I normally address more spiritual matters on this blog. Not generally practical ones. The things I am talking about in this post actually are matters with spiritual ramifications, but aimed in a more practical direction.
I want to speak of the MOST important matter first. The most important thing is that if you truly love G-d and keep His Commandments, you are in His hand and all good things which you receive are FROM His hand. I do not prepare for adversity from lack of faith, but from partnering with G-d to prepare for things that through His Spirit I know are ahead. Like how Joseph told the Pharaoh to stockpile food in the 7 good years leading up to the 7 years of famine: he did not do so from lack of faith but through faithfulness and obedience to do what G-d told him.
Now, our government and large parts of our country are just crazy. And wicked. And they are likely to be getting more so in 2021. So these are some matters to bring to your attention.
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INFLATION: When the government is spending and cutting themselves big deals and paychecks without regard to any responsibility, there is a significant risk of devaluing the currency. The good news is, perhaps foolishly, the US Dollar is still the go-to currency in other countries in unsettled times, and demand for the Dollar is high. We should not think that this will go on forever, if the government continues to act recklessly.
There is no guaranteed hedge against inflation, when you are in the position of hedging against inflation you are already in a losing scenario and just trying to control your loss. Gold is very high right now, and also remember that gold is valueless in itself. You can't eat it, drink it, heal yourself with it or shoot it.
One of the best hedges against inflation is, if you think you will NEED something in the future, like within the next year, or that you want something that will be extremely useful to you, go ahead and buy it now while your money is worth something. Now I am normally the last person to advise spending sprees, but we are talking about things that you regard as either essential or nearly so, things that will save you time energy or trouble, or things that WILL do so in the future.
It is not guaranteed that inflation is going to be a huge problem, since like I said people around the world seem to be eager to buy the Dollar. So just be watchful, be thinking about it, but don't throw all your money into hedges yet.
INSANE LAWS: There is one best protection against insane laws, which is location. They can simply do more to you and have more helpers against you if you live in a city, or live under the influence of a city (in a county dominated by one or more.) We see that in New York, where the governor and mayor can issue draconian decrees that might not fly on a federal level. Yes it also helps to be in a conservative State even if you are in a city, but cities tend towards wickedness.
Also, while I normally have high respect for officers of the law and for their role in a more sane society than this one, when someone is forced to do bad things or lose their job, that is a temptation that some will succumb to. Where are the police here where I live? There's like 5 law officers for the whole county! No officer is walking the beat where I live. I live in an unincorporated area. To all intents and purposes, the only king in my land is G-d.
If you do live in the city, well, people break laws all the time. Be a skillful law-breaker like so many are for less noble purposes. ;)
Also, as in war, fixed defenses are a testament to human stupidity.
Can they close your church? Yes they can. They shouldn't be able to according to the Constitution, but that doesn't mean they can't try as they have in New York, and they may even succeed eventually.
Can they revoke your church or religious institution's tax-exempt status? Again, according to the Constitution, they shouldn't be able to. Doesn't mean they won't try. Doesn't mean they won't succeed either.
Can they force your religious school to hire godless heathens or to teach violations of your religious teachings or to shut down? According to the Constitution, no. The Constitution doesn't mean much these days. They sure can try, they are trying now, and they may succeed. And if popular opinion or the rest of the government goes against them, I wouldn't count on the Supreme Court to be the last bastion of sanity either. I fear we will discover how toothless the Supreme Court can be.
HOWEVER, can they actually keep you from believing in G-d? Nope. Can they keep you from teaching the same? Not yet anyway, and it is a lot harder for them to target a million separate people than an institution. Can they keep you from home-schooling your children? Not yet, and if I had children (and I praise G-d in this wicked day that I don't,) if they forced me to send my children to a godless secular school I would meet them at the door with a gun. Can they keep you from staying in contact with other believers and praying with them? Nope. The institutions that we depended on, these are under attack. In places, they may fall. Does anything keep us from taking the responsibility once delegated to those institutions onto ourselves and doing church, school and other such things in a decentralized way? Nope. What it does require, is that we take more responsibility onto ourselves.
TAXES: Well you know, lack of government income is not going to stop the government from doing wickedness. They'll just print more. However, higher taxes are definitely a possibility too.
There are also grievous moral implications to your tax dollars. This to me is the most important issue, not that having Washington thieves steal your money isn't important, but this is more important. They are going to use your money to fund Planned Parenthood, sick science using the tissues of murdered children, horrible weapons of war and the like. Our Government Is Wicked. Therefore it is incumbent on us to find ways to prevent them from using our stolen money to perpetrate wickedness. Not that we can perfectly prevent it, but every way we can prevent it we should.
This is the first way: they can't steal money we don't make. Now that is going to sound like a horrible plan, but think about it a second. When I buy a tomato in the store, I have to earn money for that. Those earnings are taxed. If I go out into my garden and eat a tomato, no money is earned or spent. The transaction is between me and the sky and the ground. So everything you can do that is outside the monetary system, that is something you need to don't have to earn money for. Grow a vegetable garden, go fishing for your dinner. Build something rather than buying it. Reuse something rather than buying it.
Henry David Thoreau, not a person I am normally prone to mention in this blog, he wanted to avoid paying taxes that would go to fund the Spanish-American War. Because he was a pacifist and an isolationist and stuff. Soooo.... he stopped paying taxes and they arrested him. Wrong solution.
So instead he chose voluntary poverty. They couldn't tax what he didn't make. And in a lot of ways he was really awful at it, functionally he lived off affluent friends more than off the beans he grew, but he was aiming in the right direction. Every dollar you can avoid spending is a dollar you can avoid making. Every dollar you can avoid making is a dollar they can't tax. Now I am not necessarily advising that you lower your standard of living, unless your standard of living is ridiculous, which for most Americans it kinda is. I am saying they can't tax the vegetable in your garden. They can't tax the fish in your pond. They can't tax the table that you cobbled together from scrap. If the government starts practicing real satanic stuff, it becomes an obligation to do what is possible to avoid having money fall into their hands.
My standard of living compared with most Americans is abominable. My house does not have running water as of yet, I have to go out front with a bucket. I used to have to go out to the pond. My last bath took place in an Igloo ice chest. I only recently got a decent refrigerator and stove: prior to that I was operating out of a refrigerator slightly larger than a suitcase. But I am happy and healthy, and that is what matters.
One other way to (illegally) avoid paying taxes is to operate in cash: now legally you do have to pay taxes on cash earnings just like everything else. If you don't pay taxes on that, you are breaking the law. It is just that such transactions are, shall we say, less visible. ;)
Another way is barter: if the transaction never involves actual currency, it's not taxable. The problem with this is that people are more isolated than ever and there's not really much in the way of barter networks going on. There should be, but there's not.
PREPARATION: As one of my favorite Youtube personalities, Patriot Nurse, says, "beans bandages and bullets." ;) I can't claim to be very well prepared in the food storage department, I just moved out here and I was limited in the things I could haul out here and the space I have. I'm going to stock up but I also have rats (or at least A rat) so I need to have enough buckets with lids to put stuff in. I am also hoping for a good harvest next year so I can start stocking up. Bandages, I am okay in that department I think. I have a couple decent first-aid kits and a jar full of normal bandages for smaller cuts. Bullets, well I hope you stocked up on bullets and firearms long before now because prices are just cray-cray now.
Preparation is also tools. Do you have a good basic set of tools for working in wood and for repairing machines? Do you know how to use them, or does someone in your family know? Do you have good food preparation and preservation tools? I may never get more than minor cuts and I may never fire a weapon in anger, but I will definitely need tools for food preparation and preservation.
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I am not trying to be alarmist. I am saying that this is our reality now, and everyone who is not still asleep knows this. It will only be getting worse in 2021. The most necessary thing is to draw close to the Lord, double down on repentance and obedience, get in the Bible and stay there. If you have that, you will have everything else. You will do okay. This is not a time to be lukewarm. The lukewarm will fall by the wayside. The lukewarm will fall into the World in time of trouble. The Lord's own people will draw closer to the Lord in such a time.
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