Licensing Gone Crazy And The Assault On Liberty: The Police Shutting Down Child Lemonade Stands And More

In Georgia, "Police told kids that if they want a lemonade stand, the stand needs to have business and food permits which cost about $50 a day. It might cost over $50 just to get the supplies let alone make the sales. I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure I don't remember making a hundred sales working a lemonade stand."

In Wisconsin, "Lydia Coenen, 10, and her sister Vivian, 9, were near their Appleton home on Sunday morning, getting ready to sell lemonade to people going to a car show. An officer then shut down the lemonade stand and said the sales were prohibited by city ordinance. The law went into effect last month and made it illegal for licensed vendors to sell food and drinks within a two-block radius of a special event."

In Maryland, "A county inspector shut down a lemonade stand run by children because it was near the U.S. Open in Bethesda."

The issue here is much bigger than police not having common sense and exercising basic discretion in enforcing these licensing requirements. It is evidence of a much wider problem.

First, if such extreme measures are being taken against children with lemonade stands, imagine the other abuses of this licensing power that are taking place with adults on a regular basis that we don't hear about.

Further, we no longer seem to have a culture of liberty, a culture where it would be unthinkable for a police officer to shut down the traditional lemonade stand of young children.

Further, we no longer seem to live in a culture of family. Young children setting up lemonade stands to put in the piggy bank, it's part of what should or could be a part of an American family upbringing.

Further, we no longer seem to live in a culture of basic sanity.

When police officers in States across the country with a straight face can shut down the lemonade stands of children, our collective national conscience should be on alert and respond with the utmost outrage. Realize that we have given government too much power, and they are abusing it. Be constantly vigilant, and be willing to fight the good fight to maintain our basic rights. Wake up! The sleeping giant of American liberty has been slumbering for too long. Take your country back, not just at the national level with politicians that make drunken sailors seem thrifty, but at the local level as well where small stories like this are evidence of a much wider abandon of our nation's founding principles and a sign of the extent of the erosion of liberty.

A news article that demonstrates just one example of the effect of licensing on an 82 year old man: http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/index.ssf/2011/01/state_board_denies_82-year-old.html Also, here is a special report from John Stossel on the insane government licensing and its interference with the right to pursue one's own livelihood:








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