raiders

RAIDERS

Way before we were our own country, raiding was a way of conflict.  The indigenous tribes didn’t like us taking their land ( and, no Virginia, this was no Santa Claus land where the Indians cared nothing for property rights and were all butt hurt when they shared it with us and then we wouldn’t let them return to hunt because we were farmers.  I think that load of crap was started to discredit Indians, implying they were just stupid humps, and hence furthering the White Mans Burden Myth.  All tribes are territorial, everywhere and every when, for survival ) so they raided our settlements and we didn’t care for getting massacred so we raided back on their settlements.  It got to be quite the mess rather quickly.  And although at heart the Revolution was about keeping all the colonies wealth for the local politicians ( and make no mistake, Washington was a rich twat politician that had no remorse in screwing over his troops and everyone else-which is why he is the Father Of His Country, an upstanding example to businessmen ), it was marginally about our unwillingness to pay more taxes to pay back the home country for helping us pacify the indigs ( which wasn‘t even that much, comparatively speaking ).  Which set another precedence in business-socialize the cost and privatize the profits.  Nothing new under the sun.  Same old hump the poor ( the Scots-Irish settlers encouraged to pacify the Indians in the frontier were later rewarded by being screwed ).  Glen and Rush being the two biggest mouthpieces today for the poor being sub-human.

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So, anyway, the Indians raided because it was militarily sound tactics and we did the same mainly because it was the cheapest way to win.  No standing armies to pay for ( no need for one until the central bank needed to colonize the globe-you can be proud of being a warrior, or for your accomplishments personally, but I wouldn’t be bragging about “serving your country” when you are in fact the spear tip for the bankers.  We don’t spread democracy, we enforce trade rules to our advantage.  Semantics matter ) so the land was nearly free.  But do raiders get any respect anymore, even if that is how the British Crown got most of the land we took from them?  No.  No respect at all.  Except perhaps for naming a football team on the West coast, and I think those are pirates anyway.  Who gets the respect?  The Kings Men, the standing army.  Even the National Guard has been stripped of its militia status ( the one they kept as an argument for gun control, mainly ) and is just the Reserve in all but name.  All those punk ass gun porn jerking off suburban survivalists out there just love the standing army, their hero’s ( remember, there is a difference between a warrior and a soldier and, I am NOT disparaging the individuals, merely the organization and how it is used ).  How few of them actually served?  They are worshipping a false idol.  The government is wearing pretty uniforms and waving shiny flags, but they too started out as raiders.  All land is stolen from a previous owner.  All governments formed when the previous one is overthrown by force.  The difference with raiders is that they never put on a parade to hide how they get what they want.  They wear their greed and willingness to employ force without excuse proudly. 

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Come the Apocalypse, there are going to be a lot of areas, mainly in the West, which is either abandoned as untenable or used as a retreat from pursuing forces from the agricultural centers that raiders attacked.  Desert is a great moat around a refuge.  And the West is mostly desert.  The Mormons, a great irrigator group, was able to reclaim the edges of the desert, but nobody can do anything about the interior.  The current effort to farm the desert relies on hundreds of aquifers being pumped and thousands of dams ( which will still be standing dry and silted up, for a very long time.  It is the silt that kills our dams long before drought does.  The first explorer/engineer was well aware of this and his advice was buried under layers of civil servant job security concerns ).  It was a monument to an ocean of crude oil having to go into something useful.  And little else of lasting accomplishment.  The West has so few agricultural areas naturally maintained that very soon the Redoubt’ers will find themselves either dead or forming into raiding parties. 

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Now, here is the thing.  Raiders don’t have to be cartoonish caricatures of rabid biker gangs or escaped prisoners.  Raiders are as much part of nature as carrion animals and serve a purpose.  Besides the nomadic herding functions that actually utilize the wastelands, raiders can also police the non-agricultural lands rather effectively.  As cream always rises to the top, so the most militarily effective gang consolidates power ( same in agricultural civilization ).  Nobody likes competition and fellow gangs are a threat to monopoly and riches.  In their own self interests, gangs remove fellow gangs.  In the end, a dominant group inhabits the wastes and actually reduces the incidences of violence to outsiders.  Business is best served with a minimum of violence.  A bribe is paid, and hence protection is assured.  Yes, granted, you are buying protection against the protector himself.  But more importantly, you are paying a tax that minimized violence in that location.  You are paying the army that uses some force to eliminate a lot of force.  Just as the dominant nation in trade polices the oceans, taking a bit of a bribe to ensure all can then trade ( and trade is absolutely critical for everyone ), raiders or nomads or bandit tribes police trade outside of farm settlements.  The “tax” they demand, a low level of theft, is lower than it would be for a standing army to patrol that land.  It functions well economically. 

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