Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

ST. MARIES, Idaho (AP) — A group of survivalists wants to build a giant walled fortress in the woods of the Idaho Panhandle, a medieval-style city where residents would be required to own weapons and stand ready to defend the compound if society collapses.

The proposal is called the Citadel and has created a buzz among folks in this remote logging town 70 miles southeast of Spokane, Wash. The project would more than double the population of Benewah County, home to 9,000 souls.

Locals have many questions, but organizers so far are pointing only to a website billing the Citadel as “A Community of Liberty.”

“There is no leader,” Christian Kerodin, a convicted felon who is a promoter of the project, wrote in a brief email to The Associated Press. “There is a significant group of equals involved … each bringing their own professional skills and life experiences to the group.

 

Good luck with that. Getting 7000 families of people together in a demographic that encourages individuality and independence is a textbook definition of cat herding. Consider all the sub-groups, good and bad and wierd, that fall under the ‘survivalist’ umbrella – back-to-the-land folks, ‘anarchists’, christofascists, gold bugs, conspiracy theorists, christian identity, hippies, ‘anti-government’, pro-government, etc, etc – and you’d have a heck of a time finding seven families, let alone 7000, that are going to share quarters and make things work.

“Ties that bind” are formed in varying degrees of strength. First and strongest are familial or “blood” bonds. Siblings, parents and children, then weaker relations such as cousins and uncles/aunts. Next down the line would be ideological bonds such as a shared belief system (religious, political or philosophical). Next down would be the close friends..the guys you served with, childhood friends, etc. After that, casual friends and coworkers. At the bottom of the list, one step above ‘people I’m trapped in an elevator with’ is ‘people who paid an entrance fee to live in the same compound with me’. If the world truly comes to the stage that living in a Fujian Tulou improves your chances of survival, I would feel far more comfortable if that retreat were peopled with folks I loved and trusted rather than people who read the same websites I did and could afford a U-Haul.

Could such a ‘survival community’ work? Maybe. You’d have to start with a base of people who already had a well-developed sense of connection to each other…more than just ‘I love [liberty/jesus/guns/america].’ And even then, 7000 families just seems ridiculous. The Free State Project, the largest cat-herding project so far, is looking for 20000 people to commit to their cause and if you figure a family is defined as an average of three people then they too are looking for 7000 families….and theyre still coming up short and they have a much better campaign (and image) than this Citadel project.

A ‘survivalist’ community could work..heck, it already exists on some levels with just folks being good neighbors….but seven thousand families co-existing together as a unified group is just a pipe dream. Three or for families living along the same stretch of road, situated next to or across from each other, is probably about as big a ‘survival community’ as you can get without dipping into ‘Woodbury-esque‘ power games and intrigue.