To all my fellow Patriots, Christians, and Constitutionalists:

We all know by now that prison time is almost inevitable for anyone with a passion for God and His truths. With the case of Terry Shiavo making headline news, we know we are seeing the onset of euthanasia in this country. With our beloved government recently paving the way for the National ID card, anyone with even an elementary understanding of Revelation knows that we are seeing the onset of the Mark of the Beast. As many of you know, I have been there and did that. I always wanted to be at the forefront of a new era, just not quite in this way.

I thought that I would take the time to share some of my new experiences with you so that when the time comes for you to go to prison too, you will benefit from my what I learned along the way. In this article, you will find creative ways to survive in a prison boot camp.

The first thing you need to realize is that there is a difference between jail, prison boot camp, and prison. Jail refers to the local county confinement center. True prison, or the Chain Gang as it is called by inmates, refers to the confinement center for hardened criminals. Prison boot camp refers to the government's grandiose idea to provide a place where "soft" criminals can learn military-style discipline and how to brush their teeth and stuff like that. Except for a month spent in the county jail, most of my experience was in a Georgia State prison boot camp. (Moreover, I had the unique privilege of seeing the inside of two facilities.) Most of my discussion here reflects my experience in prison boot camp.

I should warn you now that the system does not know the difference between a criminal and a Patriot. It is a beast slowly plodding along a path of rules and regulations. In theory, the guards are never supposed to know what you are guilty of. You could be a patriot, a child molester or a murderer. They simply might not know. And they are supposed to treat you all the same!

My journey began by being handcuffed at the courtroom and hauled to the local county jail where I was placed in a 2-man cell. These county jails are filled with all sorts of pungent odors. Since cleaning is not mandatory within each cell, you will get an array of body odors. But you will also likely notice the smell of smoke, but not the smoke of ordinary cigarettes. Within the county jail, I was subjected to rancid smoke that the other cellmates identified as crack and cocaine. Oh yes, from both my personal experiences as well as the testimonies of others in different county jails, drugs of all kinds are quite common.

To the credit of the State prison system, the prison was CLEAN. Not only was it clean of body odors -- cleaning followed by white glove inspections was a daily regiment -- but also it was clean of drugs. Any person caught with illegal contraband of any kind was severely punished!

The layout is very different too. In the county jail, cells held 2 to 10 prisoners. In the boot camps, the dormitories held about 50 prisoners (or inmates or detainees). There was a control "tower" in the center with four dormitories facing in different directions. Each dormitory was a fish bowl with a full array of windows that had to be kept clean. This allowed the guards to monitor virtually your every move. In the back of each dorm was the bathroom and showers. The bathroom itself was largely blocked off from the sleeping area with a partition with a generous walkway. Most times there were some kind of partial stall between commodes with a separate shower area. There was a separate Dayroom that was sound proofed for TV viewing, chess playing, or other activities.

For my first survival tip, I would encourage anyone facing prison time to adopt libertarian values quickly. If illegal drugs bother you, I would suggest that you change your attitude. In any kind of prison system, "snitches" are not tolerated. If you are nearly as clean cut as I am, you may be labeled as a snitch even before you get the opportunity to do so. Don't try to be someone you are not; don't try to hide the fact that you are clean cut. Adopting an "its your life" attitude helps put their minds at ease.

Personally I do NOT be concerned with the boys stealing cookies out of the cookie jar; I try to focus instead on the cookie jar itself. The mere use/abuse of drugs are not the real issue here.

On the other hand, my advice to you is that if a REAL issue comes to your attention, don't hesitate to snitch. If, for example, you learn of a plot to injure an officer, the best thing to do is to snitch! The guards will love you for it and most boot camp prisoners will see the common sense to it.

My personal rule is that I always snitch on snitches. It did not matter to me whether you called me names, back bit me, bullied me, or snitched on me. If you were harassing me, the gloves came off. On this resolve I was very up front with my fellow prisoners and I believe they respected me for it.

For most patriots, you best chance of survival is to keep your head low and simply do your time. If you don't hassle the guards and do what you are supposed to, they usually don't even notice you. But, that is not me! I probably made life a bit harder for myself than I had to. For me, it was something of an objective to be the fruit of the poison tree, or, to explain it in non-legal terms, something like a worm attached to a barbed hook. They got me, yes, but for the same reason why prisoners threw themselves into the machinery at a German manufacturing plant, it was my hopes that I would save -- or at least alleviate the pain of -- future patriots who would follow after me. If my lawsuit succeeds, merely mentioning the word 'patriot' inside of a prison should at a minimum gain you moans and groans from its officers and at best gain you a respect that will tell the guards to leave you alone!

Allow me to explain one of the ways I was more of a pain in the backside than I had to be. As patriots, we are taught to use the government's own laws against themselves and that is what I tried to do. When I first arrived, I was told that I was required to take their handbook with me everywhere until I had memorized all of the rules. When I reported back to that same officer two days later, she predictably asked me why the rulebook was not in my possession. I replied that I had read the book through and through and discovered that that rule was not in there. I then tried to explain how since the days of the Magna Charta, our laws were a binding contract defining our rights AND responsibilities for both parties. She then asked me, "Didn't I tell you to carry your handbook?" to which I had to reply "Yes." I lost that battle.

The first thing most people will ask me is "Do you get raped in prison?" My answer is "I have never seen it!" There were rumors of some consensual encounters, but for the most part in this part of Georgia, homosexuality is frowned upon and at times persecuted.

When I first arrived, I found that there was always someone in the dorm who is willing to take you under his wing and show you the ropes. Now my advice here is to be careful. Some will steer you straight, others will not. But for the most part, until the detainees have a reason not to like you, they are ok.

Of course for me, right from the start the detainees had a reason not to like me. My accent gave me away as a Yankee! I would respond to such accusations by putting my hands on my hips and declaring, "I'm not a Yankee! I am a dammed Yankee! I came and I stayed!" That usually dispersed any hostilities as we both had a good laugh.

You will find that in prison, there are many Christians. But don't be surprised that they don't act like Christians. It is typical to find a detainee praising God at a church service one moment, then cussing in the dormitory in the next. I truly believe that these people do have a relationship with God, but do not expect it to be on the same level as other members of your normal church family.

Expect conflicts. There was a fight of some sort breaking out almost every day, but do not concern yourself with these battles and they usually will not concern you.

I can almost guarantee you that unless you have one of those perfect personalities that you can blend in anywhere, you are going to have to fight sometime during your stay. At some point, someone will want to know where you fit into the prison pecking order. I have found that you always need to be ready to fight, but simultaneously you need to be willing to walk away. If this is not a lesson in liberty, I don't know what is.

If you do fight, you usually are caught and will get some kind of punishment. But I learned the hard way that this punishment is far less painful that being continually picked on by the rowdies and the repeat inmates. If the person is too large for you to fair ok in a fight, simply say, "No thanks, you are out of my weight class." Most of the other detainees will understand your fears because they have them too. Or you can try another technique, "No thanks, I don't get pleasure from another person's pain."

The unwritten rule is that if you are going to fight, you need to "take it to the bathroom." It is in the bathroom that you are at least partially obscured in view by the guards. It gives you the longest time to battle before the guards break it up. If you are unfairly matched, you can "take it to the bathroom," but then stand right at the doorway to give the guards the greatest chance of seeing what is going on.

If you do have to have a spontaneous fight, make sure it is by YOUR bunk. The same rules apply in prison as on the outside. If he comes to you, then he is the troublemaker and the guards should deal more harshly with him than you.

And most of all, don't forget to pray for your enemies! And when you are debating to fight or not to fight, ask God for that 3rd option that you don't see at the moment.

There was one time when I was getting continual mouth from another detainee. I knew that I would have to deal with it sooner rather than later and he was physically fit. I was ready to accidentally ram my head into his, but then I asked God for that 3rd option. Within a week or two, he went forward and accepted Christ. Soon after I would hear him say, "I have a lot of fun at other people's expense, but I need to stop because I am hurting people." Whoa! I told him, "Now you're thinking like a Christian!"

If you do have to fight, "be strong and of good courage." Do your best. Win or lose, you should gain the respect of others.

At one point I told someone that he had better watch what he said. He invited me back to the bathroom. I said, "Oh no, I am not going to go head to head with you. You won't know how or when I am going to attack." The fact is that there are many ways to fend off aggressors. There is the old back biting technique, the rumor mill, and the labeling technique. You could hide their boots just before they were ready to go to chow, or steal their clothes while they were in the shower. Any one of these techniques I could use, and the guy would not have known what hit him. I found I never needed to use any of these techniques; the problem quietly went away.

I also learned that I could make "friends" if I purchased cigarettes and gave them away for services or for free. I don't know if this would be every patriot's choice, but it was mine. Because most people smoked, you could find people who were willing to protect you on some level.

Most of all, make "friends" and stick by them. Don't be concerned with the little stuff. If these people are willing to show you the ropes as well as protect you from the rowdy ones, accept their kindness and protect them in return. If only Patriots could learn such loyalty on the outside, we could win so many battles that none of us would ever go to jail!