Tag: voluntaryism

‘Redneck Air Force’ Reportedly Steps Up After FEMA’s Lackluster Response to Helene

Turns out that even in the face of unmitigated disaster and tragedy, good men can still step up — and with some humor in their hearts, as well.

As the American southeast continues to grapple with the debilitating aftermath of Hurricane Helene, many eyes have turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to see how the government organization would respond to this catastrophe.

Helene’s damage was a multi-state affair, starting in Florida and moving up the east coast through Georgia and Tennessee, ending up in North Carolina.

And it’s in the Tar Heel State that this story of good men with a sense of humor originates.

Asheville, North Carolina, continues to grapple with the cataclysmic fallout from Helene, with much of the city still looking like a ravaged war zone, weeks after the devastating storm hit.

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FEMA abandons devastated NC town residents because it can’t drive around ‘Road Closed’ sign: ‘Nobody’s been bringing in supplies except civilians’

Residents of a tiny North Carolina town that was almost totally destroyed by Hurricane Helene have been fending for themselves after FEMA told them that a “Road Closed” sign is an insurmountable obstacle for the agency to navigate.

“FEMA called me and told me they wanted to inspect my house, then called me back to say they couldn’t drive around the ‘Road Closed’ sign. They weren’t allowed,” local Chelsea Atkins, 38, told The Post.

“You can drive it by car for sure, it’s not that bad, you just have to drive around the ‘Road Closed’ sign. I explained that to them. They said they couldn’t,” she said, recounting her maddening exchange with the embattled federal agency.

Left to fend for themselves, Bat Cave residents banded together — opening the roads and starting the arduous work of cleanup and recovery. Residents told The Post that they don’t need FEMA now — and at this point, they don’t even want the disaster relief agency to come.

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Massachusetts Marijuana Retailer Encourages Package Recycling With Discounted $4 Joint Offer

One of the state’s cannabis retailers is encouraging customers to recycle the plastic that encases certain cannabis products by offering them a $4 pre-rolled joint for every piece of packaging they return.

In the heavily regulated cannabis industry, nearly every product is required to come in child-resistant packaging that is typically made of plastic. Most of that plastic is not recyclable and ends up in the trash or tossed on the ground.

“Living in the city of Boston, I saw these [pre-roll] tubes all over the streets, they’re everywhere,” said Ture Turnbull, who with Wes Ritchie owns Tree House Craft Cannabis dispensaries in Pepperell and Dracut. “So we looked at what needed to be done, what the industry was doing to address this, what the policies around this were, and what opportunity there was for us to do right.”

Tree House’s recycling program incentivizes consumers to bring back their used packaging to the dispensary. Specifically, customers can return the plastic pop-top tubes that hold pre-rolled joints and the square-lidded containers that hold marijuana flower. For each piece of packaging customers return, they can buy a pre-rolled joint for $4—a price that yields savings ranging from $4 to $8 depending on what joint is on offer.

The brand of the pre-roll currently being offered is the company’s own Yellow Brick Road. Since May, when Tree House started the program, customers have returned more than 6,000 pieces of packaging and the company has offered an equivalent number of $4 pre-rolls.

“We literally had to put our money where our mouth is to create this incentive program because it has a monetary hit to us, but a benefit to the consumer, and that’s the only way we could actually see it taking off, to incentivize it,” said Turnbull. “This is the first try at a serious program that says: Let’s take the plastic and recycle it. Let’s take this environmental concern seriously.”

Tree House uses the recycled packaging in two ways. If the packaging is intact, it’s reused to package new products. If not, the company commissions artwork for its dispensaries that incorporates the plastic.

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Anarchy in Central Park

Politicians have big plans for us.

President Joe Biden repeatedly says, “I have a plan for that.”

“I alone can fix it,” shouted President Donald Trump.

But most of life, and the best of life, happens when politicians butt out and let us make our own choices.

Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou called that “spontaneous order.” Thousands of years later, economist F. A. Hayek added that order comes “not from design, but spontaneously.”

Did you eat a banana this morning? No central planner calculates how many bananas should be grown, who will pick them, when they’ll be harvested, how they’ll be shipped, or how many to ship. We get bananas and most everything in life through billions of individuals, planning, cooperating, and reacting on their own.

“Think about spontaneous order on a road,” says The Atlas Network’s Tom Palmer.

Right. Millions of people, some of them morons, propel 4,000-pound vehicles at 60 miles per hour, right next to each other. We rarely smash into each other.

There are rules, like “pass on the left,” but for the most part, people navigate highways on their own.

Likewise, no one invented language, but the world has thousands. “Experts” tried to invent better ones, like Volapuk and Esperanto, which supposedly would let us communicate better.

“No one speaks these languages,” says Palmer, because language evolves spontaneously. “That is always superior to top-down systems that rely on the information in one brain.”

Amazingly, my town, New York City, has twice now allowed spontaneous order that makes my life much better.

City government once managed Central Park. When it did, trash was everywhere, and most of the grass was dead.

The city then agreed to let a private nonprofit, the Central Park Conservancy, manage most of the park. Without a government plan, people came together, giving money and time to turn the park around. (Disclosure: I was one of them, and now I’m a conservancy director.)

Now Central Park is beautiful. Forty million people spend time there every year. Despite the crowds, the park works well without strict government rules.

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Innocent Grandma Arrested, Brought to Jail for Feeding the Homeless

In a logical and reasonable world, acts of kindness should be spotlighted and celebrated. Those carrying them out should be praised and their actions should set an example for all to follow. Unfortunately, however, we do not live in a reasonable world and acts of kindness are oftentimes met with force, loss of freedom, and sheer tyranny — just ask 78-year-old Norma Thornton.

For much of her life, Norma has been dedicating her time to helping those in need. As she moved from city to city throughout her 78 years on Earth, Norma would befriend the homeless population in each town and feed them. She cooks homemade meals, cleans their laundry, helps them connect with social services, and more.

For decades, Norma has improved the lives of countless individuals who have found themselves down on their luck. But when she got to Bullhead City, Ariz., all that changed. Because Bullhead City officials are not reasonable, Norma was kidnapped by armed agents of the state and threatened with being thrown in a cage — for giving hungry people food.

In Bullhead City, tyrannical officials have deemed it a criminal misdemeanor—punishable by fines and even imprisonment—to share prepared food in a public park “for charitable purposes.”

Highlighting the sheer lack of reason and logic is the “charitable purposes” portion of this ordinance. Norma could invite 150 of her friends and relatives to the park, cook for them, and feed them all and she wouldn’t be in violation of any law. But if those friends are homeless, the act becomes charitable, and therefore illegal.

Luckily, the folks with Institute for Justice have taken up Norma’s case and they are suing the city over this cruel and inhumane law.

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