Waiter, There's a Government in My Beer!

Government officials — proceed with care! We had an entire revolution over tea!

Now this just turns this small-l libertarian into a raging uppercase Libertarian.

The shutdown theater has blocked our veterans from their monuments, allowed thuggish park rangers to terrorize visitors to Yellowstone, and even caused park rangers to block lanes of a highway to stop people from pulling over to look at Mount Rushmore.

But enough is enough and this is going too far!

According to the Washington Times:

The government agency in charge of approving new breweries, recipes and labels is on furlough, leaving in limbo the ability of suds-makers to get their brews on store shelves.

And that means beer connoisseurs who like to constantly try out new samples may have to make do with the presently approved stocks.

“My dream, this is six years in the making, is to open this brewery,” said Mike Brenner, a beer maker who was hoping to open his brewery business in Milwaukee by December, The Washington Post reported. But that’s all on hold because of the government shutdown — and the delay may cost him big, to the tune of about $8,000 each month.

“I can’t get started because people are fighting over this or that in Washington,” he said. “This is something people don’t mess around with. Even in a bad economy, people drink beer.”

The agency in charge of processing his application is the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

In my more radical moments, I’ve been known to agitate for the abolition of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (You only think that no good arguments can be made for that. And you can only think that if you believe that only the government saves us from individual larceny and dishonesty. And, as my colleague, fellow Baen author Michael Z. Williamson, is fond of saying, that name should belong to a convenience store, not a federal bureau.)

It’s not something we normally make a big point of, though, because it takes too long to explain.

But now they’ve gone too far. They’re delaying the beer!

I have two observations: government involvement in beer regulation is a bridge too far, and if you believe that government regulation of beer is essential, you certainly cannot consider it a non-essential service.

Either way, it’s time to get the government out of our beer!