Can "homesteaders" survive without government help?

That is why we have commerce. Free people exchanging goods and services.

Other than national defense, postal service, and coining money, why do I need the federal government? What service do I use that is only possible by federal involvement? Even the interstate system, built by the feds, is maintained by the states. The dirt road I use to get to town is county. Trash is county. Electrical power from a utility.

Yes I need goods and services that I may be unable to provide myself or do without. But somehow homesteaders made do for couple of centuries without federal involvement.

The better question is: From where does the money come for that subsidy or that ditch or that water line or extension service or whatever paid by the feds?

Is it some benevolent transfer from the sky?

It is taken by force from taxpayers and doled out. Last year the US government handed out much, much more than revenues received. In fact, almost every year the government runs a deficit where they borrow money. 2009 will be a record-breaking year where the budget will be HUGE and the deficit will be well over $1 trillion maybe approaching $2 trillion.

Obviously the welfare system that we have created is unsustainable.

So the answer is grab money anyway?

Tragedy of the commons squared!

Take the time to read the Constitution, if you don't think the Government should follow the rules of this nations charter, then how the heck can you spew out and say we should just listen to their rules. The federal Government does not have the Constitutional power to do most of what the 250 million (which is exaggerated in number anyway) voters demand.

I'm not demanding to be left alone, I'm demanding they follow the rules... And why do you assume we sit in here and chat all the while doing nothing. I am constantly in contact with my elected representatives (notice, not elected leaders... we elect representatives in this country not leaders) I think you have assumed too much in thinking we are all arm chair quarterbacks.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage. "

Author unknown

The way I see it we are between apathy and bondage.

JMHO,
Dan

__________________
I left my home to defend my country from socialists, tyrants, and thugs,
only to return to find an uninformed electorate had voted one into office.

Ummm... I didn't know that the Government owned the oil companies, and the coal mines and the cotton fields and the great country of China... Most of your clothes comes from overseas now and I do grow all of my own food except salt, sugar and coffee.... But I don't buy any of those things I need from the Government Shopping Center. Private industry survived a very long time without the blessing of a central government... You are spouting out silly words and what makes me sad is that you believe nothing would exist without government. I trade eggs and meat to other farmers for the things we need. and I could maintain a mile or more of a country road myself with a tractor and a blade.... The super smooth blacktop for high speed cruising in the 50k Tahoe is what people think they need. But I can guarantee you, small communities could carry on forever without help.

Do you really believe if the Government went broke tomorrow we would all die the week after. The only ones that would die are the ones that don't get off their ass to help themselves. Or the ones that think they are entitled to what I have by force. I can support every older person in my community for a very long time without anyone else pitching in. I have a well that produces great, cold water and it can be pumped with a windmill or a hand pump. Food is not a problem and I promise you I do not have any melamine in my milk, eggs or other food. But then again, I don't wait for the Government to Import my "Safe" food.

No man is an island, but then again if you take away the excessive want from a persons spending habits, you realize... You can become an island and you can survive without the roads, the gasoline, the electric... You might even find you enjoy it much more if you get out and get it done.

If you had to survive you would realize you can't make a pair of Nike's from your own cow hide, but you can make a great pair of work gloves and boots to match, then you will have what it takes to get out there and raise everything else you need. Including sheep and cotton... Spinning wheels and looms are not that hard to come by and not extremely hard to figure out how to use.

Good luck... Or skip the luck and create your own path.

Well, heck, if you want to go to that extreme, who needs a postal service, coined money and defense?

Free commerce is all well and good but that is assuming everyone plays nicey nice. How well will you do in free commerce when the items you need are controlled by a monopoly?

Regarding trash, electric, whatever, it can all be looked at the same way. What if the yahoo in charge of county trash decides the property next to yours is the perfect spot to dump it. And since there are no regulations in place, it just gets dumped. You don't really need clean well water, do you? You can enjoy your property just fine with the mountain of garbage next to you, can't you?

Oh, and the property on the other side has just been sold to a company that is going to manufature chlordane, DDT, and...let's throw hexachlorobenzene in there too. They picked that spot because, again, your county doesn't happen to regulate for anything like that and the slope towards you house will be a most convenient run-off in the even of a spill. And, well, there aren't any federal reguations to worry about either.

Or how's about when that chainsaw you buy from out of state malfunctions due to a manufacturer's defect and takes your nose off - not to spite your face, just by accident. Well, that's just tough luck, isn't it because we don't really need any kind of standards on products and we certainly don't need a court system.

Sigh.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not crazy about government involvement. But folks seem to go off ranting and raving about "No government this!" and "No government that!" without even considering how it is intertwined into so many things they don't even consider. Like I said, there is not one of us, that I'm aware of, that is totally self sufficient. Even if you ARE producing every single thing you need on your own property and you never leave your home for neither business nor pleasure, you are still at least reaping the benfits of regulations regarding air pollution, water pollution, etc. Probably more but I don't really feel like spending any time to research it.

__________________
Anne
Give me a sweet home set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true.
-Phoebe Carey-

LONE PINE FARM
Barnesville, PA
Boer goats, Angora goats, Eclectic mix of poultry

Can homesteaders survive?

Possibly a few of us. Perhaps one or two percent of those who are now attempting to live the homestead life style. We will not be able to tell until the government as we know it collapses completely. We will then be on our own. This does not look like a good situation to me.

Government now, is mixed into all things. From the internet that we use to do research, the transportation that we use for deliveries, emergency services and so on. When the government goes away it will be ugly.

At this point a lot of folks depend on government for some things, or everything. The government is MA MA. When MA MA dies there will be whining and moaning like none can believe. Many will go hungry, if for no other reason other than not knowing how to cook.

Stand by. We all have a lot to learn.

We have to depend on the Gov't for some stuff ..... You wouldn't want Bernie Madoff watching out for your retirement and health benefits would you ??
I said depend ....... trusting the Gov't is really stretching it ...........
Ohio Rusty ><>

Actually, the great country of China pretty much owns us.

Regarding silly words, how...odd...of you to inform me that I believe nothing would exist without government. And, I'm not sure why you're asking me if I "really believe if the Government went broke tomorrow we would all die the week after". I don't recall ever stating such a notion in the first place.

You're not telling me anything new regarding self sufficiency. And I don't disagree with much of what you are saying is possible, even if it is in one's own romantacized fantasies. (Take a look at the last part of my signature line and you will find that I am quite aware of meat and fiber animals and, oddly enough, how I can use them to my benfit.)

I'm afraid you are missing my point entirely. There are very, very few people who can honestly survive completely on their own. Perhaps you are one of them, perhaps not. Perhaps I am, perhaps not. But I think there are a lot of armchair homesteaders that like to think they could tan leather, grow enough veggies to feed the family and run the tractor (or work strictly with hand and horse), learn how to identify not only medical maladies but also the plants with which to treat them, fend off the gangs of armed people that will come to raid their stocks, etc., ad infinitum.

That's not to say those folks don't exist. I just think they are very, very rare. And I think many tend to exaggerate their own abilities.

If I'm not mistaken, we have all existed from birth to the present under the sometimes harmful but sometimes helpful thumb of the government. Again, I'm not crazy about big government but I only have my own romantacized ideas to which I can compare my current state of existence. I've never lived in a state of anarchy (aside from my housekeeping) so I can't say "Yes, it is better."

I think edcopp put it very well.

And I'm sorry I made you sad.

__________________
Anne
Give me a sweet home set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true.
-Phoebe Carey-

LONE PINE FARM
Barnesville, PA
Boer goats, Angora goats, Eclectic mix of poultry

I think you do not understand my post.

I am against the leviathan federal government.

I am all for my local government providing the basic services. I have a say in county business and those county representatives also live in the county. We all know where they live.

I have an Excedrin-sized problem with big central government. And that is what this thread is really about: sucking on the federal teat. If self-professed homesteaders and preppers and self-reliant individuals look to the federal government, then the Republic is doomed.

The Republic was set as the United States meaning massive state's rights with a very limited federal government. We need to return to the rules set forth.

As far as putting a dump or a chemical plant next to me - well, I have the opportunity to buy the land too, or pool neighbors to buy the land, or appeal to the county. If that fails, and I am damaged, I have the courts.

Actually, we're in agreement on a lot of things. I'm not against less big government, I was responding more to the idea of not needing government in general.

But, whether we care to admit it or not, we all suck on the federal teat to some extent. Again, even if it is by benefitting from research or regulations, we all still benefit.

I would love if local governments had more say. Our state is smashing down any local municipality that wants to ban the application of biosolids to farmland or mine reclamation lands. I would love for our local goverment to be able to thumb it's nose at our governor who wanted to bring in the harbor dredge from Philadelphia and dump it on the mine lands.

I'd also like to be able to go buy raw milk off the farmer that leases my land.

But I also like the ag research that comes out of PSU, much of it on the taxpayer's dime.

And I like the idea of coal burning plants in states west of me being held to certain federal guidelines on emissions and such.

Meh, I guess I'm a study in contradictions. Why can't they just do what I want?

__________________
Anne
Give me a sweet home set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true.
-Phoebe Carey-

LONE PINE FARM
Barnesville, PA
Boer goats, Angora goats, Eclectic mix of poultry

I want to be emperor, too.

I don't post here much but I wanted to emphasize another poster's point. The thread moved slightly into something similar to "resignation that government control/over-regulation is coming and there's nothing we can do about it". Another poster mentioned that banding together into groups or associations, political or otherwise, could counter or mitigate those forces. I'd like to give a slight, real-world example. Please indulge my quick, temporary thread drift.

In a Los Angeles community, Sunland-Tujunga, Home Depot wanted to open a store but the local community overwelmingly opposed this. Just recently and after a 4-year battle, local community groups prevailed over Home Depot in this matter, the largest building supply company in the world. Home Depot has publicly stated that they no longer wish to open the store in Sunland-Tujunga.

This is a huge victory for the community and for the underdog. There were many reasons for Home Depot's pull out. Some say it was the economy. It was many reasons. There was no single reason. But I know for a fact that the overwelming reason was the united effort by the community. I state outright that this is fact, JMO.

http://www.no2homedepot.com/

p.s. I understand that this is not strictly a win over government influence by the community. But in actual, practical purposes, it is (because in many ways, some aspect of L.A government is Home Depot... by way of it's influence).

Dust and chaff ordinances were first being proposed in the late 1960s/early 1970s as more of the children of urban human hamsters began developing allergies / respiratory weakness and concern about air quality rose dramatically.

Rather than consider the possibility that their human hamster cages were the main contributor and an increase in urban greenspaces was the best assault, the hamsters began pettioning their governing bodies to regulate and in some cases eradicate flora.

Interestingly in the present while increase of urban green space is a priority in many urban areas, much flora that would adapt well to the application is classified as noxious weeds.

In the next 50 years that the odds of major agriculture becoming a primarily hydroponic venture inside high rise green houses is extremely likely .

With that transistion , "modern homesteading " will probably also be more easily attainable in small indoor bisf hydroponic application as the practioners are forced to exist beside the human hamsters of that period yet to come.

I don't lament the possibilty of this potential evolution, rather I see it as a research opportunity to experiment with no till and indoor controlled evironment agricultural applications at the slow pace that I am currently able to achieve on a couple acres and in a small attached greenhouse.

If plants and animals can adapt , why can't mankinds growing techniques adapt also?

Actually they do , but few study their history enough to recognize it.

__________________
"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

I think you're missing the point. Providing courts to gain justice when your rights are violated is a legitimate role of government. What we don't need is a government agency patrolling the streets to inspect every piece of property to make sure garbage has not crossed property lines. This is explained here regarding the SEC who blew it with Madoff. With the Enron thing, the courts were used to get justice. You can't have government watching our every move and preventing all danger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xir5j...layer_embedded

Are you saying you depend on the Gov't to watch your retirement benefits? Guess what, the government was watching Madoff and did not protect the investors. Dependence on gov't makes people lazy, as explained here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xir5j...layer_embedded

Truckinguy, I agree we should be involved in the system. Unfortunately, the public is educated by the government, so talking doesn’t register much. I’m still trying to overcome my public education, one reason I like these discussions.

Some are missing the point. I’m not suggesting we all don’t need help from others. Question is where is the best place to get it. Do you force others to pay for it, or do you try to pay for it yourself. If I need information on gardening, I can go to the Extension office paid for by those who didn’t want to, or I can go to my garden center and ask at their help desk. They are paid by my purchases. I can also come to this site and get help by those who volunteer.

Many here are excited to get their stimulus checks. I guess we have to take them, but we should raise a stink about it. I've heard someone here, I believe seriously, suggest we each get million dollars to really stimulate the economy. I'm thinking there should be government trucks with printers in them driving up and down the streets spewing money. That should really get things going.

7.62mm, good point on the federal vs local gov’t. The more local the better, where we can be more involved and keep an eye on things.

Yoyodog, I like your quote:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury."

Of course, technically we are not supposed to be a democracy, but a republic. Difference is in a democracy, the majority can impose it’s will on the rest – “tyranny of the majority”. In a republic, a constitution is supposed to prevent that by providing limits.

As discussed here http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/Am...ts/demrep.html

So the Constitution is critical to keep from trampling rights, but we’ve largely chosen to ignore it, as WVstuck said. Many argue for a program only because it sounds good, or benefits their special interests.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/p...w/3566517.html

Wow, I'm printing this one out and putting on the wall!

To simply answer the question........yes some homesteaders could survive without government help. My neighbors, mostly Amish, did very well without government help. Unfortunately "government" does not seem to value that and are going out of there way to make it be more and more difficult for people groups to be that "un-dependent". In my state it is now against the law to have a goat or a cow that has not been tagged and tested. You can not legally move cattle or goats without the proper papers. I got sent a premise number just because I once owned a registered goat. Big brother is alive and watching and anyone who thinks they are independent are not paying attention.

There's a big, brown cloud in the city,
And the countryside's a sin.
An' the price of life is too high to give up,
Gotta come down again.
When the world wide war is over and done,
And the dream of peace comes true.

We'll all be drinkin' free bubble-ubb,
Eatin' that rainbow stew.

When they find out how to burn water,
And the gasoline car is gone.
When an airplane flies without any fuel,
And the satellite heats our home.
One of these days when the air clears up,
And the sun comes shinin' through.
We'll all be drinkin' free bubble-ubb,
An' eatin' that rainbow stew.

Eatin' rainbow stew in a silver spoon,
Underneath that sky of blue.
All be drinkin' free bubble-ubb,
An' eatin' that rainbow stew.

You don't have to get high to get happy,
Just think about what's in store.
When people start doin' what they oughta be doin',
Then they won't be booin' no more.
When a President goes through the White House door,
An' does what he says he'll do.
We'll all be drinkin' free bubble-ubb,
Eatin' that rainbow stew.

Eatin' rainbow stew in a silver spoon,
Underneath that sky of blue.
We'll all be drinkin' that free bubble-ubb,
Eatin' some rainbow stew.

Eatin' rainbow stew in a silver spoon,
Underneath that sky of blue.
All be drinkin' that free bubble-ubb,
Eatin' rainbow stew.

__________________
http://www.mofga.org/

http://www.mofga.org/Programs/FarmAp...2/Default.aspx