Kids getting their lemonade stances shut down by government goons through the way of local regulations, licensing, and “social contract” shenanigans is one of the symptoms of following the rules, but not understanding the principles they were built upon or even the reasons for why they are a thing in the first place. One of the blockbuster hashtags from last year, #PermitPatty, is a great example of this in practice.
When the rules or laws get too specific, inflexible, and leaves no room for ordinary people to do ordinary things with good intentions, you create a divide for no other reason than to have a control system in place (the bad, dumb kind of control).
We (the societal ‘we’) understand this when we see things like police shutting down lemonade stands or the Permit Patty debacle, where a woman can use the control system to stop something inconvenient to her. We can look at those instances and understand why we don’t agree with them happening, but the design of the system is in such a way that they are happening.
There is merit in some form of protection against getting poisoned by drinking beverages sold on some street corner, but does that protection also need to suppress kids having an innocent, fun business venture selling refreshments? This is the best we can come up with?
On an individual level, I believe most of us have gamed around the rules when it is convenient to ourselves and rationalized it internally. When we get caught we will be put into trouble somehow (punished, fined, or worse, become a meme) and it’s generally a healthy approach to try and hold each other accountable, to play fair. I just view the “you need form CEB-4997 and comply with rules 4 through 56 to keep your lemonade stance” nerdery as nothing but a counterproductive and inefficient way to catch people trying to poison others (by choice or chance).
Scandinavians are absolutely insane
One of the biggest differences between Norwegians and Swedes are the general attitude to rules. As a fresh immigrant in Norway, I mistook this difference as to mean Norwegian people being rude and obnoxious. After 12+ years in the country, I’ve grown quite fond of the Norwegian style of thinking and even if I still have some Swedish strictness in regards to rules still in me, the rule-abiding is limited to places where it makes sense and not a reflex. I hope at least.
Where the Norwegians are just as strict (if not stricter in some areas) as Swedes are at the top of the political and administrative food-chain – in stark contrast to the common man. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority, perhaps the easiest example to synthesize in text form, has had some really bizarre ideas over the years and has dreamed up some insanity that only bored pencil-pushers can come up with. My favorite one is “The Kellogg’s Case“.
Food Safety Authority banned Kellogg’s Cornflakes because they added extra iron to their breakfast cereals to make it more nutritious – Kellogg’s retaliated by dragging the Norwegian government to European Court over the case, which they won. Not because it is dumb to ban something that a company made more nutritious, oh no – Kellogg’s won because the Food Safety Authority allowed other, Norwegian made, products with added iron to it.
This court decision has later been used in propaganda from the state to try and twist it as a sledgehammer in any free market discussion, presenting it as a slippery slope to everyone being doomed to die by added nutrients in their meals. Yes, this is the same department that makes guidelines for healthy diets in the country. Twilight Zone-material manuscript right there, folks.
The Food Safety Authority even tried making a case to forbid coffee because of the caffeine dosage; I’m not kidding. Their logic was that coffee should abide by the same ridiculous laws as other supplements have to obey, which they also implemented.
As the population and businesses adapt over time to even the most ludicrous ideas different government departments can figure out to put a spanner in the wheels of productivity, there is less work for that particular department to do and more and more questions regarding funding of that specific part of the government. I believe that is the reason for evermore growth of regulations and rules being churned out.
What we need to ask ourselves is: do we really want to live in a permission culture?
– ALEX UTOPIUM Scandinavian anti-establishment blogger, editor for the Utopium Blog. Counter-economics, agorist-separatism, and free market advocate.
