Why I think of Zombies.

After looking to the world stage, and being a zombie apocalypse kind of guy, I started to look at real life scenarios. I do not mean the dead rising from the grave, because that to me is an unlikely event. Climate issues would have a great effect on the length of zombie epidemic, warmer areas would increase decay at a rate that they would not be able to ambulate for more then a month at best, and colder climate would render movement improbable unless they were some how warm blooded. It is a fun fantasy, but highly unlikely. Maybe something like a rage virus in 28 days later, but actual walking corpses would be difficult to conceive being practical. To me the most realistic scenario would be a Mad Max style world and what would come from that.

The reason this is in my thoughts now is because you see the signs of economic collapse are abundant globally. Things that will reflect in our own government, and with those things you see in other parts of the world, it would only take a small event to either trigger a cycle of rebirth in the government or the lawless collapse that we saw in the late eighties in Somalia. Then you have a different kind of apocalypse, and warlords and gangs thrive and are the only form of order. This is why being involved in your government now is so important.

Thing you will see in the government that seem to be universal in those countries in the middle of an economic collapse are starting to show signs here in the US. Government corruption is the highest of the order. Politicians or officials start using their powers to do "favors" for friends, and to protect their personal safety and comfort. Certain freedoms will be removed to "protect" the fragile government. Gun rights are a great way to gauge the level of danger in the government. Those countries that continued down in rabid decline introduced heavy taxes on guns and especially ammo prior to the a collapse, as in the case of Argentina in 2001. In severe cases they banned the ownership of any firearm even for the purpose of sport or hunting.

The next freedom to be challenged is your right to speak out. Censorship starts as a tool to control panic, but freedom of speech is slowly stripped under the guise of public safety. In some situations government officials called news agencies directly and threatened them with heavy taxes, fines, or imprisonment. In the scrabble to acquire the funds to keep the government afloat certain other resources are cut, and you see the legal system suffer as well as the press. Seizing "illegal" guns, and censoring the news puts a strain on police who are having their budgets stripped.

In 2001 the Argentinian government saw their legal system overburdened to the point that rapist and murderers were placed on house arrest. Greece is seeing the same thing, were lines to court rooms are as long, if not longer than the unemployment lines. Hospitals,, schools, public transportation see so many cuts that they become ineffective. If you look to the public school systems in the some south American countries and those in Europe that are currently suffering and you see a glorified day care.

The roads and infrastructure will not see dramatic change for a period of time, but more and more potholes will not be filled. Overgrowth along roads will be freestanding. Public parks will be unmanned. Camping will become a hazard to your health, and forestry agencies will be even more powerless to stop forest fires or other annual natural occurrences. You daily life will be diminished as you see those cultural luxuries removed.

Coffee shops and bookstores will give way to liquor stores and porn shops. Crime will begin to rise and swell. Those unemployed cops, or other unemployed government agents will share that same desperation and lawlessness and some may even join gangs or criminal groups to provide for their own families. This is where many of those warlords in Somalia came from. They were soldiers and police men. They were highly trained, and desperate. They also knew the system would be unable to pursue them and or would be ineffective because of lack of resources to pursue them. So if they are caught they have bribed their way out of the situation, or merely bought the persons pursuing them out right and had them join their organizations.

Now add any type of natural disaster to this climate, like in the case of Somalia's drought, and you get the collapse. That is Mad Max over there all the way. Look and see if you can see the signs of this decline in our own country? Ask yourself if the collapse of other nations may or may not have an effect on us? Then tell me if I am just being paranoid when I think about what I would do for me and mine? So yeah I plan for the worst case but in the mean time I try to stay active in my government so I can prevent that from happening in the first place.