Hoarding vs. Stocking Up
by Deborah in the UP

When the pioneers began their trek west, they took with them, supplies, food, clothing, animals.. All the things they felt they would need to make the journey. When they got where they felt was far enough, they stopped and set up shop. This was likely somewhere near a town, but not like we know it today. If they were 30 miles from town, (a trip that would take us 30 minutes) it would take them 2-3 days to get there, and the same getting back. Obviously, that trip wasn’t made very often, and certainly not for a loaf of bread or a quart of milk. That milk was gotten from the cow or goat, and bread was baked, from scratch, most often from a sourdough starter.

A food source was THE most important item on the schedule. Land needed to be cleared for a family garden and pasture fenced for the animals. That garden was all important, and meant life or death to the family. The woman’s role was very important for the homestead. While the man/husband/father toiled with the land, kept track of the animals and kept the family safe, a difficult job to say the least, the woman/wife/mother was expected to provide meals, the life sustaining essence. Where did those meals come from? The garden of course! And while the summer may have been bountiful, the winter could be very lean.. if the family/woman didn’t PREPARE. It was expected of the female to can (a different and difficult process back then), preserve, dry, smoke, salt, whatever process fit the food, just so it could be eaten during the time of lean. There needed to be a winter food source for the farm animals too.. or they would die.. The husband/father was the hunter, and the sons as they grew, but the kill needed to be extended as long as possible, by preserving the meat for later consumption. All of this needed to be done to get the family from one growing season to the next. A year. This was standard! This was normal! This is the way things were!

Granted, those trips to town were rare, but they were necessary for certain items: sugar, salt, bolts of cloth for clothing, maybe even new shoes for a growing child. Necessary too to bring barter items in, for exchange. Many times families did without, that was the way of life… but they made do! As long as they were fed, their world would go on. Having a good, healthy pantry full of food, was normal, desired, strived for, admired.

What has changed?

Today, if someone had a years worth of food, to get them from one growing season to the next, … they would be called crazy, hoarders, fringe… looked down upon, feared, ridiculed. … survivalists!! Today, those 30 mile trips to town are often made daily!

What has changed? Society perception.

Today, it isn’t the family garden that provides a secure food source, it’s the local grocery store! How dare we question the availability of the next shipment! Therefore we should all have only a week of food on hand… why? Otherwise we would be Hoarders!

From Wikipedia: Hoarding as a human behavior falls in to two main categories. One type of hoarding is triggered as a response to perceived or predicted shortages of specific goods. Hoarding behavior may be a common response to fear, whether fear of imminent society-wide danger or simple fear of a shortage of some good. Civil unrest or natural disaster may lead people to collect foodstuffs, water, gasoline, and other essentials which they believe, rightly or wrongly, will soon be in short supply. Unlike hoarding immediately before or in the wake of a crisis, hoarding a resource while its supply is abundant can actually alleviate future shortages because those who stockpile in this manner will not contribute to future demand when supplies are reduced.

So Where Do Anti-Hoarding Laws Come In?

These ideas of anti-hoarding legislation may have stemmed from two areas of confusion:

First is from Executive Orders in place dating back to 1939 which Clinton has grouped together under one order, EO #12919 released on June 6, 1994. The following EOs all fall under EO#12919:

10995–Federal seizure of all communications media in the US;
10997–Federal seizure of all electric power, fuels, minerals, public and private;
10998–Federal seizure of all food supplies and resources, public and private and all farms and equipment;
10999–Federal seizure of all means of transportation, including cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and water ways;
11000–Federal seizure of American people for work forces under federal supervision, including the splitting up of families if the government so desires;
11001–Federal seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private;
11002–Empowers the Postmaster General to register every single person in the US
11003–Federal seizure of all airports and aircraft;
11004–Federal seizure of all housing and finances and authority to establish forced relocation. Authority to designate areas to be abandoned as “unsafe,” establish new locations for populations, relocate communities, build new housing with public funds;
11005–Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, both public and private;
11051–Provides FEMA complete authorization to put above orders into effect in times of increased international tension of economic or financial crisis (FEMA will be in control incase of “National Emergency”).
(http://www.millennium-ark.net/News_Files/Exec.Orders/EOs.html)

What has changed? The world has changed. Where once it was expected for a family to provide for itself, now, if they do, it could be taken from them, legally…to provide for those who did not.