*What Is "The Rubicon"?*
I have seen people ask on other sites, "What is the Rubicon?"
Some of the answers are laughable, and I have to remember that paranoids and conspiracy theorists ABOUND on the internet... People who think they are hiding from "Them" and are afraid of "They", and foolishly think they are somehow slipping by "Under the radar", and that preparedness should be "Hidden". You know, Your basic Nutjobs.
When you see these kinds of people, STAY AWAY FROM THEM... We've been here for over 11 years as of this writing, and on Old Style "BBS's" (Bullitin Board Services) for years even before the Internet became available to everyone.
When Asked, These Paranoid types OFTEN pretend they know something about the Rubicon, and offer Ominous advice about how "Crossing the Rubicon is an irrevocable act", and "they aren't ready to fight against the government... yet". Those people scare me, and they OBVIOUSLY don't know anything about "our" Rubicon... When people try to lurk in the shadows, it makes me think they are up to something, and probably not something good. Why all the Paranoia? Sorry, Nothing "Sinister" going on in the Restricted section, just advanced preparedness issues.
BTW, if you see someone claiming they "Lurk on the The Rubicon" (SIC), you can write them off as a liar, we have NO lurkers, EVERYONE participates, No exceptions... Our Automated Software locks out lurkers when their posts or article contributions fall below a certain level.
Good Lord, Just when you think some internet people can't get any freakier...
"Crossing The Rubicon" is simply a different MINDSET about PREPAREDNESS.. We don't think in terms of "Heading for the hills with a Bug out Bag", or having a few weeks of Beans stored up, or a gun and a million rounds of ammo "To Fight the Government"... MANY of our members ARE "The Government"... *WE* are "The Government"...
It's still: "We, The People", right?
The Rubicon's way of preparedness is LONG TERM... it's a lifestyle, and often a lifestyle change. We LIVE a preparedness mindset every-single-day... But at the same time, we WORK to make our Communities and Country better places. Preparedness is NOT about "Storing Junk and hiding in shelters".. it's about living your life with a minimum of disruption in ANY event.. be it the dreaded (and mythical) "Total collapse", or a Job Loss... If you LIVE a preparedness lifestyle, you have the edge.. Your alt power keeps your power bill low... you stored food that you normally eat every day, so you can live for a LONG time without buying more, etc, etc.. a job loss is not devastating, a disaster is not devastating, it's actually just more of an inconvenience... Besides, you save a LOT of money when you provide your own power (CORRECTLY) and are always eating at last year's prices, and/or can wait to restock for those big sales! Preparedness, when done correctly saves you a LOT of money!!!!
Let's be real here, you spend 99.9% of your time NOT dealing with disasters! It only makes sense to spend time making that 99.9% of the time Better for you! Lower power and grocery bills, etc.. then when that odd Disaster DOES come, you're ready for it, you don't have to scurry around setting things up, or making last minute store runs.. you are used to living a self sufficient lifestyle already! If you've prepared properly, a disaster won't change that much... How is a commercial power outage going to affect me? My Total Electric Home is Energy Efficient, Well insulated, well engineered to take advantage of Passive heating and cooling, AND it is powered from Solar! I don't even usually know when the commercial power is off. THAT saves me a LOT of money during that 99.9% of the time when there is NOT a disaster.
Sure, Most Rubicon members have at least a year's worth of storage food, they rotate this food all through the year.. they buy the new stuff each week and put it in the BACK of the pantry, and then eat from the FRONT of the Pantry... if the stores suddenly close, or they are laid off from their job, they have a year to keep eating EXACTLY as they do right now (We've had MANY members live off preps, and the extra time those preps gave them to find a new job allowed them to pick and choose, rather than HAVING to take the first thing that came along)... MANY members have Built "Double Door Pantries".. one door opens on the BACK of the pantry to load food into it, and the other door is the FRONT of the pantry, from which to eat.... this way, you not only have a year's supply of the foods you NORMALLY EAT, you are always eating at last year's (Cheaper) prices! Having a large reserve of food also allows you to wait for those great sales at the store, When meat prices drop, or prices on Canned foods drop, THEN you can stock up a bit more.. if food prices soar for some reason (As with the recent e-coli scare) then you can still eat normally until the problem is straightened out, or prices drop again, before you re-stock.
Most of us have some form of alt Power.. if the power goes out in a disaster, we still live the same way we live right now.. Don't think that can be done? Here's my power bill from last month, Thanks to all I have learned, bought, and done as a Rubicon member... it took me 3 years to get to this point:
Actually, they sent me a refund check for a PENNY! I'm having it framed ;)
When Our members are in trouble due to a disaster, We Go HELP THEM... We've survived MANY hurricanes, Forest fires, Earthquakes, etc, etc, and we lived through them much as we live RIGHT NOW. It means we have ACTUAL EXPERIENCE with Surviving Disasters.. What worked? What DIDN'T?
Our Membership is made up of Doctors, Lawyers, Nurses, Paramedics, Military, Engineers, housewives, househusbands, carpenters, Policemen, Federal Employees, etc, etc.. just normal, everyday folks... and yes, even "They" and "Them" are Rubicon members. "They" LIKE the idea of LIVING a preparedness lifestyle also. What you WON'T find are the Paranoid "Lone wolf types" discussed above, or those that cower in fear of "They" or "Them".. We don't put up with that crap... We deal in FACTS, in what we've TESTED, what we KNOW works... Heinlein said it best (He usually does):
What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion and testimonials, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
Robert A. Heinlein
We DON'T allow spamming.. some Business people try to join just to sell their product, they are quickly taken OUT of the Rubicon area.
Occasionally you'll see people bashing "The Rubicon" on other sites.. they get kicked off of site after site after site, yet "It's those sites that have the problem, not me" (What's that Country song? "After 5 marriages, it MIGHT be YOU"). We Have ZERO tolerance for lurkers, or "Data Miners", or unstable people. When an Admin puts someone out of the Rubicon, there's a REASON. If we wouldn't trust a person around OUR families, we CERTAINLY wouldn't trust them to be around YOURS. And as an intelligent person, you know that the more they complain about being removed from the Rubicon, the more they wish they'd been allowed to stay... And those you see bashing us (Or other sites, or other people), it's just a matter of time before they start in on YOU.. these are deviants, we don't tolerate them.
Politics is sometimes discussed, because politics DOES affect survival (Relations with N. Korea for example), but politics is NOT what we are about, we are about PROVEN methods of LONG TERM preparedness... We prepare to live PAST disasters, not just survive them.
You CAN live much as you do RIGHT NOW, through (or after) most ANY disaster, with the right knowledge and tools, and once you get used to OUR way of preparedness, you can't ever go back to "a bugout bag, a case of beans, and a million rounds of ammo". I GUARANTEE that in a disaster, you'll use a can opener and a microwave oven MUCH more often than you'll use a gun. And while Weapons (and profficiency with weapons) is a logical part of self defense, it's NOT the "Be all, end all" of preparedness, it's simply one SMALL part of the whole.
You don't have to live in a dirt floored cabin in the woods and bathe once a week... Most Rubicon Members live in modern homes and live "Normal" lives... Personally, I live in a VERY modern, Total electric home in the country.. I like cable TV as much as the next guy, and have a nice Home Entertainment center with a 57 inch Flat screen High-Def TV, all powered from Solar Alt Power (Obtained through MANY group buys at substantial discounts due to our Group Buying power)... The Entertainment Center is also tied into part of my Home security System
In Fact, I'm typing this from Stored Sunlight ;)
As one member stated: "We are Responsible members of society who tend to give more than we take, and our neighbors benefit from our presence every day, even if they are not aware of it".
ALL OF THIS is just a bare fraction of what "The Rubicon" and it's membership does to prepare our Families for ANY disaster (Even if that "Disaster" is as simple as "Losing your job")
Like Crossing the Rubicon, You've now moved up to the next level... The next level of PREPAREDNESS! And once you move up to the next level of preparedness, you can't turn back to the way you USED to do things, it won't ever seem like enough any more. There ARE better ways to prepare, and we have them.
YES, you may be overwhelmed at first (MANY people are, but they begin catching up). YES, it'll take you time to catch up. YES, you may never feel like you are as well prepared as some members that have been "Living the life" for YEARS.. but YES, You CAN do it too! You CAN get there, We can help.
BTW, "Warlord" is an old Gaming User-name from pre-internet days, NOT my personal philosophy on life (The Admins made me put that in here ;)
Trip Williams
A.K.A. Warlord
www.alpharubicon.com
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