I was at a political meeting today. There are elections slated for this fall, and the candidates and those working for them have the opportunity to go to ‘election schools’. These are seminars designed to get everyone familiar with the thrust of the campaign and the ins and outs of the process, and that is what I attended. I returned disillusioned.

Although I’ve been on the fringes of politics before, I’ve been inactive for some time and I had forgotten how much extremism resides in any party, especially among the true believers, those completely and utterly committed to a political idea. Frankly, it sickened me and is making me rethink my commitment to work for the candidate, but it reminded me that extremes are part of everything.

I consider extremism in any form highly dangerous. A party that cannot consider the other side of an issue will, if in power, attempt to suppress those other views by some means. It may be as mild as labeling those ideas ‘unpatriotic’ as we saw done in the USA when people with reservations about the invasion of Iraq spoke up, or it could be as harsh as what we are seeing in Libya and Syria these days.

So it also goes with people. A person that is extreme in their beliefs, whether political, religious or racial, will not see you as fully human, and will think of you as the enemy. If you are the enemy, they will feel fully justified in doing whatever they think is necessary to you in order to obtain their goals. Whether it is a seizure of goods, or money, restriction of rights, or even drafting your services in an emergency, they will do it. It’s a really good reason to stay clear of people, organizations, and if you can, governments that show signs of being too extreme.

If you can do that, there is only one extremist you need to watch for: you. It is too easy in the survival and preparedness game to become invested in a particular viewpoint. The right firearm, the right bug-out vehicle, bugging-out versus bugging-in, the net is overflowing with people who are absolutely sure their way is the right and only way to prepare. In fact, it seems that the more extreme are your views, the more popular your blog will be.

In my opinion, that rigidity of thought is a dangerous thing. When you become wedded to a point of view, there is a distinct possibility that you will not recognize when conditions have changed and that your viewpoint is no longer valid, perhaps invalidating many of your preps. As an example, take the Manitoba flooding this year. Had a major crisis occurred at the height of the emergency, bugging out might have been impossible for some people. Had you based everything on the unshakeable conviction that you would be able to get out in your tricked out SUV or other ultimate vehicle, you might have been stuck before you even started.

A silly example, but what it means is this: Have two (or more) ways of getting out, realize that there is more than one way to purify water, to provide food, or to defend yourself, and that things could go bad in ways that you’ve never thought of and for which you are unprepared. If you are flexibly minded you’ll deal far better with that than someone locked into their own particular world view.

Do as the Buddhists do, and find the Middle Path, that neutral, unbiased state open to all things.


It’s common sense.