The internet is a big place.  Billions of websites abound on every subject imaginable.  It’s easy to get caught up in reading about celebrities or yappy feminists or sports or other things that really don’t matter.  We hang out on Facebook and play games and read the news and it almost seems like we run out of time for the truly important things that we should be reading if we want to stay on top of what’s coming.

There’s no denying that the United States that you and your parents grew up in is a thing of the past.  Totalitarian control, surveillance, and police state…these are our new reality.  Being a conservative—at least, one that truly understands liberty and the intended limits of the federal government—means being a target; not just of the Left and their rhetoric, but of the very nation many of us have sworn our lives to protect.  For many of us, the sentence “I love my country but hate my government” has become less a running joke and more of a sad truth.  As we look around, sometimes it seems as though we are the only people who even care.  More than ever, we need to understand what is coming, and how to deal with it when it comes.  To that end, we offer a list of five websites that you need to get very familiar with.

#5 – SurvivalBlog

SB is the mother of all prepping sites.  If you want to know how to set up a garden to support your family year-round, you can find it there.  Want to know what you need to have on hand when it all hits the fan?  They have that.  You can even find legal and inexpensive ways to procure antibiotics without a prescription (Hint: It’s called Fish-Mox); there are articles on how to administer those drugs and which ones work best for what types of medical issues.  They offer a wealth of content, a list of trusted vendors and merchants (the blog owner doesn’t take advertising from companies he hasn’t personally done business with or checked out himself), and some extremely helpful resources for anyone who’s looking to prepare for disaster, from the newbie who’s overwhelmed to the advanced prepper looking to add a second floor to his underground shelter. Personally, I don’t find SB to be a daily read, but I do find myself going there at least once a week, just to see what’s new.

#4 – Reddit

If you think that Reddit is populated by a bunch of weirdos with no life, posting stupid memes and pontificating about the state of the world from their mother’s basement, you’d be partially correct.  However, reddit also happens to have extremely specialized news feeds, allowing readers to make very specific collections of topics that they want to see information and news on.  This means you can set it up to watch for news just on the Second Amendment, or abortion, or whatever other topic you think is important.  I have created a public topic collection, called a multi, for those who are interested in keeping up with things like privacy, security, conservative politics, guns, and attacks on Constitutional liberty.  (If you’d like to subscribe to my multi, you can view it here!)  The best part about reddit is that it’s constantly updating with new information.  If you want to stay on top of a situation or topic, reddit can definitely help you do that.

#3 – Mountain Guerilla

This blog is probably one of the best out there in terms of preparing both your gear and your head for what’s going on around us, and getting ready for whatever comes.  Written by a former Army Special Forces operator, his purpose is thus: “To provide realistic, proven doctrine and applications of unconventional warfare, based on the lessons learned and taught by the U.S. Army Special Forces. It is based on doctrine, adjusted as necessary (rarely), on my personal experiences.”  In short, he’s a bada**, and you need to read his blog because you will learn an incredible amount of information.

#2 – Guerillamerica

This blog is run by proud 3-percenter, combat veteran, and intelligence professional Samuel Culper.  He offers training opportunities, important news on the liberty front, and in-depth information on all things intel.  Even if you’re not into that sort of thing, you need to at the very least check out his article on how to use OPSEC with cell phones.

#1 – SHTF School

If you read nothing else on this list, you need to read this site.  Go there every day and read one article.  Selco, the writer at SHTF School, lived through the Balkan Wars, and spent over a year in a true hit-the-fan, total chaos, death and destruction situation.  He writes about his experiences as an educational exercise for people wanting to understand what really happens when everything goes down—no water, no electricity, no law and order.  What sets this site apart from others is that while most of them talk about your gear, how to set up your food storage, or how to prepare in general, Selco talks about what to do once it’s all gone to hell.  How to get supplies you need when no one has anything at all.  How to wrap your head around the fact that your next door neighbor will probably be willing to kill you to take your food and feed his family.  How to understand the dynamics of chaos and use them to your advantage.  Most importantly, Selco explains how to stay alive.   Read this, and you’ll agree with me that we as a society desperately need toughening up.

While you may read this list and think, “I’m not even remotely interested in that stuff.  Things here aren’t bad at all yet,” think about this.  Did the people fighting and dying in the Ukraine know this would be happening a year ago?  Six months ago?  Did the people who are filling the streets in Venezuela know a few weeks ago that it would come to blood?  If you want to truly understand what is coming here if things stay on this path, watch the footage coming out of Venezuela and the Ukraine. Understand that you and people like you hold the keys to your own liberty.  Not the government, not the police, not even the military.  People you thought you could depend on can be corrupted, or killed, or removed from the situation.  At the end of the day, the only person who can keep you free is you.  If, God forbid, you find yourself in a position where you have to defend your freedoms in your own homes and streets, the websites above will at least help you make sure you’re ready for whatever comes.