Retail warning: Government may take your generator?

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Someone told my mom (who told my wife) that retail outlets are warning purchasers of home generators that "the Government" could take away their generator for the next year if required by Y2K. This humble source indicated that this was required by law.

This has trouble passing the "sniff" test, but has anyone else heard this. Yes... I could call a couple of retail outlets... but this is easier.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), December 15, 1999

Answers

The government by Presidential order can take what ever the hell it wants to if the President declares a national emergency. The generator will just be easier to find than tuna.

-- none (none@none.com), December 15, 1999.

This sounds like someone's lame excuse for not buying a generator. "Why should I buy one, they'll just take it away for Y2K!"

Tell your mom that in addition to generators, "the Government" could also take away all the cars and everyone's homes, as well as nationalize every business.

Plus they "could" take all the guns and ammo from private citizens AND make you live in concentration camps or high school gyms (your choice). It's all true, tell her I said so. yours truely- Plonk!

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.


C'mon! This is at best a second-hand story of some half assed (sorry if I offended anyone, regardless of race, creed...never mind) clerk who has logged into this forum popping off at the mouth.

-- Mr. Mike (mikeabn@aol.com), December 15, 1999.

Here's a list of things "they" can take in case of a "national emergency"..........

PART IX---GENERAL PROVISIONS

Sec. 901. Definitions. In addition to the definitions in section 702 of the Act, the following definitions apply throughout this order:

(a) "Civil transportation" includes movement of persons and property by all modes of transportation in interstate, intrastate, or foreign commerce within the United States, its territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia, and, without limitation, related public storage and warehousing, ports, services, equipment and facilities, such as transportation carrier shop and repair facilities. However, "civil transportation" shall not include trans-portation owned or controlled by the Department of Defense, use of petroleum and gas pipelines, and coal slurry pipelines used only to supply energy production facilities directly. As applied heroin, "civil transportation" shall include direction, control, and coordination of civil transportation capacity regardless of ownership.

(b) "Energy" means all forms of energy including petroleum, gas (both natural and manufactured), electricity, solid fuels (including all forms of coal, coke, coal chemicals, coal liquification, and coal gasification), and atomic or. orgy, and the production, conservation, use, control, and distribu-tion (including pipelines] of all of these forms of energy.

(c) "Farm equipment" means equipment, machinery, and repair parts man-ufactured for use on farms in connection with the production or preparation for market use of food resources.

(d) "Fertilizer" means any product or combination of products that contain one or more of the elements--nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium--for use as a plant nutrient.

(e) "Food resources" means all commodities and products, simple, mixed, or compound, or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals, irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be put, at all stages of processing from the raw commodity to the products thereof in vendible form for human or animal consumption. "Food resources" also means all starches, sugars, vegetable and animal or marine fats and oils, cotton, tobacco, wool, mohair, hemp, flax fiber, and naval stores, but does not mean any such material after it loses its identity as an agricultural commodity or agricultural product.

(f) "Food resource facilities" means plants, machinery, vehicles (including on-farm), and other facilities required for the production, processing, distribu-tion, and storage (including cold storage) of food resources, livestock and poultry feed and seed, and for the domestic distribution of farm equipment and fertilizer (excluding transportation thereof.

(g) "Functions" include powers, duties, authority, responsibilities, and discretion.

(h) "Head of each Federal department or agency engaged in procurement for the national defense" means the heads of the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Commerce, as well as those departments and agencies listed in Executive Order No. 10789.

(i) "Heads of other appropriate Federal departments and agencies" as used in part VIII of this order means the heads of such other Federal agencies and departments that acquire information or need information with respect to making any determination to exercise any authority under the Act.

(j) "Health resources" means materials, facilities, health supplies, and equipment (including pharmaceutical, blood collecting and dispensing sup-plies, biological, surgical textiles, and emergency surgical instruments and supplies) required to prevent the impairment of, improve, or restore the physical and mental health conditions of the population.

(k) "Metals and minerals" means all raw materials of mineral origin (ex-cluding energy) including their refining, smelting, or processing, but exclud-ing their fabrication.

(l) "Strategic and Critical Materials" means materials (including energy] that (1) would be needed to supply the military, industrial, and essential civilian needs of the United States during a national security emergency, and (2) are not found or produced in the United States in sufficient quantities to meet such need and are vulnerable to the termination or reduction of the availability of the material.

(m) "Water resources" means all usable water, from all sources, within the jurisdiction of the United States, which can be managed, controlled, and allocated to meet emergency requirements.

-- sandi (sandihere@malcity.com), December 15, 1999.


actually its kind of interesting. I'm starting to here more of these bits of Y2K folklore off the net from people I meet and talk to

more and more of these kinds of bizarre half-truths are actually surfacing in casual conversation.

I had to field a phone call from my son's wife who said her mother told her that "the army can confiscate your food!"

I told her that , yes, the army "could" confiscate your food, but things would be pretty bad to get to that and besides, they would probably raid the food processing plants and food chain warehouses first.

It's interesting what people decide is true or not.

The fact that "stories" like this are circulating does not mean they are "true", but the stories circulate nonetheless.

however, the basic premise of the story is based on a sort of truth., or several sorts of "truths" that have been selectively edited to form an opinion. I'm sure this has to do with rumors of martial law and some sort of thing Clinton signed (Emergency Executive orders..?)this summer.

It's sort of like playing telephone and passing something on to someone and seeing how it gets altered and twisted to something quite different. Few people bother to check out a story back to its source.



-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.



thanks sandi-
that was exactly the bit I was thinking of.

Depending on your point of view, there's no point to buying anything for Y2K because if there's a national emergency, the government will just take it all.

As an aside to the initial post, all the stores in my area (Chicago) have signs posted that Generator Sales are Final, no returns or refunds

Why would a "retail" business warn someone not to buy one of their generators?

but as I mentioned earlier, (and 'sandi' referenced), "the Government" COULD do just about whatever it pleases if it declares a "national emergency".

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.


"C'mon! This is at best a second-hand story of some half assed (sorry if I offended anyone, regardless of race, creed...never mind) clerk who has logged into this forum popping off at the mouth."

Clerk? CLERK!? Yo mama.

I'm a GI from mid-1998. I'm well aware of the "Executive Order" issue. Was just wondering. Anyway, my DGI wife "took it to heart", so it was as good as true for my house. Like I said, I didn't think it passed the "sniff" test...

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), December 15, 1999.


plonk, do you know if we could have a national emergency with out having martial law declared? Or, if there's a difference?

Here's a source link for my post.

http://www.fema.gov/library/eo12919.htm

-- sandi (sandihere@mailcity.com), December 15, 1999.


The odds of any government entity taking ones food is next to zilch. It cannot violate health standards. These stashes are okay for ones personal use as the owner but is not fit for a government hand out. People have reported finding rat nests made of raisins, mealy bugs in pinto beans, people have removed food (Thus touching it with their hands) from packaging for their own "long term storage," and in my case I've rescue animals climbing all over it. That is a big no-no for any government, local or federal, to feed to the public. The law suits slapped against itself would be staggering by those fed public- survivors. It hasn't any law suit against itself for not feeding the public. This is America, a capitalist society, and one is on ones own to sink or swim.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), December 15, 1999.

Sandi -

Good question and another for Plonk -

It is my understanding that there can be a Federal Emergency declared which enables Clinton to call out the National Guard to aid. This has been used for hurricanes, floods etc. in the past. What I have seen referred to recently - (post on Dec. 28 martial law is one) FEMA under the auspices of a different EO - (does anyone know the EO number?). This EO gives FEMA "permission" to declare a CIVIL emergency nationwide, which in turn bypasses the Posse Committas laws and allows them to use the regular military as well as the National Guard to aid the civilian authorities. Supposedly this was set up this way to let the military help with biochemical and nuclear terrorism incidents. Clinton can call a Federal Emergency but can only use the Nat'l Guard but FEMA can declare the Civil Emergency and all troops from the Army etc. can be used in a domestic situation.

That is what is so scarey to me about all this stuff floating around about the 28th of December. FEMA declaration that Ashton and Leska posted, opening of the $50mil Y2K monitoring center, NY National Guard on 24 hour availability call - starting the 28th of Dec., Clinton supposedly addressing the nation on the evening of the 28th. And to top it off, my husband tried to take the 28th off - to add a day to his Christmas holiday and regular days off and no-can- do says the Captain - sheriff has said no days off 27Dec. thru 7 Jan. Add it all up. Guess we'll know 2 weeks from today!

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.xnet), December 15, 1999.



Plonk & Sandi: Back in my youth we had American-Japenese "relocation camps". If FDR can do it in a national emergency what is there to stop the current leadership if things go to a 6 or greater?

-- Neil G.Lewis (pnglewis1@yahoo.com), December 15, 1999.

I'm sorry Valkrie, your additional question was.....?

anyways, to answer "sandi":

I don't know.

I can't comment with any authority on whether a "National Emergency" can be declared without declaring marital...I mean martial..law first or at the same time.

But now that I've stated that I really know nothing, I'll speculate :^ )

If NYC or Chicago had some huge problem locally I believe "martial law" could be declared for an area with a defined boundry that is within the limits of the Federal Government to control.

Curfews are set and enforced
ingress and egress are controlled
(insert other control stuff here)

Now if "martial law" was to be declared across the country how the hell would they enforce it?

How would they enforce it here in Evanston, IL?
and everywhere else across the US? at the same time?

I'd like to see a plausible scenario on where all these trained enforcers will come from.

Until I see such a scenario or explanation, I think that a "National Emergency" could be declared without imposing Martial Law.

We live in a Capitalist society. As I mentioned in the first post I made to this thread, the government "could" do just about anything it wanted. But if you think the government is just itching to take everything from everyone and control them like puppets (hmmm wait a minute, they sorta do this anyways....oh well), then the US starts becoming a communist state (yeah? no?) .

oh dear..now I'm tired and rambling about stuff I know nothing about, so its time for me to shut up and go to bed.

nite all

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.


I know cops and military peoples from years back...they have families and kids and freinds. Does anyone REALLY believe that All of these military and police would risk their own families to uphold a martial law imposed by the Gov? And the idea that mercenaries and the U.N. might come and hold that pin in is not too bright...if Y2K were that bad, their own countries will be in as dire straits as ours....

Anyway. That's what booby traps and hidden caches are for. Can't find it all and unless they want a civil war, they better not start looking. Remember Vietnam? And they didn't have near as nice of weapons as the average 'survival nut' does. food fro thought.

-- Satanta (IrreparableDam@ge.com), December 16, 1999.


I've said it before and I'll say it again. "THEY WILL GET MY GENERATOR WHEN THEY PRY MY COLD-DEAD FINGERS OFF THE STARTING CORD"

-- John Malone (paranoid@mybunker.com), December 16, 1999.

John...~LOL~ "I'll give 'em my generator pointed end first"

Actually, I'd be happy to let them have it...after I run out of juice for it! };-]

-- Satanta (WhereisSuperm@nNow.com), December 16, 1999.



Paula, I hate to say it, but your logic is tantamount to saying that you can stop a streetfight by pulling out a set of Marquis of Queensbury rules.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), December 16, 1999.

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