Where I live they tried to force people to get a permit to have a garage sale. You would need to purchase permission from the government to sell your own stuff on your supposedly although we all know better property. Enough outraged letters and emails (including my own) persuded them not to.

Seriously, though, I think of kids selling lemonade as an American institution. The Simpsons, Calvin and Hobbes — it’d be an insult to your cultural heritage to let it be prohibited.

Second, while investigating the Patriot Act is important, I take the bloviating of politicians second to actual day to day impacts on people’s lives: like kids lemonade stands and people wrongly sentenced to die. Even as someone living in DC, marinating in the political culture, I think that we spend too much time on relative abstractions and not enough on actual results. Radley asks you to think of the morality of actual situations instead of another BS article about “thinking of the children” and “protecting our streets from drugs.”

#10 | anonymous | August 3rd, 2011 at 11:42 am

Do you support lemonade stands when they are prohibited by a private contract?

privatopia.blogspot.com/2011/03/kids-lemonade-stand-curtailed-by-their.html
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Kids’ Lemonade Stand Curtailed By Their Homeowners Association

I support the right to form contracts, so I guess I can have no objection. But I won’t live in a place with a Homeowner’s Association.

It’s not anything the previous owner did or didn’t do that a prospective owner is agreeing to. It’s that when the property was subdivided, those covenants were written into the very existence of that particular lot, and the lot cannot be owned by anyone ever after without agreeing to those covenants.

Anonymous, you’re still trying to trap people. The idea that private contracts should be enforced is certainly in accordance with libertarian principles. The idea that restrictions can be placed in perpetuity on a piece of property is not so clearly libertarian.

@ #23: Of course Brandon’s loaded question was intentional. So what? He didn’t prove any point, nor was he being clever. He was just asking a loaded question. I’m not even sure what your point is.

1. Brandon’s loaded question was intentional, to prove a point
2. It should not be taken seriously
3. Therefore, anonymous is a troll

I don’t get it.

@ #24: Are we at least agreed that H.O.A.s are a libertarian form of government; i.e., governance by private corporate contract is a libertarian ideal?

Banks spend a ton of money on foreclosed properties to keep them compliant with the local HOA rules.

The only question is, who will shut us down? The HOA president or the golf course?

I’m pretty sure the loaded question from Brandon was intentional, to prove a point regarding your demand for a simple “yes” or “no” answer. I’m hard pressed to wonder how any reasonable person could think he was serious, so I can only conclude that you are a troll.

I would advise others to stop feeding him.

Your logical fallacy is known as “the loaded question.”

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html

In my question @ #10, I was asking about a real world example of a libertarian form of government cracking down on a children’s lemonade stand, enforcing some document called a contract.

Your hypothetical question presupposes that the respondent has inappropriately touched children.

You’re also equating libertarian philosophy about private contracts with child molestation.

****ing sick.