A Sad Update

I recently posted an article about a friend of mine who owned a local restaurant. He was being harassed by the city on the grounds that because he didn't have the correct signatures, from the right people, on the right form, his restaurant was unsafe to eat in. You can read more about it below.

I'm sorry to say that his restaurant has gone out of business as of the new year. While I can not directly attribute this to the actions of the city, as many other small businesses and restaurants have also recently closed their doors, I can state unequivocally that the city drove away customers, cost him revenue, and increased his operating expenses with their harassment and bureaucratic entanglements.

They never asserted that his restaurant was inherently unsafe or that he was engaged in some unhygienic practice. Their complaint, from the beginning, was that one signature he obtained from one contractor doing construction on his building was invalid because that contractor had allowed his license with the city to expire. Because of that, they hung signs in his windows informing the public that it was unsafe to eat there, driving away his custom.

This is the end result of the state. Empty buildings. Locked doors. Dark storefronts. Their actions result in failure, deprivation, and ultimately death.

I am not exaggerating here. This was the death of entrepreneurialism. This was the death of opportunity. This was the death of capital. This is the state in it's purest form.

The state can only manifest itself in death. It can not create, it can not encourage, it can not be a thing of brilliance. If it could, it would not require the use of force to achieve it's ends. The state is violence and oppression and death. Those who worship the state worship these things. Those who work for freedom and liberty are the ones who truly value life.

So now, there is one more dark empty building on the roadside. Where once commerce took place, now there is only silence.

These are your tax dollars at work.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism