Categories
ballot access

Answering Liberty’s Call

Our rights are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. But words alone don’t defend those rights; people do.

Every day our First Amendment rights to speak out and to petition are put to the test.

A little over a week ago, Dave Roland, the Director of Litigation for the Freedom Center of Missouri, got a phone call at 1:00 am. Two volunteers circulating a petition on a public street in St. Charles had been detained by police, cited for “soliciting without a permit.” The ballot measure they were petitioning for was to legalize marijuana — and tax and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco. Some of their petitions were confiscated.Dave Roland fields a question.

Roland and his wife Jenifer Ziegler Roland, the center’s executive director, went to bat for these two citizens and their constitutional rights, contacting St. Charles City Attorney Mike Valenti.

Faced with the prospect of a lawsuit, Valenti quickly dismissed the charge against the two petitioners.

“Police officers should know that this right may be freely exercised on public sidewalks,” said Mrs. Roland, “but if the police make a mistake, municipal attorneys ought to follow Mr. Valenti’s lead and correct the constitutional violation as quickly as possible.”

When a woman outside Philadelphia’s Constitutional Convention asked Ben Franklin what kind of government had been created, Franklin famously replied, “A Republic, madam, if we can keep it.”

We can keep it. Thanks to people such as the Rolands at Missouri’s Freedom Center.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

The War Against an Infant Industry

In The Addams Family, young Wednesday sets up a sidewalk lemonade stand. A Girl Scout comes by and asks her if there are real lemons in her lemonade. After double assurances, the girl says she’ll buy Wednesday’s lemonade if Wednesday buys her cookies. Then comes the kicker: “Are they made from real Girl Scouts?”

The line works, in part, because of the historical setting. There is nothing more “American” than a kid selling lemonade by her home on a sunny day.

And yet, somehow, this traditional right of American life — a rite of passage — is under attack across the nation. Selling lemonade is a “business,” you see, which requires a license, and one may only engage in commercial enterprise in areas zoned for that, and … well, you get the idea.

Bureaucrats and over-​policers feel it’s their duty to instruct the kiddies that they may only engage in nasty things like business with special permission.

Children must never see it as a right.

I know, there are problems (even in common law) about setting up a business in your home and stinking up the neighborhood or bringing in dangerous traffic. But, well, come on. Get real.

We’re talking lemonade stands!

So, a shout-​out to Dave and Jenifer Roland and their Freedom Center of Missouri, for defending lemonade stands in their neck of the woods. 

The issue may be more important than the size of the industry would suggest.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.