Some Still Do Care About Freedom

This past weekend, the Libertarian Party of West Michigan gave a Guardian of Liberty Award to Mark London, owner of Showgirls Galleria in downtown Grand Rapids. London has been in a fight with City Hall over opening his strip club because they passed an ordinance prohibiting nudity (where it had been legal for years) and the strippers must stay six feet away from the patrons (no more putting dollar bills in thongs).

The reason the City passed the ordinance is that someone put up $100,000 to pay the City's legal bills. The last time the City tried this, they were sued and lost, costing us (the taxpayers) several hundred thousand dollars in legal bills.

The City's old rules, which allowed nudity, worked just fine. The City has been unable to show any adverse consequences of strip clubs. The prudes, however, think that they have the right to tell people they can't enjoy going to a strip club because it offends their sensibilities.

The quote at the end of the article is telling:

"I don't believe Mr. London is involved in any esoteric fight for personal
liberty," said Dar VanderArk, director of the Michigan Decency Action Council.
"I think he's trying to maximize his profits by selling nudity."

And what's wrong with selling nudity? Just because Mr. VanderArk doesn't like it, does that give him the right to impose his vision of the world on everyone else? Mr. VanderArk is using the force of government to attempt to put a man out of business - a business that has been completely legal up until now - but the busybodies can't have something in their back yard they don't like. I don't see Mr. VanderArk complaining about selling food or booze or lawnmowers. Those are all sold for a profit. It's only nudity that Mr. VanderArk doesn't like. Perhaps if he doesn't like it, he shouldn't go to strip clubs.

Ah, but in the current mentality of government these days, we shouldn't treat each other as adults who can make their own mature decisions, we need Mr. VanderArk and the government nannies to slap our hands and tell us what we can and cannot do.

Kudos to the Libertarian Party of West Michigan. They appear to be the only ones who stand up for the small business man and the mature world view that we can make our own decisions without the heavy hand of puritanical government to make our decisions for us.