A Class of Criminals?
Oh April
Im not sure why April is such a popular time for the local drug addicts to trespass on our property, but for four years in a row, they keep doing it. Yesterday I was watering the garden, and a fight broke out with one addict screaming at the other for crashing his truck in the driveway. We could see smoke coming through the trees and heard a series of loud bangs. Thirty minutes of unrelenting screaming (the “men” here have such high-pitched feminine southern accents) ensued while CM and I went to sit on the front porch to get away from the yelling.
Ironically, after I told CM that it's always smart to pray for the day's unknowns, a woman came charging through our woods. I grabbed the camera, CM grabbed the gun and his phone, and off we went running down the drive to cut her off. She was running towards the road, so we knew that we could get a clear shot (with the camera, of course). As we neared the road, her pimp (or bf or both?) came speeding down the road to pick her up. At first, he saw me and thought for a second it was her, so he slammed on the brakes and reversed, only to find me taking pictures as fast as possible. Without saying anything to him, he began to talk incessantly, making excuses for what happened, "The guy was going to kill her," "She needs to get to a hospital," etc., to which I politely said, "I don’t give a shit about your problems or her, stay the fuck off my land."
At the same time, CM was recording the entire conversation, and the guy told Chris to stop filming. Obviously, CM kept recording. The guy continued rambling, so I repeated that "I don’t give a fuck about their problems, and stay the hell off my land." For whatever reason (low-class people are compulsive liars to the core), he gave a fake name, "Justin," and drove off to pick her up. He looked familiar, so I looked him up on Facebook and confirmed that his name was Cody, not “Justin.” The woman who jumped into his car (IDK who she is) also had a puppy with her, which she left on the road. It’s bad enough she ran from her responsibilities of crashing a vehicle but leaving her puppy is a testament to the barbarism these sub-humans possess. Fortunately, I was able to get several pictures of her as she got into the car.
As Cody and the trespassing woman drove away, Roy's ( the drug dealer next door), 60 some year old girlfriend, showed up yelling if we had seen the woman. Like Cody, this dim-witted old bag of opiates word vomited so much that we had trouble getting a word in edgewise. In seconds, I had had enough and lost restraint. Like I told Cody, I told her that I couldn’t care less about her problems or fight; my problem was the addicts running across my property. I mocked her as she spouted excuse after excuse like she is the victim in all of this and told her everybody knows what Roy and “them” are doing. I asked if they have mental problems that keep them from reading the “No Trespassing” signs (that’s a rhetorical question) and finished my thoughts on the matter.
If I have correctly, ID'd the woman in the truck; it is Jolena S. Her son is serving time in a local prison which she apparently is very proud of. Looking her up in the Virginia public records database, we find that she has 29 separate charges ranging from public intoxication (multiple times), forgery, assault on officers, resisting arrest, speeding, drunk driving, theft, larceny, and more. Like Roy, Jolena is a poster child for eradication efforts as she has proven, through her own choices, to be woefully unfit for society. We can also see why her son, Joe (who has tattoos all over his face) was raised by a barbaric woman who has cultivated a lifetime of criminal behavior. On her Facebook accounts (she has 12), she posts pictures of her grandkids with #blessed banners on them, pictures of “death”, flipping off the camera, drinking, smoking, etc., just an all-around "great" mother and grandmother.
No support from the community
Once I caught my breath (keep in mind this is all happening very quickly), I called the neighboring property owner to inform her that these people were trespassing and that the guy she was running from was still at large. Since the neighbor was alone at the time, it was understandable that she stayed on her porch until the men in the house came home from work. To my surprise, her “men” slowly drove through their driveway without ever getting out or looking to make sure no one was on their land, barn, or outbuildings. Just a quick glance as they drove to their house, and that was it. None of them got out to see if anyone else was there or bothered to say thanks for keeping an eye out.
The lack of any basic self-preservation or concern for their own property was surprising to me. Sure, the situation is scary and unsettling, but for fuck sake, give a shit for once and stand up for yourselves. They have had the same bunch of addicts steal things from them, so why be so complacent? It also made me reflect on the feasibility of relying on folks who live around me. If these neighbors are so laissez-faire about addicts running through their property as their neighbor is out there dealing with it, there is no chance in hell these clowns can be trusted in times of real crises. This really solidifies the feeling that each and every one of us is truly on our own out there. For those who have honest-to-God, trustworthy friends, family, and neighbors, I envy you terribly.
I think this hints at Americans not giving a shit about anyone but themselves. No one matters unless they are directly benefiting. Not one neighbor I contacted last night, keeping them abreast, was remotely interested in what was happening. Oddly enough, in past conversations, they all asked me to let them know when something happens and to keep an eye out for things, but when I do, they could not be bothered. God knows they were not going to text or call today to check in or show any gratefulness that someone was looking out for their welfare. If reciprocity is the grease that keeps a community healthy, my community is dead in a ditch.
Going Forward
Sitting down with CM and mulling over our options, I believe the most reasonable game plan going forward is to make our place as difficult as possible to access. Each time the trespassers came through our property, it was to get to the road as fast as possible, not try to break in or steal anything (at this time). Future economic or personal issues (they have plenty of both) may propel them to break in, but for now, this appears to be a situation where our property is simply in a location that they want to pass through to get to the road. Observing this, I added up the cost of installing field fencing and t-posts around the property perimeter.
The total cost from Tractor Supply would be around $5,600. This is currently financially untenable, so our plan B consists of planting multiflora roses around the border over the course of several years. The intention is slow these people down or redirect their routes around our property into neighbors’ yards. We want to make it easier for the addicts to trespass through the nicely manicured landscapes of the neighbor’s land instead of trudging through our thorny hedges. As frustrating as it is that our neighbors are complacent towards these undesirable people, we might as well make lemonade from the lemons and use their indifference to our advantage.
Regardless of the trespassers, if you think about it, it may be a good idea to get these thorn hedges established when considering how rough our socioeconomic outlook is becoming. Who knows, maybe the thorns will help repulse all the neighbors and not just the druggies someday?
Failure of Law Enforcement
We didn’t bother calling the police this time because we know they are not going to do a damn thing about it. If you recall, last year, when one of the druggies trespassed, Officer Williams responded to the call only to be heard laughing with the trespasser. Williams then called to tell me that he didn't arrest him even though he admitted to being the trespasser. Aren’t cops delightful? Speaking of incompetence, the local news reported that the head sheriff in the county near us was caught and fired for drunk driving. This was the same county sheriff's department that had officers running drugs from Roanoke back to their city to sell. Talk about winners. After so many attempts to work with the sheriff's department on finding a positive resolution, I am at the point where I believe that our taxpayer-funded pig police force is also selling drugs and benefiting from Roy's drug ring.
Personal Thoughts
One of the main reasons for writing this is also to journal my thoughts on the matter. I am quite done with dealing with nut jobs like this. I am quite done feeling like the shoe is going to drop at any moment. I am pissed that my loved ones and hard work can be taken from me in an instant all because some illiterate meth head is tweaking. How many more times will they continue to violate our rights or march over and try to shoot us? There are not many positives to living next to a drug den, but perhaps my experiences can shed some light on a bigger problem many of us face.
As our nation continues to collapse and burn (good riddance), a consequence of this process is regression toward third-world status. With this comes more crime, more dog-eat-dog behavior, and more life-threatening situations. Coming to terms with this as the natural progression of civilizational collapse, we can see that we need to be smart about how we deal with others and what steps could be taken to lessen the sting.
Culture Shock
Moving to Appalachia has been a major culture shock and one that really concerns me. Living next to people who are so different from me in every way imaginable (all bad) has opened my eyes to what is wrong with Appalachia and what can be done to save this place from extinction. I use the word extinction because that is the trajectory the people who live in this region are on.
The single greatest internal threat to the continuation of Appalachia is an entire class of people I call Low-class. I appreciate author Joel Skousen’s definition of Low-class in his book Strategic Relocation. In it, Skousen writes..."we define low class as people who have chronic bad judgment, insensitivity to conscious, and who lack the ability to sacrifice short-term cravings for long-term advantage. This form of personal corruption afflicts all economic levels though it shows up more in the poverty levels simply because chronic bad judgment almost always takes a person toward poverty.” Once again, poverty alone is not the deciding factor in Low-class status. It is the proclivity towards crime, inability to assimilate into society, and chronic bad decisions that place people in this class.
I am not sure if Skousen is aware of this, but what he is describing is known in the mental health community as Anti Social Personality Disorder (ASPD) or sometimes known as sociopathy. Nowhere else online have I been able to find anyone – professional or otherwise linking the behaviors of an entire class of people to a mental health disorder. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I am going through this so that we can bring awareness to the threat that this poses to the entire region and beyond.
Anti Social Personality Disorder has nothing to do with someone being reclusive from others. In fact, ASPD is actually one of the most dangerous mental health conditions a human can have. If one person with ASPD is extremely dangerous how much more dangerous could it be if an entire class of people with these characteristics goes undiagnosed in society? According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM5), in order to be classified as ASPD, a person must show a continued pattern of disregard for law, property, and the rights of others since at least 15 years old. They show a consistent failure to conform to laws and societal norms, chronic deceitfulness, and impulsivity without care or concern for self, others, or consequences. These people are aggressive – both verbally (yelling, screaming, and arguing) as well as physically aggressive towards others to get what they want. Perplexingly, the DSM5 states that only .6% to 3.6% of the populace has ASPD but adds that it is a condition that is oftentimes overlooked and undiagnosed. When you overlay the characteristics of people with ASPD and the behaviors (and crime rates) of Low-class people, the similarities are a perfect match. This is precisely why I believe this frequently overlooked and undiagnosed mental health condition is the single greatest threat to the entire region.
What this means for current and future societies
Take a moment to let this all sink in. What I am concluding is that not only are some individuals in Appalachia genetically predisposed to a life of crime and chaos, but an entire class of people. This is staggering and, if true, which I firmly believe it is at this point, it is a monumental threat to the health and well-being of everyone else. Who are these people, though? What does a Low-class person look like in Appalachia? Well, as we briefly described earlier, people with ASPD make chronic bad choices that lead to extensive criminal records.
They are violent and aggressive not only through words but also actions. They are quick to fight, lie, cheat, steal, and break societal laws. They are usually living close to or below the pov