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Author: Remso Martinez

Lobbyists: “West Virginians Are Heavier, Can Handle More Pollutants”

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Consumer Protection, Environment and Energy, Issues, News. 1 Comment on Lobbyists: “West Virginians Are Heavier, Can Handle More Pollutants”

The West Virginia Manufacturers Association (WVMA) who throw massive money into state elections – in order to curry the favor of politicians – don’t appear to think much of the people of West Virginia. In a recent statement regarding the fight to lower water safety standards, they had this to say about a specific Obama era Department of Environmental Protection ruling:
“They argue that the EPA encourages states to incorporate state-specific science, and that because West Virginians are heavier, their bodies can handle more pollutants, and that because they drink less water, they are less exposed to the pollutants.”
This problem has plagued the government at every level for decades: big business tries to get in bed with big government. Big manufacturing lobbyists during the Obama Administration got together with the EPA to develop regulations that would allow businesses to pump more pollutants into water sources than the previous administration. Because of that, the WVMA got mad because the federal government made wanted to make changes that went opposite of their own standards, which they published another response:
“Changing one of the factors changes the ultimate criterion. For example, the calculated criteria could be higher in states where the amount of water people drink less than the national average that the EPA used in developing default criteria. In the case of the WVMA work, experts are not looking at body weight or water consumption, but are evaluating several other factors, primarily trophic levels of fish consumed in West Virginia and confirming that the cancer slope factors and relative source contributions are consistent throughout West Virginia’s environmental programs.”
The WVMA agreed that the people of West Virginia are of wider girth perhaps, but they don’t want to have to incorporate that into their research regarding state water carcinogen levels. Whether you are environmentally conscious or not, I think it is safe to assume that none of these people should be saying what level of carcinogen level is safe. This is less of an environmental problem and more of a crony capitalism issue in which powerful special interests want to decide how much cancer-causing pollutants are safe enough for you to drink.

Texas Won’t Fine Kids Operating Lemonade Stands Anymore

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Children's Rights, Economic Liberty, Issues. No Comments on Texas Won’t Fine Kids Operating Lemonade Stands Anymore

There is an ongoing war in America, in which dangerous youngsters are setting up unlicensed drink dispensaries in suburban neighborhoods across the country, and getting paid in untrackable stacks of change in exchange for a potentially dangerous substance: lemonade. That’s right America, for years state governments have been arresting or issuing fines to kid’s lemonade stands, from shutting down stands in Denver and even all the way to Albany. This issue became such a national epidemic, the lemonade cartel Country Time even stepped in so they could bail out their underage lemonade pushers. Now, the state of Texas has decided to surrender in the war on lemonade stands by deciding just to legalize them – how disgusting of them. I may have been joking at first, but the real punchline in this whole debacle is that legislators across the country decided to lump lemonade stands run by children into the same category as food providers and vendors in the first place. Texas, however, decided to get smart after national media coverage of cops shutting down a lemonade stand in the town of Overton by two sisters, who were saving up $100 to surprise their father with theme park tickets for Father’s Day. According to TheHill, “The bill, sponsored by Texas Rep. Matt Krause (R), legalizes temporary lemonade stands and other stands selling nonalcoholic beverages operated by minors on both private property or public parks…The measure overturns a ban from the Texas Food Establishment over health concerns from homemade drinks.” If you think that the need for this bill caused by ridiculous government interference in the first place shows that the regulatory state has gone far enough, Texas Governor Greg Abbott agrees with you. Abbott went on Twitter regarding the passing of the bill and stated: “it’s a shame that a law for this was even needed.” Texas follows other states like Colorado and various localities across the nation who are getting smart about the dumb war on lemonade stands. The issue at the heart of this faux-crisis is less about kids selling drinks, and more about the government killing the spirit of entrepreneurship. In 2018, Annabelle Timsit at Quartz wrote perfectly that “Lemonade stands are the ultimate symbol of American entrepreneurship. They represent both the ingenuity and free-market mindset of this country’s young people.” The next time you see a lemonade stand in your neighborhood, go over and buy a drink for our future’s sake.
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Think Before Regulating Social Media

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in First Amendment, Personal Liberty. No Comments on Think Before Regulating Social Media

A recent article at Mother Jones said something I’ve never thought of before. “…[In]…the case of social media platforms, their power is over the currency of democracy: information.” The article went on to discuss how platforms like Facebook and Twitter have left us worse off as a society since their inception. Regardless of your views, the one fact that many so-called experts, pundits, and politicians ignore is that social media is based on voluntary association. Twitter The biggest monopolies of information, coercion, and force in the world are the government that you simply can’t opt out of. After all, how many people go to jail each year for not completing their “voluntary” income tax? After the recent mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand have joined forces in developing a plan to propose to the G20 which would enact severe, Orwellian restrictions on social media and the internet as a whole. Reddit and 4Chan have already been banned in Australia and New Zealand since the shooter is believed to have been radicalized based on content he engaged with on those platforms. Journalists and internet activists are already being charged and hunted by law enforcement in those nations if they have in their possession the banned video of the shooter’s live-stream. It recently came out that the website Zerohedge, a non-partisan news aggregate that is known for covering stories regarding online censorship, ended up getting censored themselves in New Zealand for their coverage of the Christchurch shooting. Social media critics on the right are going after organizations like Facebook and Twitter for what they have labeled monopolies and “pseudo-public commons.” At the same time, critics on the left are accusing the spread of “fake news” and growth of alternative and independent media as a threat to democracy. It seems that critics on both sides are calling for social media regulation either nationally or internationally. This dangerous gamble would take the freedom that is found on the internet and cause the opportunities of millions to freely communicate and disseminate information to suddenly fall into the open chasm of totalitarianism that would use this possible mandate to further their reach and control. Companies like Facebook and Twitter would likely be there at the negotiation table to help draft the rules, thus writing the death sentences of competition such as sites like Gab and Minds. While businesses and organizations make concessions all the time to consumers, history has shown that once governments take power from the people, they very rarely give it back. The golden age of the internet might not be at the point of which it was in the 1990s but all freedom loving people should be wary of cries for control over the ultimate mechanism of freedom that humanity has ever known.

Farewell to Vaping in San Francisco?

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Drugs, Economic Liberty, Personal Liberty. 1 Comment on Farewell to Vaping in San Francisco?

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” progressive patriarch and late President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said. What a world we live in where we literally fear what we don’t know, and then ban it or regulate the living daylights out of it so we’ll never know what we are actually afraid of. This mindset seems to be in vogue in San Francisco where they are covered in poop and are banning electric scooters. The progressive city plans on following up with all that progress by now proposing a ban on vaping. Politically moderate Virginia raised the age to purchase e-cig and vaping products while at the same time the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  has ignored evidence that shows that vaping isn’t dangerous at all It only makes sense that San Francisco would join the anti-vaping hysteria caused by big tobacco. Slate covered the widely unpopular proposal, in which contributor Shannon Palus correctly pointed out that the unintended consequences of this law would actually create another issue entirely. “The problem with the proposed ban,” Palus said.  “Is that it wouldn’t just keep vapes away from teens; it would also keep them from an essential audience: adult smokers.” Research has shown that e-cigs/vaping has caused a massive reduction in the overall population of adult smokers who thanks to this technology, are no longer at as high of a risk of cancer caused by the burning of tobacco (a carcinogen) and the other poisonous agents used as ingredients in cigarettes. Palus continues, “In the end, the proposal raises the question: Why not just add old-fashioned cancer-causing cigarettes to the list of things not allowed in San Francisco too?” The answer is that it has never been about public safety, just about virtue signaling in order to tap into the public fears over teen vaping usage in order to score political points. After all, the article states, “The lawmakers behind the San Francisco proposal say they just want the FDA to move faster on evaluating e-cigarettes’ role in public health. It’s true that the FDA has not vetted e-cigarette products—but it has a plan to do so by 2022.” Therefore it is a win-win for progressive lawmakers in San Francisco. They appear to be leading the effort to save kids and show leadership, and even if nothing dangerous is found by the FDA, they still get to say they were doing it for the safety of children. This is a political act, plain and simple, and because of this, adult smokers with addiction will fall back to cancer-causing cigarettes and consumers will have less market freedom because of policies backed by fear mongering.

Race Reparations Won’t Fix Racial Inequality

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Elections and Politics. No Comments on Race Reparations Won’t Fix Racial Inequality

When I ran for student council in the fifth grade, my opponent said if she won, she would take the entire class to Disneyland. Was that actually something some fifth grader was capable of when our real job was to vote on party themes and fundraiser ideas for school supplies? No, but she said it because who could really stop her? The teachers could jump in and say that wasn’t going to happen, but in everyone’s mind, she was fighting for them, so what was there to lose? I certainly wasn’t promising Disneyland. A decade later and there are still folks who are making promises –  from dog catchers running for re-election to first-time candidates for president of the United States – racial reparations are as practical and possible as Trump’s wall or that fifth grade trip to Disneyland. Pitching an idea that even Bernie Sanders thinks is way too out there is saying something, but Democrat candidates such as Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Julian Castro are trying to outdo each other with the promise of monetary reparations for descendants of African slaves. This isn’t a new idea, but the fact that not one but several presidential candidates are advocating for this is disturbing. It’s pandering for votes. America has paid for the sins of its past in blood to abolish slavery, and brave free men and women fought in the courts of law and public opinion during the Jim Crow era to ensure equality before the law. Many generations removed from slavery, the goal of those alive now should be to encourage the growth of freedom and access to opportunities so the next generation can live the lives we would want them to. While the concept of monetary restitution for descendants of African slaves is a grand, utopian concept with no real plan of action nor chance of actually happening, there are actions that can be accomplished right now that can benefit those craving a better life for themselves and their posterity right here, right now. Eliminating Affirmative Action would end the legalized racism that is currently part of the college admissions process, meaning people can earn the education their desire at the institution of their choice based off the merit of their work ethic and widen the opportunity of acceptance for those who Affirmative Action tilts against. Also allowing for the expansion of school vouchers will force schools to compete for students by raising the standards they hold themselves to so our children receive the best education and care possible since teachers and staff would be incentivized to perform better than they currently are. Lowering barriers to entry would provide free people self-determined to provide a livelihood for themselves the opportunity to find work by eliminating the rigged system that is occupational licensing. Everyone has the right to work, and the best-guaranteed income is a job, plain and simple. Finally, equality before the law must be upheld and protected. The racist war on drugs was created to effectively target the black community, and the justice system systematically imprisons blacks over whites for the exact same crime. By allowing people to live free instead of in cages should be a cross-partisan issue. The Democrats are promising the grand plan for the reason President Lyndon Johnson created the Great Society initiative in the first place –  to guarantee the black vote for generations by making them choose between the dangers of liberty or the mental slavery of dependency.

Kirsten Gillibrand’s Misguided Gun Control Argument

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Criminal Justice, Gun Rights, Property Rights, Second Amendment. 2 Comments on Kirsten Gillibrand’s Misguided Gun Control Argument

I’m not going to talk about the recent mass shooting, because instead, I want to talk about all mass shootings. Every child in a classroom, every pedestrian on the street, every member of a church, mosque, or synagogue praying…I’m talking every person unjustly murdered by madmen. No acts of violence are ever an excuse to limit the natural rights and freedoms of law-abiding, innocent people. Recently, Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand unleashed a fiery argument after the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, advocating for more firearm laws including universal background checks for all firearms sales in the United States. It’s hard to debate someone whose entire argument consists of statements that are factually incorrect.  At one point, the Senator claimed American gun manufacturers make assault weapons which they then plan to sell “to a teenager in a Wal-Mart.”   The federal government outlawed the manufacturing and sales of fully automatic firearms decades ago by passing the National Firearms Act. Moreover, no gun manufacturer or lobby has ever suggested selling guns to anyone on the terror watch list, however many do in fact question the validity of Democrat  “no-fly, no-buy” legislation since it would restrict the access to firearms of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime. Representative John Lewis of Georgia was on that list during the civil rights movement for political reasons. Martin Luther King Jr. was also on a no-fly list because of his political activities, which is why he was denied a concealed carry permit.  As commentator Larry Keane at Ammoland recently stated, Kirsten Gillibrand is entitled to her opinions, but “not entitled to her own facts.” Throughout history have used systems like this to coerce the populace, disarm them, and then inflict violence on an unarmed people. American history has shown a well-armed population is essential to liberty, and in the past century access to firearms benefited black Americans during the Jim Crow era, allowed for the peaceful return to law and order in Athens, Tennessee during a political coup, and many other examples. Kirsten Gillibrand is entitled to her beliefs, but the right to effective self-defense is vital to the preservation of liberty.

The Mayor of Flint Just Got a Raise That Will Make Your Blood Boil

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Business and Economy, Economic Liberty, Economics, Issues, News You Can Use. No Comments on The Mayor of Flint Just Got a Raise That Will Make Your Blood Boil

America was heartbroken as an issue we typically associate with developing nations hit us at home. Children with red teeth were shown across cable news because the only way they were able to drink the water from the local river was if they mixed it heavily with Koolaid. Men and women showed heinous rashes across their bodies because of the harsh chemicals and dangerous metals in their shower water. Now the issue of the Flint water crisis is out of the headlines, but the people who first decided to switch the city water supply from the Detroit to the polluted Flint river are still around and kicking in city hall. Recently, the Mayor of Flint was given a raise which was seven times higher than the current income level of the city even though the problem of the tainted water still hasn’t been resolved. The Libertarian Republic recently stated that “Flint has a per capita income of $16,554, according to Census figures, meaning Mayor Karen Weaver will now be making between seven and eight times as much as an average constituent in the 100,000-person city.” Three years after the news broke out of the water crisis, the federal government pumped around $100 million towards efforts to fix it. The city in which most of the taxpayers live below the poverty line could have spent the money on more responsible projects, but instead, the city council overwhelmingly voted “yes.” Flint Councilman Maurice Davis lashed out at criticisms of the raise stating “You get what you pay for… How dare you try and deny the mayor an increase in her pay?” Maybe the Mayor was putting in enough work to warrant a raise, but seven times the average income that her constituents earn at least deserve for all the city council members to show up at least, which a number of them didn’t on the night of the vote. Many of the Council members currently serving – as well as numerous state and local health commission employees – were active participants in the Flint water crisis, with only a handful of them ending up charged with manslaughter for the deaths that resulted because of the poisoned water. Though Flint received $100 million from the federal government, a group of activists has continued to sue the feds for upwards of a billion dollars on the grounds that federal executives should have forced state officials to lose their jobs as a result of this crisis. Three years later, concerned citizens are still trying to seek some form of restitution for their suffering caused by people that ignored the well being of the least among us.

Giving the Cops the Finger is Constitutionally Protected

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in First Amendment, Personal Liberty. 1 Comment on Giving the Cops the Finger is Constitutionally Protected

Turn on the news, check out Twitter, and every so often there is a  story about someone getting a traffic ticket and then the situation escalates. When those situations escalate, someone is either arrested, tased, or shot. But what is the ultimate way to get a cop to escalate the situation after they’ve given their command? What is one action which all men and women see as the ultimate public insult? I’m talking about flipping someone the ol’bird, ladies and gents. Thanks to a recent court ruling, flipping off a cop is considered constitutionally protected free speech. A recent piece discussed that now cops can’t pull you over for giving a passerby the one finger salute, nor can they arrest you if you give them the old “George Bush.” The article discussed how this landmark decision came to be, stating that the “verdict stems from a case involving a Michigan woman, who was pulled over for speeding by the police in 2017. Rather than give her a ticket for driving too fast, officer Matthew Minard decided to show her a little leniency and issued a citation for a “non-moving violation,” which is a cheaper fine but the officer’s roadside chivalry apparently wasn’t satisfactory enough for Cruise-Gulyas, so she gave him the finger as she sped away from the scene. As a result, the officer made up a traffic ticket for her in order to teach her to respect authority. Cruise-Gulyas then hired an attorney and went to court arguing her First Amendment right gave her the God-given ability to give the “Bronx salute” to anyone she wanted – police included. As a result of her stand for all Americans, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit sided with Cruise-Gulyas. Judge Jeffrey Sutton – who presided over this case – declared that “Fits of rudeness or lack of gratitude may violate the Golden Rule, but that doesn’t make them illegal or for that matter punishable.” There you have it America. Flipping off a cop might not be the smartest thing to do, but it is well within your rights to do so thanks to one angry motorist.

Beto’s Dream of Forced National Service, Military Conscription

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Elections and Politics, Military, Personal Liberty. No Comments on Beto’s Dream of Forced National Service, Military Conscription

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is officially in the running for President of the United States. The former Texas congressman and US Senate candidate who lost to incumbent Republican Ted Cruz is attempting to run a centrist campaign by using Bill Clinton’s economic style with the social justice stances of the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party – climate change, single payer healthcare, and the other string of bumper sticker issues. However, for everything Beto says that appears to be centrist-to-moderate, he supports issues that border fringe concepts like nationally mandated “service.” While serving in Congress, O’Rourke co-sponsored and hit the media trail advocating enthusiastically for HR 3140, a bill titled as “ACTION for National Service Act” which would mandate participants to finish “term of full-time national service” an award those who complete their contract an “equal to twice the amount of tuition for the institution of higher education where the individual is enrolled, not to exceed twice the average in-state tuition.” While O’Rourke advocated for this bill from townhall to townhall, he admitted that in his heart, the bill didn’t go far enough. During a townhall appearance during O’Rourke’s senate campaign, he spoke candidly of his dreams for what HR 3140 could pave the road for- forced service for a length of, at a minimum, one year to the federal government, even in the form of nationally enforced military conscription. A report from KSAT ABC 12 documented O’Rourke’s statement:
“One last idea on this — and I’m trying to find a Republican colleague — I may have one and I hope to announce it soon — it will help me introduce this into the Congress this year, and that is a national service bill that would require every young person, no matter how wealthy or how poor, to spend at least a year of their lives in service to this country; in a military unit, conservation core unit, in a medical unit, in a teaching unit — in some way that they’re going to help make this country better and stronger and have to sacrifice together and leave that with a shared understanding of who we are as a people. And no kid is going to be rich enough to buy their way out of it.”
In a primary field full of candidates ranging in ideas from advocating for a totalitarian social credit score programs akin to that of the Chinese model to supporting race-based reparations and gun confiscation, O’Rourke and the other’s flirtation with fascism shows that their ideas will ultimately require enforcement at gunpoint.

“Social-Emotional Learning” is Bad News for Educators and Families

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Economics, Education, Personal Liberty. 2 Comments on “Social-Emotional Learning” is Bad News for Educators and Families

As if the expansion of the Department of Education wasn’t enough, in case No Child Left Behind wasn’t enough of an embarrassment, and as if Common Core wasn’t enough of a massive failure, there is a new movement to introduce a conceptually flawed system into your student’s classroom with a program called “Social-Emotional Learning” (SEL). According to Heartland Institute senior policy fellow Robert Holland, “the reality is that subjective judgments by government employees using predetermined guidelines will decide how children rate on their ideological views. SEL opens a pathway for encouraging collectivist groupthink—a socialistic mindset—in ways more stealthy than already practiced in government schools. This national commission which was led by the Aspen Institute aims to “set a clear vision that broadens the definition of student success to prioritize the whole child.” Like previous systems where big corporations and big government colluded, this is another attempt to force collectivist ideas into the classroom with the ultimate aim of having it spread to influence the behavior of the family unit. What was already seen during the hay day of Common Core was school officials punishing students who did not take part in intrusive and wasteful standardized testing. Common Core also took away control of the classroom from teachers and gave them to employees of companies like Pearson in order to grade the computerized tests, meaning teachers had no input or knowledge as to what was actually occurring. It wasn’t until parents and students from across the political spectrum and around the country started staging walkouts that states began to defund Common Core implementation in their states. With SEL, students would be taught (what the government and Aspen thinks as proper) “skills, attitudes, character traits, and values to succeed in school, careers, and life.” Holland sums the case against SEL perfectly, stating “The whole child movement depends on the raw exercise of totalitarian power to erase parental rights. To thwart it, parents must gain the clout to select schools that respect family values and help children become well-rounded, independent-thinking individuals.” Therefore the question remains: Would you feel comfortable with Donald Trump telling your kids how to properly live their lives? What about Barack Obama? This system, if implemented, would take more power away from educators, families, and students, thus bringing in an insidious opportunity to indoctrinate your kids into believing certain beliefs, standards, or systems that go against your role as a parent and beliefs as an individual.

The Chinese Social Credit Score is Preventing People From Escaping

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Issues, News, Personal Liberty, Property Rights, Uncategorized. No Comments on The Chinese Social Credit Score is Preventing People From Escaping

In a world where reality is stranger than fiction, the bar continues to rise in terms of our darkest fears coming to life. While in the United States, the modern political discourse revolves around who should have the most power in our government, China has established a functioning totalitarian system that American media outlets – the bulwark for checks and balances over tyranny – have ignored. According to BeingLibertarian.com, the Social Credit System, which is, “a system which rates the Chinese citizens based on actions they take in their daily lives,” and assigns them a score based off of their behavior, is already preventing Chinese citizens from leaving the country. Offenses include everything from jaywalking, bad driving – casting a wide net over what is considered everything from criminal behavior to just annoying behaviors–  thus limiting the very rights we take for granted. The article continues to point out that, “in a recent report coming out of this, an estimated 17.5 million train ticket purchases are blocked due to ‘bad social credit.’” The ruling party in China hopes to have this system fully established by 2020 where penalties could even affect citizens ability to be promoted to a prominent position within companies and even be denied bank loans.” So while this system is being ignored by the mainstream media, what also is rarely discussed are the ongoing talks between Google and the communist Chinese Government to create a search engine which would also be capable of reporting the individual IP numbers to the Chinese government, thus reporting someone for doing something to downgrade their score. Systems like this are the tangled web of authoritarianism born in the minds of socialist, communist, and fascist ideologies which try to control the behavior of free-thinking individuals. Meanwhile, the few US outlets which have chosen to discuss this issue, such as the Washington Post, publish stories stating fears of the Social Credit system adversely affecting the freedom of individuals is “overblown.” In the absence of a press that refuses to shine a light on these threats to freedom, individuals domestic and abroad must arm themselves with the knowledge needed to call out acts of tyranny before their homeland begins to look more like George Orwell’s, 1984.

Wanna Start Your Own Country? Someone Near Thailand Already Has

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Economic Liberty, Personal Liberty. No Comments on Wanna Start Your Own Country? Someone Near Thailand Already Has

At some point in our lives, we have all thought, “things would be so much better if I were in charge.” Maybe you’ve even thought, “If a bunch of friends and I went to an abandoned island, we could start our own perfect civilization away from everyone.” Someone has already put this idea forward combining both aspects, but even though their “island country” might be a little (or a lot) smaller than you’d expect, it does make a big statement. As seen on the Seasteader YouTube channel, right now there is a tall spar floating in international waters near Thailand owned by activist Chad Elwartowski and his partner where they live on  a floating chunk of metal in order to make a point by showing, “my big finger…to all those out there who want to control other people’s lives through force,” adding, “You know where you can stick this.” Elwartowski has taken to documenting his experience as a Bitcoin HODLR as well as a pseudo-libertarian philosopher, as he attempts to take these ideas of self-determination and individual autonomy to new heights by seasteading. Seasteading is a concept in which there are no viable, “free” or unclaimed masses of physical land left on the planet for people to claim and begin a new life. Many wealthy individuals and academics – ranging from global warming catastrophists to free-market anarchists– see setting up artificial islands in international waters as the last true frontier for freedom. In 2017, I interviewed the president of the micronation Liberland, where we discussed the challenges of finding an unclaimed space of land, and attempting to build a country where the neighboring nations might not be too keen on having new neighbors. By seasteading, you can join a collective community far away from an established land-nation based on a shared basis of core principles, and live a life in which you have far more control over your personal autonomy compared to the typical nation-state structure. The concept of seasteading has been supported by influential individuals ranging from economist Patri Friedman (founder of the Seasteading Institute) to PayPal founder Peter Theil. This principle unites people from across socio-political and economic backgrounds by promoting the theory that free people can voluntarily come together to form a functioning community without central and collective planning. While Elwartowski’s effort may be minuscule in measure, it is big in the message it sends to central planners that men and women intrinsically have a desire for more freedom.