*What Is "The Rubicon"?*
...and once in a while a nut slips in here too... the difference here is, we try to take prompt action when things happen so that we can keep our focus on Preparedness Issues without the distraction of Flame Wars, endless complaining without doing anything, spewing hate, etc... But again, If you're looking for Utopia, keep looking, and please let ME know when you find it! ;)
Anyway, I have seen people ask on other sites, "What is the Rubicon?"
Do you want to see something amazing? Whenever that question is asked, there are always people who answer the question in a definative manner who later freely admit that they have never been a member of the Rubicon, and don't really know anything at all about it! Their opinion has no basis in fact at all, "it's just how they feel it might be from the way it looks to them on the outside" (of course you don't believe this is true, no sane person would... but google it! You'll see!) .. yet that's not the amazing part; the 'amazing' part is, there are still other people who form their opinion about the Rubicon, based on the opinion of the person who admits they had never even heard of the Rubicon before the question was asked! (again, google it!) On one website, a gentleman went off on a long, withering, slanderous attack about the Rubicon.. but at the end of his page-long attack, he said something strange that most people just laughed off... He said "The simple answer is, Chrysler just sucks!" You have to admit that's a strange way to end a bash-fest about the Rubicon, yet people were so impressed by his angry rant that they were "liking it" over and over... it was over a week later that it was found out he thought he was bashing "the Jeep Rubicon, and a group that used them to ride the Rubicon Trail"!!!! He hadn't even bothered to follow the link here to our site, and no one else bothered to check him on it!!!
Some of the other 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 nuts.
When you see these kinds of people, Stay Away From Them... We've been here for over 13 years, and on Old-Style "BBS's" (Bullitin Board Services) for years even before the Internet became available to everyone commercially.
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 sections, just advanced preparedness issues... Issues and Ideas and Testing that tend to cost us a little more money than we're prepared to just give away to everyone without getting information back from "everyone" in return. That's exactly why "Everyone" in the Rubicon is expected to contribute their time, knowledge, and expertise coming up with solutions to preparedness issues; In return they get the rest of the group's time, knowledge, and expertise relating to preparedness issues.
BTW, if you see someone claiming they "Lurk on the The Rubicon" (SIC), you can write them off as "another one that was never a member"... 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.
Check both your Racisim, and your "Uber-Sensitivity" at the door... You'll be mixing with many "Colors" and "Religions"... and political views range from Ultra-Liberal, to Ultra-Conservative, to Apathetic. Just like real life, "Deal with it".
"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" to fight the hundreds of other refugees that are doing the same thing... Nor do we think in terms of 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 often 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 have stored food that you normally eat every day anyway, 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 often described by members afterward as "just more of an inconvenience, really"... Besides, you save a Lot of money when you provide your own power (SAFELY) 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 commercial 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 (As of this writing)... thanks to everything 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.
Why don't we let advertising pay the bills for us? Because Ad companies hope that *you* will believe that the product they're showing you on your screen when you visit our site is recommended by the Rubicon and it's members... when in reality, we've never even heard of the product before... But people will buy that product, "because Rubicon members test everything they recommend, so it's got to be good, right?".... Ooops.. I forgot, the ad company posted the product, not the Rubicon or it's members (yet most people would Still be angry with the Rubicon over buying a crappy product, even while knowing that it made no sense!) ... the way it is right now, if I get my hands on a product that I like enough to recommend it to fellow survivalists, you'll hear about it from me personally, I guarantee!
One more weird thing we've noticed over the years. Many people come to our site and spend most of their first few visits trying to guess their way in to the restricted area so they can get to the "better" articles that we keep locked away from them... Do you see what just happened there? They discounted Hundreds of excellent articles on the public side, while complaining about not having free access to the articles in the restricted "pay" sections... They just proved an age old truism... "a thing given freely, has no value!" They have no way of knowing if the restricted area's articles are better, or worse, yet subconsciously they assume that the free articles are worthless, and complain about the very thing that makes the Restricted area articles valuable to them... if we gave them "Free access" to the articles Members share amongst each other, those articles wouldn't have value to them either. Basically "I don't want these worthless free articles, I want free access to the valuable pay articles.. except that in my mind they are only better because they are 'pay articles'"... Yet another thing that should make sense, but it happens every day...
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, It's NOT my personal philosophy on life, or a "Life-Goal" (The Admins made me put that in here ;)
Trip Williams
A.K.A. Warlord
www.alpharubicon.com
All materials at this site not otherwise credited are Copyright © 1996 - 2010 Trip Williams. All rights reserved. May be reproduced for personal use only. Use of any material contained herein is subject to stated terms or written permission.