These are thinking and highly motivated enemies. They know how to read maps. Some of them have a grasp of hydrology and can appreciate the difference between solely gravity-fed water systems and those that need grid power. They can put two and two together. Secondly, consider that raiders-the ‘outlaw looting groups’ that they call them now in the newspapers-may be a threat for a very short period, but I really don’t see permanent groups of more than a dozen ever forming. They will be quickly replaced by much larger groups of ‘citizens’ doing essentially the same things, but much better armed and organized.”
Laine interjected, “It may just be a matter of semantics-just what they call themselves, or the flag they fly. But they’ll still be looters by any other name.”
Martin gave Lars a thumbs-up and continued: “One of my overseas stints in stratcom was in, of all places, Albania in 1998. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! A few hours after Albania’s political crisis started-which was caused by a huge national lottery pyramid scam-almost every adult male in the country procured an AKM from government stocks. Armories were the first targets looted. As the crisis started, I flew from Brussels back into Tirana packing a pistol and a sack of money, naively thinking I would be able to move around the country and defend myself, getting our in-place assets out of ‘jams.’ What a laugh. Everyone had me outgunned, and the vast majority of these yahoos had military training of some sort. I never got out of the capital city. Every road seemed to have roadblocks every few miles, blocked by armed local citizens.”
Martin carried on: “Without central authority, people don’t just starve and go away. They form their own polities-their own governments. These polities are often organized around town or city government or local churches. They may call it a city council or a committee or a senate. The bottom line is, ‘We the People’ will do whatever ‘we’ have to do to survive. That’s your ‘we/they paradigm’ in its essence, all the way to the point of xenophobia. And that specifically includes taking away NAPI’s grain or even just stored food that was prudently set aside by the more forward-thinking individual families. When things started to unravel, I realized that when-not if-a polity formed, I’d better be part of that process. If not, my refinery and my employees would be looked upon as ‘resources’ instead of part of-members of-the community.”
Laine jumped in: “You’ve nailed it at its essence. The local polity will pass a resolution-or ‘emergency order’ or whatever-and ‘legally’ confiscate anyone’s goods if they’re deemed to be ‘they’ instead of ‘we.’ If you resist, you’ll be crushed. They will have the resources of a whole community to draw upon including weapons, vehicles, manpower, electronics, tear gas, the whole works. Every scrap of government-owned equipment and weaponry will likely be used-by
L. Roy again gave a thumbs-up and continued. “That is why I pushed as hard as I could to get the county sheriff to set up roadblocks. I planted the seed and laid out the details, and now he thinks it was all his idea. Hey, whatever works! My fear is that the local polity that is now coalescing is almost certainly going to make mistakes. Some of these could be lethal blunders. I frankly don’t think the locals, except for a few of us, have given a lot of serious thought to facing long-term survival. They’ll squander resources and they’ll delay implementing necessary actions-like planting more food, or converting irrigation water systems into also handling domestic water, or working together to defend a harvest. Even worse, they may even decide to take in thousands of refugees from the big cities. That will almost ensure longer-term starvation.”
Laine chimed in: “A much better approach is to be an integral part of the community and use the combined resources of the community to defend all of our resources together. This would be much easier if a high percentage of the community were like-minded folks who are committed to sharing and cooperating while still adhering to the free market-nothing communistic or command-driven: you know, ‘top-down.’ I agree that any communities like ours with ag production are going to have to somehow survive while facing even larger polities, like the cities, counties, or even state governments-or people that call themselves by those names, to give themselves an air of authority and legitimacy.”
L. Roy said, “I can see that we are on the same sheet of music! I think we’ve both read some Ayn Rand.”
Laine gave a nod and grinned in reply.
Martin continued. “I saw this happen in microcosm in Albania. So I don’t expect to face a horde of lightly armed, starving individuals that will come at us on foot. No, sir! I expect to face a fairly professional, determined army formed by a government of some kind. Again, as you mentioned, the color of the flag they fly is meaningless. Small farming communities can support a few outsiders, but not very many. The community will need to both politically and, if need be, militarily deal with outside polities or we’ll face a war that we can’t win. In any case, the twin communities of Farmington and Bloomfield need to have a plan, and some resolve. I just hope we can muster it.”
“God willing, we’ll be able to shape that plan as community leaders instead of ‘resources,’” Lars added. After a moment Laine went on, “Well, my roadblock proposal is going up for a vote next week. Hopefully common sense and the new realities will prevail. Now, assuming that it does, I want to proceed immediately with blocking positions around Farmington that will at least be able to sound the alarm about approaching forces. I’m afraid we’re going to be on a shoestring budget.”
“So…?”
“So we’re going to need fuel. The locations for the roadblocks will be chosen based on holding commanding terrain, not just plopping down barricades that are in walking distance, right at the city limits. That is stupidity. So some of our ‘Committee of Public Safety’ men may have to drive several miles-perhaps up to fifteen miles-to man their duty shifts.”
Martin jumped in: “If we set up 24/7 security around Bloomfield, that means that they’ll need one less roadblock to defend Farmington: they watch the west for us, we watch the east for them. I’m all for that! That will cut manpower requirements by twenty-five percent. Sure, I’ll provide you the fuel.”
Lars exclaimed, “Outstanding! Thank you, sir!” Lars pulled out a notepad and pen and went on, scribbling notes, “Let’s do the math. Okay, not counting our in-town quick-reaction force-which will be set up on the Minuteman or volunteer fire department model-we’ll have four Joes manning each roadblock 24/7. Three eight-hour shifts per day, that’s twelve men per roadblock, and manning three separate roadblocks equals thirty-six trigger- pullers that need to get from Point A to Point B, every day. Each will need an average of one gallon of gas per day; I’m sure that they’ll carpool, but the leftover gas will be a perk of the job. So 36 gallons of gas per day times 365, gives us… uh… 13,140 gallons.”
“Fair enough, Lars. But you’ll need a bit more fuel to get the vehicles and materials in place to construct your blocking points, and some for your QRF’s vehicles. So… I’ll issue vouchers for 15,000 gallons of gas annually, out of my own pocket. We only have a rudimentary printing facility, and I worry a lot about forgery, so I’ll just open a standing account for each Bloomfield COPS man: 30 gallons monthly. Each time they get gas here at the plant, it will be deducted. It’s the same sorta thing that I’ve done for the staff at my ranch and for the refinery employees. It’s pretty simple accounting.”
“And darned generous of you.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t be doing this unless it was in my own best interest. It’s not just the ‘24/7, 365’ that I worry about. Its the ‘24/7, 360.’ As in: 360 degrees. I want my flanks covered. So far as I know, I own the only operational light products refinery this side of Texas. That’s bound to be a tempting target.”
“It’s a humongous target.”
“Just promise me that if you go work for the folks in Farmington, you won’t go poaching for manpower in Bloomfield. We need to keep all our men with military training
“You have my word, Mr. Martin.”
“Did you have any other questions?”
“I’m curious. I’ve seen the ten-liter Scepter fuel cans that you’ve been selling, and I’ve heard that you bought thousands of them. That was quite prescient of you. But why do you have them priced at eight bucks in silver apiece? That’s more than a week’s pay these days. You bought them months ago, before the inflation went crazy, so they must have cost a tenth of your retail price for them in the equivalent-back in the paper dollars.”
L. Roy leaned back in his chair and gazed upward. After a lull he replied: “Three reasons: Reason one, I don’t have an unlimited supply, and we had no way of knowing when the grid might go back down locally, and if and when the big grids will go back up online. So I need to make them last. This way, when I pay my employees partly in gasoline, they’ll be sure to have containers. Reason two, I need to have fuel that is packaged for barter over long distances. The way I see it, in a couple of years here in a fuel-producing region, it will be tires that will be in short
