US Government Crack Down On ‘Preppers’

January 8th, 2015


Michael Snyder:

Why would the government want to punish people that are just trying to work hard, become more self-sufficient and take care of their families? There are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today, and often they appear to be singled out for punishment by bureaucratic control freaks that are horrified at the thought that there are families out there that actually want to try to become less dependent on the system. So if you use alternative methods to heat your home, or if you are not connected to the utility grid, or if you collect rainwater on your property, or if you believe that parents should have the ultimate say when it comes to health decisions for their children, you could become a target for overzealous government enforcers. Once upon a time, America was the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are being transformed into a socialist police state where control freak bureaucrats use millions of laws, rules and regulations to crack down on anyone that dares to think for themselves.

For example, people have been burning wood to heat their homes since this country began. And this is still very common in rural areas. But the Obama administration does not like this at all. The Obama bureaucrats at the EPA fear that our little wood stoves may be contributing to “global warming”, so they have outlawed the production and sale of 80 percent of the wood stoves that are currently in use. The following comes from a recent Forbes article…

It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.


While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.

Does that make you angry?

It should.

There are other preppers that try to use very “clean” methods to power their homes, but that is still not good enough for some government control freaks.

For example, one prepper down in south Florida that had gone “off the grid” was recently ordered by a court to connect back to the grid or face eviction from his home. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Guiles Hendrik…

Think you are still free to make choices in your life? Do you think the government will allow you to live independent of their utility monopolies? If you think so, try opting for renewable non-grid tied power and utilize environmentally friendly composting toilets and your own self-sufficient water supply. Today, those life choices could land you in jail if you live in South Florida. Take the case of Robin Speronis.

Robin Speronis has lived off the grid, independent of the city’s water and electric system. A Florida court ruled this off-the-grid living illegal last week and has given Robin until March to connect her home to a municipal water line or face possible eviction. Further, officials in the city of Cape Coral have justified this by deeming Robin’s home “unsanitary,” citing the International Property Maintenance Code. First of all, since when did we begin to locally recognize “international codes?” Where in the US Constitution does it provide for international jurisdiction over local codes? Ironically, this “international” code mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source, even though most of the world lives without reliable electricity and municipal water and sewer. Further, the code is outdated and obsolete because it was written without consideration to both old and new technologies that relegate the need for grid tied power and municipal water as unnecessary and expensive; especially, in locations where it simply isn’t feasible to have grid tied utilities. Nonetheless, Speronis’ home does in fact have power and water through far cheaper and more environmentally friendly means — solar panels and rainwater, but that reality is ignored by the local government.

Incredibly, most Americans still seem to believe that we live in a “free country”. But we don’t. Our lives are very tightly constrained by literally millions of laws, rules and regulations, and more are being added every single day.

Even some of our most basic fundamental rights have been seriously eroded. One of these is the right to make basic health decisions for our own children. In New York state, children that have not received all of the designated vaccines can now be banned from attending public school, and this requirement was recently upheld by a federal appeals court…

New York state’s requirement that children be vaccinated before attending public school does not violate their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court in Manhattan said on Wednesday.

In affirming the requirement’s constitutionality, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a previous ruling by a federal judge that students exempted from the requirement for religious reasons can be barred from school when another child has a disease preventable by a vaccine.


The decision was the latest to go against three parents from New York City who say their religious rights were violated when their children were kept out of school as a result of the immunization policies. The parents’ lawyer, Patricia Finn, said her clients planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So what are we free to do without government interference these days?

Not much.

In fact, in some states we can’t even sit on our own land and collect the rain as it falls from the sky for our own personal use.

If you do this in the state of Oregon, for example, you could go to prison…

Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.

“I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.

And of course these are just a few examples. Almost every single day there are more stories in the news about government bureaucrats cracking down on preppers. They almost seem to relish the opportunity to go after the “non-conformists”.

But the good news is that the number of Americans that are seeking to become less dependent on the system just continues to grow.

So what about you?

Are you a prepper?

My friend Daisy Luther recently wrote a piece entitled “45 MORE Signs That You Might Be One of Those Crazy Preppers“. The following are some of the most interesting “signs” from her list…

*You spend your days off digging an underground bunker in your backyard.

*Your family doesn’t dare take something from the food stockpile without marking it off the list.

*Your kids know how to don a gas mask in 30 seconds.

*Everyone in your survival group carries the same firearm so that ammo is standardized.

*Your family is no longer surprised when you announce, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to make (insert anything here)!”

*You have long since accepted the idea that if you’re not on someone’s list, you’re probably not doing it right.

*You don’t just rotate food, you rotate ammo.

*Moving to a new house is no longer “moving”, but “strategic relocation”.

*Your kids think it’s a fun game to see who can find the most potential weapons in a room.

*Your EDC includes a knife, firearm w/extra mag, flashlight, mylar blanket, Chapstick, and an ounce of silver — and that’s just for when you’re walking the dog.

*One criterion for your new winter coat is that it fits over your body armor.

You can read her entire article right here.

America was built by people that loved their families, worked hard and were self-sufficient.

Now our government is specifically targeting those kinds of people.

What in the world is happening to us?

So what do you think?

They can take there over controlling collective commy unamerican anti freedom bullshit and kiss my red blooded freedom loving ass.
Thanks for stopping by.

Mak, I like the way you think.

The new EPA rule against wood stoves could be a blessing in disguise for the underground economy. An entire black market engaged in illicit sales of un registered wood stoves may spring up over night. Entrepreneurs will be selling them in dark back alleys for cash.

Handy with a welder??? Buy up some steel and miscellaneous pieces then get to work.

I did some research on the wood stove issue and one of the solutions is dirt simple and smart - integrating a couple of automotive type catalytic converters into your fireplace stove pipe will scrub the exhaust and then provide a lot more heat into the room(s) where such devices are installed.

I was researching this in relation to some other subjects, and learning what a catalytic converter actually does, now I think they are neato stuff.

As a matter of fact, as I design my next micro-cabin, I am probably going to put a dual catalytic converters on the stovepipe. Basically all that 1970s technology that would make your car run like shit was about turning that spare power and turning it into heat. It all sucked for motor vehicles, but in a home application where bulk, weight and complexity don't really matter, they are a good thing. A heat resistant air pump, IE, smog pump on your chimney, re-pumping the chimney smoke into the firebox will not just help scrub the air, but recover a lot of wood gas which normally just goes up and out the chimney. The whole thing, from the smog pump to the catalytic converter housings, gets hotter as the fire progresses, thus you get more heat out of the same wood.

The other aspect to look at on the "crackdown" is that those people were not particularly close to the survivalist movement, but it is a local municipal lifestyle control issue. There was something about their lifestyle and economic model the government decided not to approve of.

Now here is where it gets strange. Karl Marx had a bunch of the exact same criticisms of the European upper class in the late 1800s, as European lands became more and more closed off to where the poor could not just "go out in the woods any more". In that it became impossible for the poor to simply colonize some new area not far from the cities or be "off the grid" so to speak. Subsistence hunting and firewood gathering punishable by death in some areas, begging for bread and coal being met with disdain, but acceptance.

That was part of the "rights" enumerated in the Soviet Constitution.

Realize, even the "far left" and the statists have committed treason against the people even by outright Communist standards:

ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality.
The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of unemployment.

Okay, so where is the part that allows for artificial wage suppression? Abolition of unemployment? How are those rates going? We have lots and lots of government money collection programs, a universal health care billing program, but are they putting people to work on roads and bridges? Heck, these days they are not even putting very many prisoners to work, since it might screw with someone's union contract, or contracts to build maximum security prisons where inmates don't work.

ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.

Interesting, and very little of that going on here in the US as any sort of "right".

ARTICLE 120. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.

Legitimately retired folk often getting less than SSI scammers and illegal alien welfare scammers, so American workers who retire get the shaft, since they don't represent as large of a voting constituency as illegal aliens.

ARTICLE 121. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native Ianguage, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people.

One element to discuss; student loan payments, with a side note on vocational schools being the least vested portion of the education budget in the entire system here, but we got lots of liberal arts degrees available, everywhere...

ARTICLE 122. Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.

Note, they said "equal rights" not affirmative action....

ARTICLE 123. Equality of rights of citizens of the U.S.S.R., irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law. Any direct or indirect restriction of the rights of, or, conversely, any establishment of direct or indirect privileges for, citizens on account of their race or nationality, as well as any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt, is punishable by law.

Again, how does that affirmative action factor in there, even for a "true communist"?

ARTICLE 124. In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the state, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.

OK, the Commies did bad stuff on that one, but then they were not chiseling the ten commandments out of the fronts of courthouses either.

ARTICLE 125. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law:

freedom of speech;
freedom of the press;
freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
reedom of street processions and demonstrations.

These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.

ARTICLE 126. In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to develop the organizational initiative and political activity of the masses of the people, citizens of the U.S.S.R. are ensured the right to unite in public organizations--trade unions, cooperative associations, youth organizations,' sport and defense organizations, cultural, technical and scientific societies; and the most active and politically most conscious citizens in the ranks of the working class and other sections of the working people unite in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), which is the vanguard of the working people in their struggle to strengthen and develop the socialist system and is the leading core of all organizations of the working people, both public and state.

ARTICLE 127. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed inviolability of the person. No person may be placed under arrest except by decision of a court or with the sanction of a procurator.

OK, we know they routinely violated this one, but the kill ratio of Soviet police vs their citizens did remain disputably low, but only after they murdered a few million people on the outset.

ARTICLE 128. The inviolability of the homes of citizens and privacy of correspondence are protected by law.

Well said, but as we know, they did not practice it, but hey, they said it, which is nice, nowdays, governments don't even go through the trouble of saying it (note, this constitution was scrapped later too)

ARTICLE 129. The U.S.S.R. affords the right of asylum to foreign citizens persecuted for defending the interests of the working people, or for their scientific activities, or for their struggle for national liberation.

Actually, I plan on using this one in legitimizing the enclaves, and that's when the paramilitary forces of the enclaves reach international recognition, and even prior to that recognition, is a defacto issue, the sovereignty of offering asylum to the oppressed and resisters of oppression


ARTICLE 130. It is the duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. to abide by the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to observe the laws, to maintain labor discipline, honestly to perform public duties, and to respect the rules of socialist intercourse.

ARTICLE 131. It is the duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. to safeguard and strengthen public, socialist property as the sacred and inviolable foundation of the Soviet system, as the source of the wealth and might of the country, as the source of the rosperous and cultured life of all the working people.
Persons committing offenses against public, socialist property are enemies of the people.

ARTICLE 132. Universal military service is law. Military service in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army is an honorable duty of the citizens of the U.S.S.R.

ARTICLE 133. To defend the fatherland is the sacred duty of every citizen of the U.S.S.R. Treason to the country--violation of the oath of allegiance, desertion to the enemy, impairing the military power of the state, espionage is punishable with all the severity of the law as the most heinous of crimes.

ooohhh, Oathkeepers and militias anyone?

There's more:

http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html

Anyway, that's straight from the Communists. Now lets look at Reagan era freedom, and the values of the TV cowboy age, and we can see how badly all of this shit has been derailed. The "system" not on any proven ideology. The reality is that if they ever did publish their actual true ideology, it would be entirely indefensible.

When you look at this at the municipal level of attack on people living lifestyles outside the paradigm, sometimes they were forced out of the paradigm, simply not employed and paid in accordance with their abilities and productivity then provided housing and services at reasonable prices. In other cases, they saw it for what it is, a massive wealth transfer system and either opted out or prepared to opt out, especially since universal utility billing is artificially costly when you consider new construction methods and lower prices on off grid equipment.

The utter absurdity of attacking RKBA and self defenders/home defenders for "vigilantism" while not even nearly sufficiently addressing crime in a lot of areas, or worse, police just being revenue producers for the municipality, then that's a violation of every single openly state political ideology out there, yet its what they do.

Breacher,
It really isn't about which kind of stove is more efficient or produces more heat. It's about more money for the government, the insurance companys and the stove manufacturers.

I recently compared some new stoves. One listed as "Non EPA Compliant" lists for $459. The company sells an identical model that is epa compliant for $789. According to the company literature the new model stove only puts out 15,000 more BTU. Not much benefit for the increase in price.

Nor is it about air pollution. A 100 year old antique will burn clean if you know how to build a fire.

What this boils down to is money and control.

I'm all for people having a choice. If you want to pay much more for a "more efficient" stove and you can afford it; by all means buy one. However, no one, not even this commie government has the right to tell you that you have to buy it.

I keep thinking that most of any problem would be solved by sticking a truck type catalytic converter on the outgoing stovepipe. Now whether or not the EPA considers that acceptable is another matter, and how they police it is yet another. My dads old place is most likely getting torn down now that the foreclosure went through and that was part of our decision to just have him stay as long as he could when the real estate people said the wood stove would have to get removed before the next owners move in. It was grandfathered in, but only for those who owned it before the cutoff date, and it was in an area that gets really wet and soggy in the winter, so without actual fire heating the place, it will mildew and rot. October to March, you had to have a fire going constantly just to stay ahead of the mold and mildew.

If you are going sovereign off grid, then it means no fancy real estate financing, no residential rentals, no home equity loan swaps or any of that stuff, so if your stuff is non-compliant, then it is not eligible for that.

You can own and live in non-compliant places in a lot of parts of the country, other parts of the country, it is gunpoint condemnation and eviction time.

That mass condemnation and eviction thing works with disarmed homeless camps and a few individuals here and there, it gets to be an entirely different story when it is an armed community. Even if only 20% are really "fighters", and then they have family and business ties outside, those vowing retaliation if the community is hit. They may have to give up wood burning stoves, maybe, but then demand some sort of give-back. That's how it has worked with Dignity Village here in Portland. 15 years ago established as a homeless camp, now a community of micro-homes, built up from improvised homeless shacks. A lot are still pretty shitty, but they constantly do improvements.

Such a place with a simple checkpoint, maybe a gate, but the symbolism of that gate getting crashed by municipal authorities with SWAT and bulldozers, then someone promising a fight or retaliation, that's part of what will build and assert sovereignty.

We have to recognize that much of the "system" wants dependent people being as financially successful as possible and then not really accumulating wealth, but handing it over. That's why the "system" loves high end apartment complexes so much.

EPA will certify two types of stoves, either a catalytic model or one with fresh air injection. The problem with the catalytic model is that they clog up; especially if you don't run them properly.