This interpretation is contrary to the explanation offered last year by the director of Seattle's Department of Planning and Development. Although "regulations pertaining to bed and breakfast use stipulate that exterior alterations must not be a part of establishing a bed and breakfast use," she said, "there is no restriction on how much time must transpire between making exterior alterations for a house remodel and establishing bed and breakfast use."

 Now the city has changed the rules in response to complaints from the McAfertys' B&B-phobic neighbors. The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm dedicated to protecting economic liberty, recently filed a lawsuit in King County Court that seeks to stop the city from taking away the McAfertys' livelihood.

 Although Americans tend to view the right to earn a living without unreasonable interference from the government as a conservative issue, in this case the conservatives are McAfertys' neighbors, who are using the government to resist change. They are angry about the liberalization that permitted the McAfertys to open their B&B.

 Nor is this dispute simply about economic freedom. The government's arbitrary and inconsistent treatment of the McAfertys' business is hard to reconcile with the rule of law. The case also involves freedom of speech, since the city has barred the McAfertys from putting a sign in front of their home and otherwise restricted their ability to advertise.

 The experience of running a small business can foster an appreciation for economic liberty even among those previously inclined to give it short shrift. In 1992, George McGovern, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate who for many years personified leftish "liberalism," wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece decrying the government regulations that had helped drive his Connecticut inn out of business.

 Five years later, McGovern was on the op-ed page of The New York Times, astonishing his old opponents by condemning paternalistic policies aimed at stopping people from smoking, drinking, overeating or bungee jumping. "While the choices we make may be foolish or self-destructive," he wrote, "there is still the overriding principle that we cannot allow the micromanaging of each other's lives."

 McGovern finally sounded like a liberal.