Survivalists/preppers have nev­er been por­trayed well in the mod­ern media and enter­tain­ment fields.  At best, they are por­trayed in as a com­i­cal cliché like in the 1983 movie “The Sur­vivors” (Wal­ter Matthau, Robin Williams, Jer­ry Reed – very fun­ny actu­al­ly!). But most often, prep­pers are por­trayed as camo-wear­ing gun-tot­ing pick­up-truck-dri­ving back coun­try no-edu­ca­tion nut cas­es just itch­ing to shoot first and not even ask any ques­tions ever. Sad­ly the lat­ter is far and away the pop­u­lar view than the for­mer in spite of the grow­ing inter­est in prepa­ra­tions.

I don’t think we can change that view overnight.

Maybe not ever.

A jour­ney of a thou­sand miles starts with but a sin­gle step.

If you are known to your fam­i­ly, friends and/or neigh­bors as being a prep­per then hold your­self to a high­er stan­dard of per­son­al con­duct. Break the mold.

A few sug­ges­tions (some have been cov­ered in oth­er arti­cles as well):

Don’t start every con­ver­sa­tion with how bad you think this or that politi­cian is doing.
Don’t brag about hav­ing found a great buy on this or that food – or ammo.
Don’t tell peo­ple “Sat­ur­day morn­ing is my range time!”
Keep the camos off dai­ly use.
Don’t put the usu­al polit­i­cal stick­ers on your cars and doors.

It is a very sad state of affairs that peo­ple who have tak­en extra steps for prepa­ra­tion and aware­ness in any endeav­or are held out for spe­cial (and not good) treat­ment vers­es unprepared/unaware peo­ple. If some­thing did hap­pen, not nec­es­sar­i­ly a SHTF event but some­thing extreme and extra­or­di­nary in your life, you can bet your neigh­bors and “friends” will be eager to tell police, inves­ti­ga­tors, the media etc. about your views and “extreme” beliefs! Even if that plays noth­ing into the sce­nario that is what stands out in their minds’ about you and that’s how you will char­ac­ter­ized. The reac­tions of police, inves­ti­ga­tors, insur­ance com­pa­nies, a sen­sa­tion­al­iz­ing media, etc. will be eas­i­ly shaped by these char­ac­ter­i­za­tions.

Recent­ly on anoth­er web­site I read a sto­ry about a man who had a com­mer­cial boat Captain’s license. He was tak­ing out his pri­vate boat (not a for-hire trip) and some­one in anoth­er boat made a dan­ger­ous turn that required him (and sev­er­al oth­er boaters around) to take an extreme eva­sive maneu­ver to avoid a col­li­sion. The oth­er boat ulti­mate­ly did hit a dock, dam­age their boat, and the bay con­sta­ble had to be called. Upon arrival and tak­ing state­ments from wit­ness­es (includ­ing the licensed Cap­tain) he was giv­en a tick­et! The dri­ver of the oth­er boat got noth­ing. Accord­ing to the arti­cle the bay con­sta­ble told the Cap­tain that since he had a license he should have been pre­pared for such an event and should have known bet­ter how to avoid the sit­u­a­tion! The Cap­tain said he went to court over the tick­et and the judge agreed with the bay con­sta­ble! (The tick­et was reduced to a warn­ing, how­ev­er.)

In anoth­er arti­cle about inter­net secu­ri­ty it was dis­cussed peo­ple on lap­tops and mobile PC’s con­nect­ing to oth­er people’s wire­less home net­works to obtain child porn and oth­er ille­gal mate­r­i­al. This way if/when law enforce­ment tracks back those who access this kind of mate­r­i­al it will lead to you and your home net­work and not back to them. The arti­cle rec­om­mend­ed putting a pass­word on your home net­work as a sim­ple way to block most net­work hack­ers. Most; Because some hack­ers know how to get around the pass­word (not that hard real­ly if you under­stand net­work masks) and still gain access to your home net­work for their own use. How­ev­er, the arti­cle went on to say that if/when law enforce­ment tracks down those who access the mate­r­i­al to your home net­work actu­al­ly hav­ing a pass­word on your sys­tem can be incrim­i­nat­ing! The idea being that since you have a pass­word how can some­one else have used your sys­tem with­out know­ing it? The tech­ni­cal ways around the pass­word won’t fly as an expla­na­tion in court. It will be hard to con­vince a judge and jury that a pedophile is that advanced to be able to get around your pass­word, as oppose to the more sim­ple answer that you are guilty! So the argu­ment was made to either leave your home net­work total­ly open or turned off entire­ly.

It is iron­ic that some­one who pre­pares or just takes a lead role is put under such a micro­scope of scruti­ny while the unpre­pared or untrained get a free ride of excus­es as oppose to being told they should have done more to edu­cate and pre­pare for them­selves.

Anoth­er exam­ple of “brother’s keep­er” think­ing.