Posted on 02/02/2014 7:51:23 AM PST by SeekAndFind
America is being suffocated to death by red tape. You are about to read about an 11-year-old girl in Illinois that had her cupcake business brutally shut down by government bureaucrats. Her name is Chloe Stirling and her crime was doing something that we used to applaud young people in America for doing. Instead of sitting on her sofa and watching television all day, she actually started her own business. And it turned out there her little business started thriving. In fact, it started doing so well that a local newspaper took notice of it. Well, that is when the control freaks swooped in and took her business away and banned her from selling any more cupcakes. The really sad thing is that people are being paid to do this with our tax dollars. All over America, little entrepreneurs are having their lemonade stands shut down and are being banned from selling Girl Scout cookies, and our tax dollars are paying the people that are doing it. As I wrote about earlier this month, the level of economic freedom in the United States is at an all-time low, and it gets worse with each passing year. The country that so many of us love is dying, and it is being replaced with something that I like to call "the USSA".
In the Union of Soviet Socialist Americans, you have to have a government "license" or "permit" to do just about anything. If the government does not give you permission, you can get into a whole lot of trouble.
Little 11-year-old Chloe Stirling must have thought that this was still the nation that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson once founded, because she dared to actually start a business and sell cupcakes to the public. Little did she know that she would soon make national news...
An 11-year-old girl from Illinois got a dose of regulation American-style this week when local government officials shut down her cupcake business.
Chloe Stirling, from Troy, got the front-page treatment from her local newspaper, which featured how well her business, Hey, Cupcake, was doing. By all accounts, it was a successful little enterprise. Chloe was getting $10 for a dozen cupcakes and $2 for each specialty cupcake. She even donated her cupcakes when a boy in her school fighting cancer held a fundraiser.
So why did they shut her down?
Well, it turns out that she didn't have a "permit" to sell cupcakes and her kitchen was not "licensed".
Like I said, you have to have permission from the government to do just about anything these days.
Another example of this phenomenon that is absolutely infuriating took place out in Fauquier County, Virginia. When a mother held a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls and posted the photos on Facebook, she never imagined that she would soon be hit with $15,000 in fines...
Martha Boneta owns a small farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, where she recently hosted a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls. They wore hats, picked veggies, and made goat's milk soap. The county says she should have obtain a license before hosting such an event and hit her with a $5,000 fine.
Boneta also got slammed with two more fines for $5,000 each, one for advertising a pumpkin carving and another for violations in the small shop on her property. Boneta sells produce from her farm, as well as eggs, yarn, birdhouses, and local crafts. She sought and received a license for the shop in 2011, but the county now says she can't sell handiwork or produce from her neighbors under that license.
Stuff like this just makes me want to scream sometimes.
What is happening to this country?
A few years ago, my wife used to take old pieces of furniture, sand them down, repaint them and sell them to others. It was something that she really enjoyed doing and she made some extra money along the way.
But if you try doing that in some areas of the country today, the EPA could potentially hit you with a fine of $30,000 for a single incident in which you do not follow the proper procedures. The following is an excerpt from a discussion that some furniture painters were having on Facebook. It is a little technical, but it is worth reading. In this excerpt the identity of the business has been removed to protect the business from overzealous regulators...
As a painter in PA, I am required by law to test everything that I disturb and I must charge the customer $60 for every test I perform which adds up. What the law states in my area is that if I disturb more than 6 square inches on anything made prior to Jan 1 1979 I must test it. Disturbing means, sanding, scraping, or even using a sponge/scuff pad (like you use on your pots) if I disturb more than 6 inches, I must take photographs, document in 4 different logs, I have local, county, state, and federal log books. If I find lead then I must suit up. Originally, the law stated that if there were no children around then you didn't have to do that however some lame brained legislator decided that if a child enters the premises for more than one hour a day, we must assume they will be in contact with the lead and therefore will contract lead poisoning. Then the legislators decided that if you were over the age of 60 then it didn't matter, you didn't have to test who cares if you get poisoned. Lo and behold OSHA stepped in and joined forces with the EPA, they decided that all were at risk including your pets and the leaves on your trees can hold the lead dust and .....well, that's a whole other issue.
What is happening now is that so many painters decided they weren't going to follow the lead law, that OSHA and EPA send out secret shoppers. A lot of us don't even put our logo's on our vehicles because that invites these shoppers to investigate. If you come to the **** ********, you won't see signage on the building, you have to get to the actual door of the workroom to know we are there. We no longer have logo's on our vehicles either as the fines are too stiff. There isn't one of us that can afford a find of $30,000.00 A DAY, not a year, A DAY.
The government bureaucrats are running wild and the rest of us are just sitting back and letting it happen.
Things have gotten so bad in this country that the federal government even requires small-time magicians to submit "disaster plans" for the rabbits that they use in their acts. The following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles...
Central planning in this country is getting completely and totally out of control. These days, you can hardly do anything without running into a suffocating web of red tape. For example, a small-time magician from Missouri that does magic shows for kids was absolutely horrified when he learned that the Obama administration is requiring him to submit a 32 page “disaster plan” for the rabbit that he uses in his shows. Yes, this is actually true. His name is Marty Hahne, and he thought that it was bad enough when the U.S. Department of Agriculture busted him for not having a “license” for his rabbit. He went out and acquired the proper “license” for his rabbit, but he never dreamed that eventually he would also have to submit a 32 page “disaster plan” for the same rabbit.
You can read the rest of that article right here.
Are you starting to get the picture?
These control freaks want to completely dominate every aspect of our lives. The "nanny state" is entirely out of control and it is up to "we the people" to do something about it.
Barack Obama revealed the kind of mentality that is behind this "nanny state" when he recently made the following statement...
"I would not let my son play pro football"
And without a doubt, the control freaks that run things will try to ban football (or at least "tone it down") the moment that they think that they can get away with it.
America was supposed to be a place where liberty and freedom were maximized and the interference of the federal government in our lives was supposed to be minimized.
Instead, what we have now is just the opposite.
No wonder Americans consider the government to be their biggest problem.
Michael Snyder, the columnist, safely omits the names of the government officials involved, thus helping perpetrate the brutal clampdown.
What a wuss, leaving the children to face the government goons alone.
This cupcake venture is how businesses start up. They slowly build capital until they can afford to buy a commercial kitchen. Who has a vested interest in forcing small businesses to capitalize via a loan vs growth?
Little guy just can’t grow a business as it has been done for thousands of years. Not here. Not in “This Land Of Liberty”.
There is a strong totalitarian streak in liberalism. These liberal laws, which perhaps had the best of intentions, have the effect of forbidding a little girl from selling her homemade cupcakes. Unbelievable.
re: Michael Snyder, the columnist, safely omits the names of the government officials involved, thus helping perpetrate the brutal clampdown.
I think a few names were provided in the links of the article.
In this article for instance:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ga-police-shut-down-girls-lemonade-stand/
“Midway Police Chief Kelly Morningstar says police also didn’t know how the lemonade was made, who made it or what was in it.”
I’m going to disagree with the tone of the article and how it casts the State in this instance.
A kid has a lemonade stand 3 times a year - no problem.
Start an ongoing business, there are standards the state forces on all businesses.
That said, I hate Illinois’ punitive regime and will never again do business there. No matter what the law reads, they will take it further.
I used to travel there 4x/year. I used to have clients there. Now I avoid going to conferences there so they do not benefit from my money. You might as well donate money directly to the Demoncrats of Illinois. I no longer have clients there and will never accept one.
She needs to go undergound, man! (said with a Cheech voice)
I have considered starting a business making prototypes using a 3D printer. I am y now have to rethink that.
Don’t call Liberals liberal. That word has been hijacked by the collectivists control freaks.
Think liberal as in liberty! That doesn’t apply to them.
It was probly her chief competition, “The Grumpy ‘Ol Biddies Tarts” down the block that called the Nazies.
Small town business is cutthroat!
“We have a weapon more powerful... than any in the whole arsenal of the British Empire! That weapon... is our refusal!”
—Michael Collins
Time to ramp it up.
She was probably violating some provision of the Interstate Commerce Clause. We can’t have that now!
Guaranteed if this was an illegal alien or other Protected Minority, the Ethnic Racists groups would be out in full force claiming racism...and sales would continue
Government needs to be reduced...and neither main party is willing to do it
uaranteed if this was an illegal alien or other Protected Minority, the Ethnic Racists groups would be out in full force claiming racism...and sales would continue
Government needs to be reduced...and neither main party is willing to do it
Someone I know has personal knowledge of someone who does this. A Hispanic woman, legal status unknown, bakes bread and pastries, and makes sandwiches every day in her kitchen. She and her husband drive a food truck to sell her food at construction sites and on downtown streets at lunch hour. Nobody from the government is hassling them.
Make sure to declare it to the local tax assessor. If you don’t they will find out one day and “assess” the value at $100,000 and tax you on that until you prove otherwise. Believe me. I know first hand. The county hires liitle fat thugs and let them run wild on the shops out here.
Start an ongoing business, there are standards the state forces on all businesses.And that right there is the biggest problem. Too many "standards" which are overbearing, costly, and in many cases unecessary.
That "totalitarian streak" was foreseen by many opponents of efforts to "transform" America from its foundations in liberty as early as the late 1800's.
Such thinkers have been exposing socialism's tyrannical principles and goals for more than a century now. Those who have understood it best declared that its policies lead to tyranny and oppression.
Yet, we have arrogant Americans, born in liberty, and viewing themselves as "intellectuals" and "progressives," who have embraced socialist ideas over the ideas of liberty and are determined to impose its deadly limitations on a once-free people.
Such limitations include those cited in the article quoted above, in almost every area of personal and national life, as well as in the so-called "progressives'" absolute determination to impose its will through ACA in support of population control.
From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), originally published in 1891, Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay:
"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON
The Obama administration, crushing one small business at a time!
Interesting. I think I know where one of those shops is. There’s a big old house that basically over the years has turned into just another smelly gift shop. They used to have really interesting stuff but no more. A friend told me that the house next door is where the interesting stuff is now but there are no signs on it. I think I’ll check it out. Now that I think of it, all the neat old antique stores around have dried up too. Curse you BO!!!! Only cheap Chinese imports for me to buy. Recreational shoppers of the world unite!!!!!
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