From Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic, writing about the anti-business mindset in towns around the nation.
The normal mindset among U.S. officials is that prior permission should be required to sell legal goods to a willing buyer. Kids selling lemonade on the street are shut down. A Missouri man has been fined $90,000 for selling rabbits (he made about $200). In Illinois, an artisan ice cream maker is being shut down for lack of a dairy permit. Manuel Winn was arrested, handcuffed, and booked for selling magazines door-to-door without a permit. A Maryland mother of three was arrested for selling $2 phone cards without a license. Lots of municipalities are going after food trucks. A group of Louisiana monks had to go to court to win the right to sell simple wooden caskets to consumers.
Upon poking into this, I discover that many of these laws are enacted by by politicians who were elected on the basis of encouraging business growth. Like Rick “Goodhair” Perry.
Perry campaigned in Texas under the slogan “Texas open for business.” But actual reality is, these folks only want ONE kind of business, and that is BIG business. Huge corporations.
The average Joe can go fuck himself is their mindset, while allowing Big Business to bugger everyone else.