News & Columns > Dave Henderson > The Outsourced American

The Outsourced American

By Dave Henderson
Wednesday, September 2, 2009

I'm sure that most of you have seen the advertisement for Brinks, now Broadview Home Security Systems. An attractive young mom is home alone with her young child. A menacing prowler is lingering outside and kicks the door in. The alarm sounds, the intruder runs away in fear of the alarm. The woman runs upstairs to answer the immediately ringing telephone and her fear is calmed by the reassuring voice on the other end telling her, rest-assured, the police are on the way.

I always shake my head when I see these commercials. The police do their best to be responsive, however, the reality is that a large number of alarm calls are false alarms and will often not receive the priority by law enforcement that the alarm companies would like for you to believe. The reason they call is to validate the alarm. The question is, if someone has just kicked in your door, are you going to take the time to answer the phone? Response from law enforcement, in the best of times, will be several minutes. However, depending on conditions, can take considerably longer, even hours in some locations in the country.

When did we start out-sourcing our safety and defense to others? Americans have always been an independent lot; throughout history, we have always been willing to take action in our own defense. When I was a child, I remember my father, along with every able-bodied male in the town, working the fire lines during a wildfire. I can remember, when a child was missing, the whole town turned out to search for the child.

Today, the mentality is that we must leave it to the trained professionals. While the average person may not have the training to fight wildfires, I believe the desire is still there to pitch in and help.

Remember the turnout of volunteerism after 9/11?

Part of this reaction is the litigious mind-set in our society today. Law enforcement and the fire services, along with cities, are afraid of being sued. Part of this is also that our society is being slowly programmed to think that we are not capable of caring for our own needs. If we are laid off, you will have unemployment insurance. If we can't work, the government will feed you with food stamps and give you a welfare check. Someone threatens your life, call 911 and the police will protect you. No need to teach your children, the state will teach them for you. Don't you dare home-school them, you're not a qualified trained professional.

During the wildfires a few years ago, several people defied evacuation orders and stayed to defend their own homes. While there are, at times, tragic consequences to someone taking the initiative, many admire them for their courage. While I'm not recommending that you fight a wall of flame with a garden hose, I have always believed that this courage has always been part of what makes we Americans who we are. It is part of our heritage.

My family left Scotland in the 1840's, with nothing more then they could carry, and moved the family to America. They then embarked on a 2,000 mile wagon train trip to California. They had no supermarket to shop for food. They hunted for it and fed themselves. They had no police to protect them; they protected themselves. Everyone was armed, yet there were no mass shootings like we see today.

When my ancestors arrived in this land, one of the first things they purchased was a firearm. Something not allowed in Scotland, but a cherished right in their new home. To understand this, one only needs to look at the Highland Clearances in Scottish history. It was considered an essential part of the equipment necessary to survive the coming trip West.

Firearms have always been in our home. My father hunted, not for the pleasure of killing animals, but to stock the freezer for the coming winter. I have not hunted in years, yet I find comfort in the knowledge of self-reliance. Once again, this ugly but necessary task, has been outsourced to ranchers and the butcher. We purchase our meat prepackaged in neat little one pound ready-to-use containers. Our produce is all neatly packaged for consumption. Not that this is bad by any means, it is just a look at how our society has come to expect it all to be done for them.

During the recent confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer, she refused to take a stand on the right of Americans to self-defense. The right to protect your family from the home intruder in the Brinks commercial is a fundamental right of all humans, not one granted by a government entity. While some may have been urbanized to the point of outsourcing your own life and personal security, many refuse to be reliant on others to do what they should be ready to do for themselves.

When an earthquake or other disaster hits, and all the food rots in supermarket freezers, those with a hunting rifle and a sharp knife will still be able to hunt for food. When many will be starving in the city, the few who have learned to be self-reliant will fish, hunt and feed their families. Today, we have a new word for that; it's called "survivalist". Instead of embracing them as being self-reliant, society looks at them as some kind of extremist.

While some may view me as a right-wing extremist, I refuse to use a GPS to find the local Starbucks. I refuse to outsource my family's security to Brinks. I will teach my kids to stand on their own and be self-reliant; to shoot, hunt, fish and build a fire without a lighter. There will always be a hunting rifle in my home and a sharp knife, along with a pistol for self-defense. Are we still those hearty individualists that made this country or has that been outsourced too?

This article was first published on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 4:08 pm. This article has been viewed 2016 times.

Dave Henderson is the Vice-President of Operations for RIMOFTHEWORLD.net and it's parent company Vicinitas, LLC. Dave is the commercial and operational manager for the site.

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