Are Prepper's Crazy?

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[00:01:25] Low Rive. Welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast. Kevin and Chuck.

[00:01:32] I think maybe the second biggest question I get is a prepper, and it's funny because it used to be a

[00:01:40] lot more so in the past than now, but is our preppers just crazy? Like, are you sure you're not just being

[00:01:47] a little paranoid? You know, that's kind of what it comes down to. Well, we're going to dig into it.

[00:01:53] We're going to dig into the ideas that what's coming true, what's not coming true, and what are

[00:01:58] the consequences of being a prepper? Like, it turns out it does come at a cost, and it may not just be

[00:02:06] a financial cost, but I mean, it could just get you on a lot of lists. You know, I know if you have a

[00:02:13] prepper podcast, you're probably on a list. And so there are consequences to being a prepper.

[00:02:22] So let's kind of jump into it. Kevin, are preppers crazy? What's your take? I mean,

[00:02:28] I look at you and I'm like, yeah, pretty crazy. So I mean, yeah, the short answer is yes.

[00:02:34] You know what I mean? We're all crazy people. If you're listening to this podcast, you're

[00:02:38] already a crazy person, you know?

[00:02:40] Do you have a tinfoil hat in the closet, Kevin?

[00:02:43] Yeah, I'm ready to go. You're ready to go. It's all shaped to my head. I have one for the

[00:02:47] whole family. They're all set aside. I'm ready to go. Yeah. I mean, it's too late. They already

[00:02:51] scanned our minds from space. It's, I mean, whatever, dude, I can put it on now.

[00:02:57] The military and they sampled their DNA and everything.

[00:03:02] They take your blood and your fingerprints. It's all on file.

[00:03:06] All right. Oh man, that can't be good. So that's one of the things. So that's,

[00:03:13] that's what I see is, is one of the big takes is, you know, preppers are just paranoid. They're

[00:03:18] hoarding, they're causing problems for the rest of us. And now one of the things I think is,

[00:03:25] I feel like there's less of a stigma now because a lot of things are kind of playing out.

[00:03:34] Like one of the big things I always saw was, and, and I found it hard to believe was the colleges

[00:03:40] were saying, Oh, it doesn't matter how much money we print. There won't be inflation because you,

[00:03:47] as long as you have a robust economy, it doesn't really matter. And it turns out that was just a

[00:03:53] myth that printing money. And it was people from like Harvard and Yale had economists that were

[00:03:59] like, don't even worry, just print as much as you want. And there's no consequences. And all of us

[00:04:05] were like, Oh no, that, that sounds like a really bad idea. Yeah. I mean, I'm not an economist.

[00:04:11] I've taken a class, you know, an economy class. And then one of the, one of the basic things is if

[00:04:18] there's more of something, it's less valuable. I don't understand. I mean, that's the

[00:04:22] basic, one of the basic parts of, I can, I don't, whatever.

[00:04:27] That was the thing. And then all of a sudden, I guess we were wrong. And I got to say it held

[00:04:33] out longer than I thought it would. Like we were able to print. I mean, if you think of between 2009

[00:04:41] and now we were just printing money like crazy, just boom, boom, boom. And there weren't really

[00:04:49] consequences until around 2020. All of a sudden, like that's all of a sudden when the curve went

[00:04:56] like way up. Right. Right. Well, people stopped working and we stopped having a robust economy.

[00:05:01] And then all of a sudden, Oh, maybe they're, maybe they were right. You know?

[00:05:05] Yeah. And then all of a sudden do it and then tank the economy at the same time.

[00:05:09] So I feel like when things like that happen though, you're like, Oh, look, I'm vindicated.

[00:05:13] You know? Yeah. I've been saying, Hey, there's going to be inflation, maybe store some food,

[00:05:19] maybe stock up on supplies just to beat inflation. People were like, Oh, that's crazy. Whatever.

[00:05:26] What about when like COVID hit? I mean, people were like, Hey, there could be like a big pandemic

[00:05:32] and it could be hard to go out to stores and whatever. And there were a lot of people prepping

[00:05:38] for that. I mean, if you watch that show, doomsday preppers, people were like, Oh, there could be

[00:05:43] something like the Chinese flus and you know, whatever. And everyone was like, ah, dude, you're

[00:05:48] kind of crazy. This is America. We have vaccines. We all get a flu shot. Everything's good. And then

[00:05:55] COVID happened and they were like, well, yeah. And then, you know, I mean, remember you were like

[00:06:05] a complete nut job. I don't mean you personally, but people were viewed as a complete nut job.

[00:06:11] If they had any thoughts about aliens or area 51. I mean, you were straight loony to, right? That's,

[00:06:17] that's crazy talk. That's crazy talk. And then all of a sudden the white house is like, well,

[00:06:26] there may be UFOs. We investigating them. We're not really sure. And it was just like more and more

[00:06:35] they're like, well, that conspiracy. All right. That one was true. That one turned out, panned out.

[00:06:40] And then, you know, is the government like putting you on lists and then, you know,

[00:06:45] that kind of thing you were like, Oh, that's probably not happening. You know, you're just paranoid.

[00:06:50] Mm-hmm. And then all of a sudden we're all like on lists. The government is not mass, mass

[00:06:57] surveilling their citizens. They're not going to, they wouldn't do that. Right. That would be

[00:07:01] ridiculous. Yeah. It's against the law. They can't. And then that movie, Vendetta came out and we're

[00:07:07] like, wait a minute, you know, who knows? Um, so what's your, your take on that now, Kevin,

[00:07:14] have you seen like, so what's your take like COVID right? Are people justified? I mean, did,

[00:07:21] were you helped because you were prepared for COVID? I will. Yeah. I'll tell you this one.

[00:07:28] I wasn't out like fighting people at the grocery store over the last box of pasta, you know, that

[00:07:34] happened. That stuff was happening. People were fighting over rice and shit, you know,

[00:07:39] did you have toilet paper? I did not have toilet paper, but I am a grown man and I do have a garden

[00:07:47] hose, you know, I know how to handle my homemade bidet, right? I've been pooping in the woods for,

[00:07:53] for 40 years. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't, you had no tree back there and things were, uh,

[00:07:59] you know, all right. All right. Um, now when we're looking this stuff up, you said you came across an

[00:08:07] article. Um, yeah, so I did, I, I, I was, you know, I was actually searched that our preppers crazy.

[00:08:15] And so psychology today, you know, specifically, I mean, you know, psychologists always call people

[00:08:21] crazy, um, but they do. So these are the three things I got from that, that article there.

[00:08:27] All right. Uh, prepping beliefs encompass a pessimistic, pessimistic worldview that doom is

[00:08:33] eminent. People are uncooperative and resources are limited. So this is, this is what, what preppers

[00:08:40] believe they say, right? The crisis in 2020 have demonstrated that cynicism about human nature is

[00:08:47] largely unwarranted while concerns about resource availability, availability are legitimate.

[00:08:54] It's funny. Cause I kind of went the other way on that. I kind of, as a prepper, I don't think that

[00:09:01] least resources are really that limited, but I think that my government is so corrupt that they could fuck

[00:09:09] up anything pretty much. Yeah. I mean, I, I would say incompetent, corrupt, that, that, that,

[00:09:16] that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

[00:09:20] I think that when they say that the crisis demonstrated cynicism about human nature was unwarranted,

[00:09:31] I think that they weren't in the same stores that I was at. People were acting crazy.

[00:09:35] You did see crazy.

[00:09:37] And when you were sitting at home and, you know, flipping through whatever YouTube and stuff,

[00:09:42] it was like video after video of like people in grocery stores losing their shit.

[00:09:46] In stores and parking lots, losing their shit. People suicide shot through the roof during the

[00:09:52] pandemic. You know what I mean? Alcoholism skyrocketed. I don't, I never was like thinking about

[00:09:59] there's going to be some like natural disaster or some event and I'm have to worry about my friends

[00:10:06] killing themselves. You know what I mean? Right. Right. Maybe I wasn't saying, you know,

[00:10:11] enough of a cynic about it. Right. Exactly. I mean that, that's one of the,

[00:10:16] things is that we kind of, we're in a society where everything kind of is provided for us. Right.

[00:10:25] I mean, available to us. I mean, maybe they're not giving it out for free,

[00:10:29] but you can go find anything, you know, you can go to the grocery store and anything.

[00:10:34] But one of the things that like really concerns me is like the government is paying farmers not to grow

[00:10:41] food. And I'm like, well, that doesn't sound logical and whatever, you know, and they're like,

[00:10:46] Oh, scarcity. Um, one of the big things I'm coming across now is our whole food system is like,

[00:10:54] so artificially, the prices are very artificial because the government is subsidizing production

[00:11:03] and everything like that. What we see on the shelves isn't a true reflection of what it costs to make

[00:11:10] and get stuff, you know, to the, to the store. Um, like you guys have heard me talk lately,

[00:11:18] you know, about how much it costs me to make a Turkey. And, you know, I, I inefficiently raised

[00:11:25] turkeys and they ended up costing me almost 200 bucks a piece. And that's not even counting the labor to

[00:11:31] butcher them, but which was my labor, but it's still time and effort. Right. But I talked to

[00:11:38] people who knew what they were doing and they were like, yeah, best I can do a 25 pound Turkey at like

[00:11:44] 125 bucks, you know, but I go to Walmart and they're like, Oh, 89 cents a pound for Turkey. And I'm like,

[00:11:53] well, that doesn't seem right now. I understand there's things like they call it loss leaders.

[00:11:58] You know, they get you into the store because you come by the Turkey cheap and then you, you know,

[00:12:03] buy stuffing and butter and you know, whatever pop tarts or whatever people buy for Thanksgiving. I

[00:12:10] don't know, but that's the thing. I mean, I understand getting somebody in the store,

[00:12:15] but the, the prices aren't really a true reflection of what it actually costs to make these things.

[00:12:22] And you're saying, well, Chuck, that doesn't make any sense. Well, it's cause our government is

[00:12:28] propping up the economy. I mean, and they're propping it up by printing money and basically

[00:12:34] paying it out as handouts to farmers and things like that of, Hey, if you grow this, we'll give you

[00:12:40] this big tax refund or we'll give you, you know, all these things that make it worthwhile. I mean,

[00:12:46] are you, are you seeing that? Is that sound accurate or. Yeah. I mean, if you're asking,

[00:12:53] if I think that the government has their hands in everything, including all the things they

[00:12:57] shouldn't be involved in. Yeah, I think so. Okay. All right. You know, we'd probably be eating a lot

[00:13:02] more eggs if, uh, you know, things cost what they actually cost. Eggs are incredible, edible fun.

[00:13:08] I saw a lot of commercials and marketing growing up, um, saying, all right, you know, you shouldn't

[00:13:14] discount the, the egg. That's all I'm saying. Um, all right. So prepping for, you know, food,

[00:13:23] we see that that is a little sketchy, right? The food supply, getting it to the person. Um,

[00:13:29] how about the on-time delivery? I mean, that's always one of the big prepper things.

[00:13:34] What's your take on that? You know, they say like on, on demand or on time delivery system where

[00:13:40] basically a grocery store has like three days worth of food. Um, and if the truck stopped coming,

[00:13:47] all of a sudden we end up with shortages on things. Yeah. Is that, is that, I think we saw that.

[00:13:53] I think we saw that play out, um, in a sense with COVID, not because trucks weren't showing up,

[00:13:59] you know, like they had a three day supply, but so many people were in there buying for a month or,

[00:14:07] you know, a couple of weeks that it wiped out the store. Right. And you were saying that preppers

[00:14:11] actually caused the problem. Yeah, no, what I, what I'm saying is I got you there. I, and I hear this a

[00:14:19] lot. I hear this, uh, lying a lot that preppers are like hoarding stuff and they're like causing

[00:14:26] shortages for everybody else. But the thing is we all already had our stuff. You know what I mean?

[00:14:31] We didn't have to go. I wasn't in it. I wasn't at the grocery store having a fist fight over,

[00:14:36] you know, over the last can of beans. You know what I mean? I don't, I wasn't that guy. I was the

[00:14:41] guy that was sitting at home, you know, eating. You were wiping your butt and eating food.

[00:14:49] Yeah. Okay. All right. But I do hear that, that shit a lot though, that, you know, preppers are

[00:14:56] hoarding stuff. They're, uh, you know, causing shortages for other people. And, you know,

[00:15:02] biblically, if you think about the story of, uh, um, what was it? Jacob in Egypt and, uh, you know,

[00:15:10] had a prophecy, told the King that there's going to be a shortage of food and store an extra

[00:15:16] quarter of food up for the next four years. I mean, that didn't really cause mass starvation

[00:15:22] while they're getting ready for it. No, it prevented mass starvation when the famine actually hit.

[00:15:29] But you're using the Bible to justify prepping. That sounds like a dangerous road, Kevin.

[00:15:35] Well, you know, honestly, I hear a lot of Christians talk bad about prepping that, you know,

[00:15:40] God will provide. Yeah. If you had a little more faith, Kevin, then you wouldn't have these problems.

[00:15:48] I know. Now let's talk about, do you think, let's talk about that. Let's go down that road a little

[00:15:54] bit. Um, the second amendment, you know, people were, Oh, if, if we elect Kamala Harris, she's going

[00:16:01] to, uh, come after the guns and, and confiscate them and, and whatever. Now I got to say, I mean,

[00:16:08] I know you're not always the biggest fan of Trump. I, people are probably shocked to hear me say that,

[00:16:13] but I'm sure. I'm sure. Right. But when he got elected, he appointed people to the Supreme court

[00:16:23] who, you know, I'm sure a lot of people have opinions on what happened in the Supreme court or

[00:16:28] whatever, but that actually protected the second amendment quite a bit with his nominations. Um,

[00:16:35] they did buy some time for the second amendment, if you will. I'm not saying that your guns are safe

[00:16:42] because of it. I'm saying it bought a little time. And I think that that mattered. I think that

[00:16:49] affects things. Um, but our, and I think, and I guess the reason I bring that up is they say,

[00:16:57] Oh guys, you guys are so paranoid. You think they're just out to grab your guns. Well, why do you need your

[00:17:02] guns is, is what I always hear? Why do people even need guns, Kevin? I mean, is that just crazy or?

[00:17:08] Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's not only preppers that are, have firearms, you know, I know a lot of

[00:17:15] people that I work with that have casually mentioned that they have a firearm near their house in case

[00:17:20] somebody breaks in, you know, they have cameras on their front door so that they can check when

[00:17:26] they're not home and their wife's home alone. They can make sure, you know, the only people going up to

[00:17:31] the front door are the people that are, should be, you know, I know people that lock their windows

[00:17:36] and they lock their doors before they, they go to bed at night. You know, I don't think being safe

[00:17:41] and conscientious is a crazy thing to do. You know, uh, at the bare minimum as a prepper, I would expect

[00:17:49] that you have a firearm in the house with ammo more than you need, but you don't need like a black one,

[00:17:56] right? Like not a black gun. No, just get the wood stock. That's okay.

[00:18:01] Same gun. You know what I mean? I don't know why people lose their shit over this. It's a funny one

[00:18:05] to me. I don't know. All right. But I mean, you can get a hunting rifle with a black stock or a

[00:18:10] walnut stock or whatever. And it's the same hunting rifle, you know? But yeah. Have you seen people do

[00:18:17] the AR-15s and they get the nice wood hardware? Yeah. They'll do the grip and the stock and the

[00:18:24] hand guard or like, yeah, like the way they look too. But I mean, you know, that's okay. That one's

[00:18:30] okay. They won't seize that one. I'm sure. Well, I think that, you know, when the reason people,

[00:18:37] uh, people on the left might feel a little safer is because traditionally the AK,

[00:18:43] you know, the, the favorite gun of the left, the AK 47 always had a wood stock.

[00:18:50] Right. They were like, so why would we go to, you know, black?

[00:18:55] I mean, yeah. Firearm with a wood stock has never, um, helped out like genocides or anything

[00:19:03] like that. So that's way safe. Right. That's good. No, I actually, this is getting a little off

[00:19:09] topic, but I did listen to somebody and he made a valid argument about, uh, uh, Harris,

[00:19:16] like not seizing the guns and things like that. And he was saying it was because

[00:19:22] she's not planning on seizing guns. What she views as guns is one thing. She's talking about

[00:19:30] assault rifles and that's the thing altogether. So when she says she's not planning on taking

[00:19:35] people's guns, she actually believes that because she's not talking about guns. She's talking about

[00:19:41] firearms. So that actually made a lot of sense that she might think that she's telling the truth

[00:19:47] when she says things like that. That's kind of like when you didn't have sex with that woman.

[00:19:52] Mm-hmm. Okay. What is, what does is mean? What's the definition of is?

[00:19:57] That's not what your definition of is. Yeah. I, you know, I, I told my wife when that happened that,

[00:20:04] um, you know, when the, when the president does something, it makes it legal. It's okay.

[00:20:10] So that means that getting a blow job is not cheating. And she disagreed with me.

[00:20:15] She didn't, she didn't go with that. Yeah. She didn't understand. I guess I didn't make myself

[00:20:19] clear about it. But you need to go back and revisit that argument.

[00:20:25] Or you have a severe problem. Well, I mean, the other option is this, you know,

[00:20:31] we're given unalienable rights by the constitution, right? All right. So self-incrimination.

[00:20:38] So if my wife asked me if I cheated, yeah, I completed an unalienable right.

[00:20:45] So that didn't fly either. I don't know what, um, apparently I'm not really good at these

[00:20:49] arguments because I would never revisit this episode. Cause I don't think it would help you.

[00:20:56] Um, I'm just saying, you know, when you're like, Hey, you know, I made a really good point today.

[00:21:00] I wouldn't bring this up now. No. Okay. All right. All right. So the bottom line is there is a lot of

[00:21:06] conspiracy theories out there and people are like, Oh, preppers are crazy to think this and be prepared

[00:21:11] for it. Such as food shortages, such as lack of medicine, right. Getting to the show. Um, scare,

[00:21:19] uh, uh, inflation, being afraid of that. You know, that's one of the big things. One of the big

[00:21:24] things we always talk about is, uh, EMPs, right? Oh, um, Iran, China, Russia, hating America.

[00:21:32] People are like, Oh, that's crazy. Well, it's funny. Cause that was crazy. Like eight years ago.

[00:21:37] Right now, right now people are developing EMP weapons, right? Maybe, but probably not. And it's

[00:21:45] never happened before. Kevin, has there been an EMP? Not that I'm aware of. We haven't had an EMP

[00:21:51] attack or, you know, we, we may be, yes, we've maybe had some cyber attacks against our country,

[00:21:58] but did it shut down the entire grid completely? At least that we're aware of. I mean, cause I,

[00:22:05] I would argue that possibly that rolling blackout that we had back in the, you know, what 90,

[00:22:12] whenever the heck it was, it was, uh, late nineties, early 2000s, early 2000s, I think. But

[00:22:19] I would argue that could have been related to a terror attack, but whatever, you know, officially

[00:22:26] those things aren't. So really we could just be crazy. I'm going to say that's possible,

[00:22:33] but all signs point to not likely is what I would say. Now let's talk about some of the consequences

[00:22:41] of prepping. All right. All right. So what are the negatives to being a prepper that might

[00:22:47] discourage somebody from going down this road, Kevin? Well, it can be a little costly, you know,

[00:22:53] it could cost a little bit extra money that you might not, you know, have spent that week.

[00:22:58] Okay. All right. Now, one of the big things like preppers buy a lot of extra food. Is that,

[00:23:04] that's correct. That's what you see on the list. I've heard that. I've heard stories about this.

[00:23:08] So is it possible now I'm just posturing here, but is it possible that I buy a lot of food

[00:23:18] and I store it and I eat it maybe a year later and that that food, I actually beat inflation.

[00:23:29] Yeah. I mean that, that can of beans and that can of soup is going to be less expensive today

[00:23:34] than it will be next month. When I bought it for 89 cents and now it's a dollar 89 at the store,

[00:23:40] but I'm still eating it today. I might've beat you, but you could also make an argument that I could

[00:23:48] have gone out with that dollar and done something investing that the market just

[00:23:55] would have returned more than more than 200% in possible a year. Yeah. Um, bullets, same thing.

[00:24:04] You know, I could have invested in precious metals like lead and those go up all the time. So, all

[00:24:12] right. Uh, so, all right. That's one thing. Now, another thing that comes to mind when I think

[00:24:19] it consequences of prepping is you might find yourself on a government list. Have you heard of

[00:24:24] that happening? Yeah, I have. I have heard of that. You have heard of that and that's not good. Um,

[00:24:33] no government lists. All right. So I know when I put stuff on Facebook, I feel like Facebook knows who I

[00:24:39] am like deep in their heart. Yeah. They know they're, they're like, this guy's a little right wing.

[00:24:46] Like anything I post, they're like, no, we're going to check that. I don't think that's going to be

[00:24:51] accurate. And I'm like, Oh, I went to the park with the wife. Look at us holding hands. And they're

[00:24:56] like, Nope, we fact check that. Nope. That wasn't you. That wasn't the park. You're just trying to,

[00:25:04] you know, scam with some kind of location services here. That's, that's more typical. Um,

[00:25:11] all right. So Facebook, uh, I, I know when I post videos on YouTube, uh, YouTube maybe is less likely

[00:25:21] to share them if they don't kind of go along with the theme that YouTube is trying to project.

[00:25:28] However, some things do work out, you know, some things work out on YouTube. Remember you guys want

[00:25:35] to like, like, and subscribe and comment that stuff. Yeah. As long as we don't show pictures of,

[00:25:40] of firearms, usually firearms or talk about fire. I mean, now that's it. It's over freedom or we don't

[00:25:52] bad mouth China or, you know, any of these things, right. That comes at a consequence.

[00:25:58] If we just talked about like inappropriate sex, YouTube channel would be like number one,

[00:26:04] number one with a bullet, right? That's the, but I, I think too, maybe that's what people are

[00:26:10] interested in. Maybe they're not interested in guns and hating China. Maybe people write just

[00:26:16] want to see naked chicks on the internet. Yeah. Maybe we should just change this whole show

[00:26:21] platform around from now on. I think our, our screen covers should be like a chick with her shirt,

[00:26:27] like half open and just leading forward. And people will be like, wait, I was going to click that one.

[00:26:33] You know, we'll get those clicks, you know, and then they'll open it up and see me and Kevin and

[00:26:38] be like, what a disappointment. One of the girls show up. That does happen. Right. One of the girls,

[00:26:44] they're just later in the video, you guys got to hold out to the end. It's somewhere around the 40

[00:26:49] minute mark. That's usually when, you know, they drop in and we'll, we'll do a couple of flashes of

[00:26:56] the, you know, quick edits in there. No, maybe not. Yeah, no, I think that's a good idea.

[00:27:01] That's a good idea. One of the other ones that we were talking about was, uh, uh, one of the other

[00:27:05] drawbacks that had, uh, storage space. Um, you know, we've all, I don't know all of us, but I

[00:27:14] think most people have seen the inside of like hoarders houses, you know what I mean? Like ones that

[00:27:20] really get into it and you have to kind of like walk paths through each room, but, and that's all the

[00:27:25] space available. Yeah. I mean, that stuff happens and that's like a mental illness. You know what I

[00:27:32] mean? That ain't, that's not like a normal, you know, a normal prepper doesn't do that sort of stuff.

[00:27:38] You know, I'm not saving newspapers from the eighties, you know, and old magazines. I'm, you know,

[00:27:45] so, but storage space is at a premium, especially if you're in like an apartment complex or you live

[00:27:51] in an urban area with a smaller house, um, you know, storage space, you see storage lockers all

[00:27:57] over the, you know, all over the place and people, you know, people have those things packed.

[00:28:03] I know. And they just store stuff for years and it's weird. Cause you're like, dude,

[00:28:07] you realize that the money you're paying each month, you can like repurchase all these items,

[00:28:12] all that stuff, whatever you need five years ago. And you still have a storage space full of the

[00:28:16] stuff that you're holding, you know, until you got settled. But it turns out at a yard sale,

[00:28:21] you're talking about like 70 bucks worth of stuff half the time, you know, right. Right. You could

[00:28:26] put all that stuff out in the front lawn and put a yard sale sign up. You're right. And you maybe be

[00:28:30] able to buy a pizza by the time you're done. Pizza and beer at the end of the day. Right. Right.

[00:28:36] But yeah, now that's, that's definitely, so storage is a thing. And also like, it's not just

[00:28:42] the space of storage. You run the risk of products getting damaged. One things have a certain shelf

[00:28:49] life, right? We all know that the long-term prepper food, there's a lot of videos out there that

[00:28:55] kind of tastes like cardboard or, you know, the quality of the food is not that great that it lasts

[00:29:01] that long and whatever. So these things, it's a lot of it's true, right? I mean, a lot of it is,

[00:29:08] it's not ideal. It's not a perfect situation and you run the risk of like mice and that kind of thing,

[00:29:16] you know, take, right. I mean, eating water, eating MREs is not like a, you know, it costs as

[00:29:23] much as going out to a nice restaurant to eat an MRE and, and not as good. Right. Right. So

[00:29:33] there's some negatives. There are some drawbacks. I see that. Um, what about firearms? People spend a

[00:29:39] lot of money on firearms. They're not cheap, are they? They are not cheap and going out and, uh,

[00:29:45] practicing that costs, right? When it's 50 cents a bullet, that's, that's something, you know,

[00:29:51] when you're out there shooting, that adds up pretty quick, you know, a day at the range,

[00:29:55] you burn through 400 rounds, 500 rounds, thousand rounds, whatever you do. I don't know how you do it,

[00:30:02] um, one of my big things is, as I, uh, always when I'm shooting is I make sure that I, I like shoot

[00:30:09] and then I go off the target and then I go back up so that I kind of get that practice of quickly

[00:30:17] acquiring a target every time. Cause a lot of, you know, cause otherwise if I just like, Oh,

[00:30:21] I'm dead on. And I just pulled the trigger a hundred times and I'm like, look, I got a hundred

[00:30:26] bullseyes. Well, yeah, but did you gain anything for that 50 cents around? You know? Right.

[00:30:33] You got to make sure of that. I feel like we need more episodes on talking about shooting Kevin.

[00:30:38] Why are we not talking about guns a lot more? Uh, cause they always get pulled off of YouTube.

[00:30:44] Oh, right. Sorry. That is why. Yeah. I forgot about that. That's, you know,

[00:30:49] at least you're thinking ahead, right? All right. So guns, firearms security that can come at a cost.

[00:30:57] Um, it does put you on a list. It does kind of show that you're a little paranoid,

[00:31:03] but maybe justifiably paranoid is all I'm willing to say. Um, uh, what about when things like, uh,

[00:31:11] Helene happened, uh, North Carolina here, you know, we had the big hurricane things come in and,

[00:31:17] and wipe everything out. Well, one, you kind of lose some of your preps, but the people who did have

[00:31:23] extra being able to help their neighbors, that's kind of cool. Kevin. That was a big plus. I did see

[00:31:29] that there are a lot of issues with, uh, getting clean water, uh, access to clean water. And you know,

[00:31:35] that happened in Spain too. A lot of people haven't kind of glossed over that when we hit,

[00:31:38] there was a huge flood in Spain and it was days before people had access to clean drinking water.

[00:31:44] You know, the government didn't show up when they're supposed to show up, you know,

[00:31:48] they're late to the, to the, to the party. And you know, a lot of people, uh, I don't know if people

[00:31:54] got sick. I don't know what happened, but I know people, a lot of people were worried about access to

[00:31:59] drinking water. Right. I think that's one of the things that people don't quite catch is, uh,

[00:32:06] is that, you know, it's, it turns out the government isn't really as ready to help. And,

[00:32:14] and that's one of the things that we're starting to see, you know, I mean, it sucked that, you know,

[00:32:19] people don't have flood insurance. Turns out that's not a normal thing if you don't live

[00:32:24] in a flood zone, right. You know, if, if, if you go to the, the planning and stuff and,

[00:32:31] you know, basically a mortgage company doesn't require flood insurance unless you live in a known

[00:32:37] kind of floodplain kind of thing, you know, if it's not like a hundred year, you know, less than a

[00:32:43] hundred year probability, they don't require it. And you know, that, that wipes people out.

[00:32:51] And, and that really, and that's another thing is like financially prepping, you know,

[00:32:56] planning for things like that. No, obviously hindsight, you know, Oh, well that's the one,

[00:33:02] you know, how do you pick? Right. We always talk about like, do I, Oh, do I buy EMP shield? Cause

[00:33:07] that's what I'm afraid of. Or, Oh, do I buy that? Whatever it is. Glenn Beck always is trying to sell

[00:33:13] where they're going to steal your mortgage, right? They're going to go, uh, take your, your house

[00:33:19] deed or whatever, and get another mortgage on it or, you know, and all these things could happen.

[00:33:26] Right. All these things could happen, but it's like, well, which one's going to happen to me?

[00:33:31] You know, was it flood insurance that I should have bought? Was it escaping the country and going

[00:33:38] to another country? Cause my government was going to turn corrupt or was it, I should have bought a

[00:33:43] lot of extra food cause inflation's going to go crazy. Should I have started raising rabbits

[00:33:48] because they're going to ban me? I mean, that was a thing like five, six years ago, California was

[00:33:54] getting all crazy. We don't like people eating meat. We're going to put a stop to it. You know,

[00:33:59] that's where the big push on like eating bugs and that kind of stuff came out. And, but there was

[00:34:05] some like legitimate arguments that kind of put that fear like, Hey, it could go this way. Right.

[00:34:11] You know, and it just like, which way is society going? You know, there's a lot of talk about,

[00:34:18] again, about, I would say about five years ago, Pelosi and stuff, they were talking about crazy

[00:34:25] stuff, like taking over people's 401ks and using that money. Cause only rich people have money stored

[00:34:32] up there and whatever. And they were like, Oh, that's an option. Oh, it was right after the whole

[00:34:37] Greece government collapse where they kind of skimmed off people's bank stuff. Then they were like,

[00:34:42] Oh, that kind of thing could happen here. And maybe we kind of just take the retirement. Cause it's only

[00:34:49] rich people that have retirement saved. So maybe you put your money there and we steal it from you.

[00:34:55] You know, and that's the thing, like you have to decide. And honestly, how can we worry about

[00:35:03] a nonstop job, a nonstop, everything going on in our life and study every aspect of the social

[00:35:12] environment and know, you know, what we need to prepare for, right? Like, Oh, this is the one that's

[00:35:19] going to happen to me. You know, whatever identity theft or, you know, whatever, changing your passwords

[00:35:25] daily for, you know, whatever to make sure they're not, you know, maybe I have 42 passwords, you know,

[00:35:31] in a little book that I carry around and update. Cause you know, my one password on the internet,

[00:35:39] it's just nonstop the stuff that we have to worry about. I mean, it gets kind of crazy.

[00:35:46] That's why people like, like with the phone where you can just have your little six digit code kind

[00:35:50] of signs you and everything and just whatever. But then the problem is when you lose the phone or

[00:35:56] that goes away, you're just like, but my point is it can be overwhelming. Right. And that is part of

[00:36:03] why we do this show is kind of, Hey, look, we did the research. This is what's going on here.

[00:36:09] Now it's cool that you can take it or leave it. You don't have to say, well, Chuck's, you know,

[00:36:14] really worried about EMPs. You don't have to be like, that's the one I'm paranoid about,

[00:36:19] but I laid out a case and you can make a decision. You know, when COVID was coming and we talked about

[00:36:27] vaccines or whatever, I guess we're not allowed to say that word. Right. You know, that kind of thing.

[00:36:33] That kind of stuff. You just take the information that you get everywhere. It's one more thing that

[00:36:39] people, you know, take information on and you know, that's, that's how it is. Right. You just,

[00:36:47] you need to find people you trust and you need to kind of take the information, take everything else

[00:36:55] you're seeing everywhere else and combine it. And you know, the more diverse the things you're exposed

[00:37:03] to are, I think the better off you're going to be. I think that's really the best play

[00:37:08] is to, you know, expose yourself to a lot and see, but you know, maybe don't just watch like

[00:37:17] mind numbing things, maybe kind of things that are going to expose you, but honestly,

[00:37:21] good entertainment is, is good too. You know, watching things that, that make you happy.

[00:37:26] There's nothing wrong with being happy. Right. Kevin. That's right. That's right.

[00:37:32] Now, one of the other things that, uh, I saw come up a few times when I was, uh,

[00:37:37] researching this, this, this podcast about whether or not peppers are crazy. One of the things that

[00:37:43] came up that, um, doesn't worry me, worry me at all. Don't worry about inequity. In other words,

[00:37:50] like peppers are assholes because there are poor people that can't afford to prep.

[00:37:55] What do you, what do you think of that? Is that a, is that something that you're ever concerned about?

[00:37:59] Yeah. Kevin, here's my take on that. I prepare so I can take care of people that I care about.

[00:38:06] Right now, maybe I'm kind of selfish and maybe that's just my immediate family,

[00:38:11] but the more abundance I have, the more I can help people out as you know, it expands around me.

[00:38:19] Um, you know, maybe I have lots of water and you know, my neighbor's stuff goes out and I can go over

[00:38:25] and lend a hand. Maybe your neighbor loses a job and you have all that long-term food or maybe just

[00:38:33] an abundance of money and you can go out and buy a couple of bags of groceries and go drop them off.

[00:38:38] I don't know. I think that I find my experience is when you have stuff, you're a lot more willing

[00:38:45] to share. Um, you could definitely make an argument that, you know, well, once you get in that hoarder

[00:38:51] mindset of there's never enough, I guess people, but I find it's weird. I don't take preppers as

[00:39:01] coming from a place of fear and panic. Like I do people who kind of just watch kind of mainstream

[00:39:08] news and stuff to me. Like when I see all these people crying about the election and oh my gosh,

[00:39:14] the end of the world, that's fear and panic. I, I feel like now, again, this is my approach and,

[00:39:21] and I, I could see how you can make an argument that preppers are scared and paranoid. Like I,

[00:39:26] I see how you get there, but I feel that when I have supplies and I'm able to handle it,

[00:39:35] I'm not afraid anymore. Right. If I walk into a sketchy neighborhood and I have a gun in the sketchy

[00:39:43] people, don't have a gun, then I'm not really going from a position of fear typically. Right.

[00:39:51] And, and the same idea, right? If I have a lot of food and food is running out, I'm not in a position

[00:39:58] of fear where I'm scared, or at least if I have a garden where I know how to hunt and fish and do

[00:40:05] all these cool things. I'm like, I got this. You know, if things go bad now, I'm not saying,

[00:40:10] oh, I'm a thousand times better and I'll never run out of food. I'm not saying that,

[00:40:15] but the more I'm in a place of I'm okay. You know, if I'm a, uh, a guy who makes $500,000 a year

[00:40:24] and my bills are a hundred thousand dollars a year, I know I have plenty of money. I'm not worried.

[00:40:30] Right. I'm just giving you extreme examples. And I come across somebody who, you know, Hey,

[00:40:38] you know, uh, gee, I just got wiped out cause I don't have my money for my rent. I do everything

[00:40:46] right all the time. I just, you know, all of a sudden I got laid off and my boss just didn't

[00:40:51] even give me my last paycheck. And I was counting on that. It's a lot easier for me to say, Hey,

[00:40:57] you know what? Let me help you out. Let me do it. Cause I'm not coming from a place of fear.

[00:41:04] And I think that's what the whole prepping thing is all about is I'm now secure. So I don't have to

[00:41:11] react or be desperate. I mean, that's one of my big things is a lot of preppers are afraid of the

[00:41:17] government kind of thing. And I don't know that afraid is really the right word, but maybe don't

[00:41:22] trust the government. A lot of preppers don't trust the government, but when I have guns and food

[00:41:29] and I own my land or I'm not desperate with credit cards or counting on a government check coming every

[00:41:37] week, that's going to make the difference. It takes the fear away. And that's kind of, you know,

[00:41:43] what it comes down to. It makes it so that I can say, all right, you know what? The government

[00:41:49] probably isn't going to come take over everybody's house. If everybody's house has an AR 15 in it,

[00:41:56] you know, they're probably that's a deterrent and it removes the fear. And I think that's really what

[00:42:04] prepping prepping comes down to. And that's why it's a benefit in my mind, right? That's why I see it as

[00:42:10] a good thing is it's all about removing the fear and it just takes away that scarcity. I think that's

[00:42:18] what it comes down to. Yeah, no, I think that's a good point because I know a lot of people get

[00:42:25] anxiety about stuff like that, especially, you know, they watch the news, they get a good hour

[00:42:30] worth of like fear mongering in their day every single day. And, you know, and honestly, you'd be

[00:42:38] a lot better off just not watching the news, you know, but, you know, people get the, these,

[00:42:43] this anxiety about food shortages or, you know, crying going through the roof or, you know, all

[00:42:50] these, all these terrible things that are happening everywhere, natural disasters. And you don't have

[00:42:56] to worry about that if you're prepared for it, you know, you don't have to have anxiety about,

[00:43:02] you know, terrible things happening if you're prepared for those terrible things.

[00:43:07] No, I mean, I think that's it though. That is the gist of prepping is it removes the fear.

[00:43:13] And when you don't have fear, you can make controlled decisions and take control of your

[00:43:19] life. And that's what it comes down to. You know, when you're in charge and you're making the calls,

[00:43:24] I think things get a lot better. So that's what I got. You guys have show ideas, questions,

[00:43:30] concerns. You can email us at prepping bad-ass at gmail.com. Again, I'd really appreciate if you

[00:43:36] guys all hit the like button, subscribe to the channel. If you haven't already, you know,

[00:43:42] that always helps out. We love comments. We love hearing from you in the emails. You know,

[00:43:47] you guys have things you want to know about. We'll try and dig down into it. So with that,

[00:43:53] I would say stay safe and we will talk to you guys next week.

[00:44:00] Bye.

[00:44:00] Bye.