The home of the free (*government permission required)

Wow, I was really dreading the possibility that somewhere, somebody was actually being paid to make a meal for someone else without permission from the government. Good thing that undercover sheriff’s investigators, and aggressive prosecutors, have this menace to the public sorted out. The good people of the government of San Joaquin County are on the case, trying to jail a single mother. For a year. For selling a plate of Mexican food. To an undercover police officer.

Don’t you just want to wave the flag?

Welcome to what government gets you in today’s America – bureaucrats whose highest priority, in a county with the state’s second highest rate of violent crime, is scanning Facebook to see who might be selling a plate of ceviche to a neighbor after making it in an uninspected, unlicensed, home kitchen (the horrors!). Prosecutors who think it necessary to send a single mother to prison for a year to quell the mounting threat of homemade food.

So yes, let’s all vote for our preferred legislators and government executives. But in an age of legislative delegation and abdication, independent administrative agencies, civil service protection, and government employee unions, it is more important than ever for the courts to limit the power of bureaucrats and protect liberty. And three cheers for Mariza Reulas for standing up to this stupidity.

Contraband ceviche, seized at the scene of the crime. Photos of the offending unlicensed kitchen were deemed too disturbing to be viewed.
By karol m from arizona, USA – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1706173