Retreat Location Selection

Hey, I just wanted to write in to comment on what seems to me like a missing element in your survival location analysis. Military installations across the United States are presumably not all evenly distributed, and the presence of these bases not only affects your location in the event of a NBC scenario, but if the Schumer] really hits the fan, even well disciplined American servicemen and women will attempt to ensure their own survival even at the cost of local civilians. Now I assume that it would take a world ending event for our military to act in that …




Letter Re: Rourke Replies to Skousen Comment Re: Rourke on Real Estate Development Proposal Ideas

Jim: I am a fan of Mr. Skousen and have the latest edition of his book, or perhaps I should call it a treatise, The Secure Home. I agree with the problems of government among the independently minded (too many cooks in the kitchen, need a head chef), which is why I evolved to the condominium approach, especially as a second home only. Subdivision associations are notoriously too weak to handle the day to day squabbles with people living next to each other full time, and the leakers in particular. It reminds me of Ross Perot’s United We Stand Party, …




Four Letters Re: Rourke on Real Estate Development Proposal Ideas

JWR, Wanted to comment on your reply to Rourke. I agree with you that independently managed homesteads are superior to the communal style that Rourke describes, but for a different, much simpler reason: human nature. In ANY communal system where fixed resources are shared, some members consume more than others, and the others get jealous. This is the basic reason that communism is untenable. A small group of people (family size) can emphasize frugality and make it stick, because wasting resources really may kill a loved one. The more extended the group becomes, the less well people know each other, …




Rourke on Real Estate Development Proposal Ideas

For those who have ever considered the idea of a survival community, I would like to propose a few ideas for consideration from a real estate developer’s perspective. The idea of cluster communities in rural areas is a growing idea in states including Colorado. The idea is to take some land, say 100 acres, and rather than breaking it up into twenty 5 acre lots, you instead cluster the lots into twenty 1 acre (or less) lots, and leave the remaining acreage as an undeveloped buffer owned by the subdivision association (or a LLC it controls), which is then controlled …




Letter Re: Hilltop Retreat Locations Versus Hidden Retreats

Sir: [Your post on Tuesday December 6, 2005 was] good info on high versus low [retreat terrain selection.] Remember: distance = safety. The further away you are from the threat, the safer you will be from the threat. As a former Recon Marine, I learned first-hand that invisibility is far superior to visibility. Keep a very low profile. Exercise strict noise, light, and movement discipline, and you will have an edge on the competition. Semper Fi, – Old Sarge




Hilltop Retreat Locations Versus Hidden Retreats

I often have SurvivalBlog readers and consulting clients ask me about the “ideal” terrain for a rural survival retreat house. I must report that there is no single “best” answer because there are significant trade-offs related to terrain. Castles were situated on hilltops for centuries, for obvious reasons: Enemies had to fight uphill Defenders were able to see approaching armies from a long distance. They were also able to exploit the potential energy of stored boulders and other heavy objects. However, in the context of a modern survival retreat, a commanding position makes hilltop structures hard to miss. The goals …




Letter Re: State Boundaries (Expanding on “The State Line Game”)

Hi Jim, Your comments on building a house straddling a state line brought me back to my Navy days in Pensacola, Florida. It may be difficult to build across a state line but not impossible. There is a bar that straddles the state line between Florida and Alabama called – of course – The Floribama. As I recall it, there was a different last call time on opposite sides of the bar as the two states had different alcohol serving times. In any case, if it can be done with a commercial establishment (particularly a bar!) it can be done …




Letter Re: State Boundaries (Expanding on “The State Line Game”)

Hi Jim, Your comments on building a house straddling a state line brought me back to my Navy days in Pensacola, Florida. It may be difficult to build across a state line but not impossible. There is a bar that straddles the state line between Florida and Alabama called – of course – The Floribama. As I recall it, there was a different last call time on opposite sides of the bar as the two states had different alcohol serving times. In any case, if it can be done with a commercial establishment (particularly a bar!) it can be done …




Letter Re: State Boundaries (Expanding on “The State Line Game”)

I’d like to expand on a topic that I mentioned briefly in a SurvivalBlog post on August 25, 2005:  “The State Line Game.” Many folks have discovered how to play the state line jumping game: Living near a state line to take advantage of a lower tax or other advantage in one or more adjoining states. For example, you can live in the Idaho panhandle (very low property tax, car registration, and car insurance), work in eastern Washington (no income tax), make your day-to-day purchases in Idaho (5% sales tax) and your major purchases (trucks, wood stoves, generators, gun vaults, …




Retreat Areas – State Level Data Now Available in Excel Spreadsheet Format

Very special thanks to “Wise Tioga”, who out of the goodness of his heart laboriously converted my data on 19 western states into a handy Excel (.xls format) spreadsheet. He has even added some more data on home schooling and home birth regulations. I have posted it as a sub-page to the Retreat Areas static page. (Just click on the Retreat Areas button in our home page top button bar.)




The Dreaded Pin Prick–Approaching a Housing Bubble Near You

There are starting to be some clear indicators that the U.S. housing market bubble has reached its apex, though there are some that disagree. The signs of irrational exuberance are all to apparent. Witness, for example, the mad bidding wars for Miami condominiums that are being pre-sold, long before the ground has been broken at the construction sites.  The housing markets have already headed south in much of the rest of the English speaking world.(Prices are already dropping in Australia and England.) But not yet in the United States. Today’s housing market is the embodiment of “The Greater Fool Theory“, …




Archives of JWR Radio Interviews on Pandemic Preparedness Available

For two successive weekends, I was interviewed by Dr. Geri Guidetti of The Ark Institute on her shortwave/webcast radio show. The topic of both of these two hour interviews was family preparedness for a potential influenza pandemic. These interviews are available for free download from Republic Radio in a variety of audio streaming formats at: http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Geri05.html




Letter Re: Buying Rural Timberland

Jim, Here is a letter that I was going to write to a guy in response to an inquiry on what timberland was running for here in northern Idaho. It might be of interest to the blog readers. In the northwest, when looking for a retreat most of us are looking for timbered property. We imagine tall big trees with a house settled down in the hallow or located in some vantage point and defensible. I have given a lot of thought to the idea that if I had the assets what would I be looking for in timberland, best …