Steyn: Oppressed Kids Should Form The Lemonade Party

The brilliant Mark Steyn has done it again. While guest hosting on Rush’s show, the columnist to the world calls on children to rise up against their nanny state overseers and form The Lemonade Party in reaction to widespread police shutdowns of lemonade stands.

Reason magazine has a vid, posted below, describing how the Lemonade police are putting the squeeze on kids’ dreams nationwide by charging them exorbitant sums for licensing.  Think about this: In some parts of the country, kids need no less than three permits and $500 in fees in order to operate a lemonade stand – more than they’d be likely to make selling in the sun all summer long.

Underlying Steyn’s sarcastic remarks is a bit of a point, per usual: We are destroying the American dream – our kids’ dreams – with all this nanny state nonsense.  So what if a kid wants to open a lemonade stand, an act of entrepreneurial innovation that should be worthy of commendation?  Why do we assume that businesses will poison their clients in the absence of state supervision, as if criminal and fiduciary penalties weren’t disincentive enough not to do so?  Why? Because government is a racket, and now it’s  coming down not only on us, but on our kids. When the laws become not only oppressive but absurd, that is when the state is treading dangerously.