August 6, 2010 8:12AM # We Aren’t Exaggerating When We Rail Against Threats to Economic Liberty By [Ilya Shapiro](https://www.cato.org/people/ilya-shapiro) --- SHARE Oregon officials told a 7‑year-old with a lemonade stand that [she needed to obtain a temporary restaurant license](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/05/oregon-county-apologies-year-old-girl-saying-lemonade-stand/) or incur a fine. I’m rendered speechless, but [Josh Blackman exploits](http://joshblackman.com/blog/?p=4977) the “teaching moment”: > If you are generally opposed to any notion of the right to pursue an honest living, ask yourself, why does it bother you so much that this little girl cannot sell lemonade. Then, ask yourself what you think about other regulations that stifle the entrepreneur. This story does not tug on our heart strings simply because she is adorably selling lemonade for 50 cents a cup (suggested price) at a fair. It tugs on our heart strings because the state is unnecessarily clamping down on this little girl’s ability to make some money. More from [Tim Sandefur](http://plf.typepad.com/plf/2010/08/welcome-to-the-real-world-little-girl.html#tp). ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).