4838

I haven’t seen any liberals argue that cosmetologists should be more regulated. The only evidence you’ve provided is a 1992 change in nomenclature.

But you also suggested that regulation/licensing is unnecessary in general. The fact that liberals disagree with you does not mean that they think everything needs more regulation, or nothing should be less regulated.

It’s not as all-or-nothing as libertarians want it to be, and liberals often mock those who view things so simplistically.

4839

Look, I think we can all agree that liberals can be either for or against licensing and regulation in various degrees depending on circumstances, which may or may not be stupid, again depending on the circumstances. Take that libs!

4840

Yes, they’re like eels, those libs.

4841

They’re examples of companies being shitty even with heavy regulation. You think they’d be less shitty without it?

4842

But the purpose of occupational licensing is to protect against an untrained incompetent passing themselves off as capable of doing the job. Not malpractice. Indeed, you’ve pretty much proved it doesn’t protect against intentional malpractice.

As to why occupational licensing is bad? Well, to start with it very effectively discriminates against immigrants. Especially in professions that don’t have well developed internationally recognised forms of certification - like painters, or hairdressers. It seems to me that, given that, you need a pretty compelling argument to justify it - not just reaching out as you do to examples from professions that obviously both need occupational certification and have it.

4843

That’s like saying that someone dying of COVID pretty much proves that masks and vaccines don’t protect against infection.

4844

I was assured this never happens tho.

4845

Discourse needs some advanced AI/machine learning/voodoo that lets you say “mute this thread until the current conversation has run it’s course, then let me know again when the topic has changed.”

4846

That sounds like more draco-tyrannical liberal censorship to me. If you’re not forced to read our discussion about hairdressing certifications, a topic none of us have first hand knowledge of, then liberty in America is effectively finished.

4847

I was assured that there was a liberal who said they wanted more regulations on painters.

4848

Or you know, reelect Abbott, that works too.

Meanwhile:

TLDR:
Abbott leads Beto by 5 (down from 12).
McConaughey leads Abbott by 9.

4849

A public non-political figure without partisan affliation is not going to give accurate results in this kind of head-to-head poll. It just becomes a proxy for approval of abbott. But that won’t be the case in the actual election.

4850

Definitely not getting why this stuff is in this thread.

4851

It’s possible it actually WOULD be like that in an actual election, in a case like this where people have an established, non-partisan view of one candidate.

4852

I feel like an important predicate for all this is that Matthew McConaughey would actually need to run for Governor.

4853

I’m liberal and Californian, and thus am clearly a representative sample. I’m not a Twitter rando, but I am a Qt3 rando, which I think is close enough for the purposes of this thread.

  • I think the onerous requirements to be licensed as a hairdresser are mostly unjustified, though I’m not opposed to hairdressers touting their training and experience.
  • I work as an engineer and I’m not licensed, even though licensure exists for my industry.
  • I won’t go see an unlicensed doctor, dentist, or lawyer, nor would I hire an unlicensed general contractor to do any structural or electrical work on my house.
  • I think markets are super useful but also are easily manipulated and I’d prefer those manipulations to be transparent and in the public interest.
4854

I can actually see your point. There’s definitely a bit of abject defensiveness on my part and I should let that shit go. There are indeed stupid liberals out there, and also smart liberals who say stupid things, and liberal legislatures who pass dumb laws. I don’t need to no true scotsman all of those, nor should I take them as an attack on liberalism in general. Yes what George Takei said was dumb and the left probably isn’t better than any other political faction on free speech issues. (I’d argue they’re in general more effective at wielding cultural disapprobation than the right is, but less willing than the right to try to leverage the state against dissent.) And regardless of the left’s thrust overall, there are certainly leftists who stupidly advocate for censorship.

Anyway, carry on. I’ll even make it a project to keep my eye out for liberals saying or doing a stupid things and post them here when I do.

4855

Random aside; I have a nephew who is a barber. He picked up his license while still in high school. I was curious about why it needed so much classwork and testing, but he explained it to me as providing a baseline set of skills that prospective employers can count on and in turn will provide customers with a reasonable expectation when they come in for a snip. It’s almost like a practical version of those generic degree/diploma requirements for various job listings. Those have significant issues as well, but at the same time there’s also some merit. And no, he’s not a union member.

4856

Neither here nor there, but a lot of liberals these days are specifically against excessive licensure requirements for barbers, exemplified by the whole black hair issue.

4857

Occ licensing aren’t really liberal/conservative and instead more free market/opportunity side vs regulatory side. Many of these laws are not to protect businesses and people currently working in those jobs. Leading to some Supreme Court cases basically saying licensing boards can’t exist solely of people in those jobs who can block new entrants. B/c you know who doesn’t like competition? Everyone.

Also, trade schools are a major proponent of occ licensing laws. B/c why not require people to be barbers and have your school be the way to get them a license. Guaranteed students!

Hate these laws with a passion. but don’t confuse occ licensing vs a certification. Certification is good. Certification says you’re a plumber who has been to plumbing school or you have certified schools. Occ licenses says you can’t be a plumber even if you have gone to plumbing school. And those block opportunity/competition.

Most of these laws are against people w/o college degrees. The great folks at Institute for Justice have documented a lot of these licenses. But as the last few presidents have noted, the proliferation of these laws blocks people improving their lives and opportunity. (see Obama CEA report, Trump CEA, Biden spring speech on competition and FTC, that notes these laws are used to create cartels).

Also, MS just passed one of the better reforms on this in the nation. So no dissing Mississippi on this magnet.

But overall, the main people fighting this are the classical liberals and free market folks.