You know, I once thought up a funny sketch comedy about a girl’s lemonade stand being shutdown by an overzealous police officer because she lacked the proper business permit. He would walk up to the sweet little girl and demand that she show her permits and that her lemonade meets health code standards. When the little girl would simply respond that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about and offer him some lemonade, the officer would then pull out his baton and proceed to demolish her stand with the little girl running off covered in lemonade and tears.
Kind of a dark sketch really, but if done right it could’ve been funny. Unfortunately, these days it would probably have been a better tragedy:
The little girl here has learned a valuable lesson in free markets and the government’s relationship to it: that no matter what you do, you will always face some puffy bureaucrat with nothing better to do than to harass you.
I think it’s noble that she went before city hall in order to plead her case. In my view, this little girl was not harming anyone, learning a valuable lesson about hard work and the rewards you reap, and she was providing a service to her community. The local government there shut her down, however, because they were bored with their pathetic lives and probably wanted this controversy in order to put themselves on the map.
This is how government operates. It doesn’t matter what you do, there will always be some college reject or high school dropout with the full force and authority of government to harass and attempt to shut you down. This is where the Utopias that all Statist ideologies lead to: a government that harasses children and encourages them to be deadbeats.
Daniella Earnest has learned a tough lesson here. I truly hope that she doesn’t become discouraged by the foul behavior of her local government and moves forward. I hope she learns that failure is nothing more than a setback and that if you work hard enough, you will be rewarded in the end.