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Right to Work vs. Licensure

Posted: Sat May 07, 2016 8:28 am
by editor
I found an article I want to share, but it needs a little preface. I'm not feeling overly ambitious for research right now, so my preface lacks a little precision. Please forgive my laziness, and look to the point I'm putting across:

One of government's favorite protection racket schemes is embodied in the Occupational Code (OC). To the best of my knowledge, every State has an OC, although it varies from State to State as to which occupations are regulated. The excuse used for the OC is always "safety", or "the public good", but as everyone knows who has ever had to deal with the agencies which administer this code, the only protections it offers are to special interests and bureaucrats.

Here is a partial list of occupations regulated, for example, by the State of Alaska:
  • Accountants
  • Acupuncture
  • Attorneys
  • Audiologists and Speech Pathologists
  • Barbers
  • Barbers and Hairdressers
  • Basic Sciences
  • Construction Contractors and Home Inspectors
  • Chiropractors
  • Collection Agencies
  • Private Professional Conservators and Guardians
  • Cosmetologists and Hairdressers
  • Licensed Professional Counselors
  • Dental Hygienists
  • Dentistry
  • Dietitians and Nutritionists
  • Electrical and Mechanical Administrators
  • Morticians
  • Embalmers
  • Naturopaths
  • Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors
  • Explosives Handlers
  • Big Game Guides and Related Occupations
  • Hearing Aid Dealers
  • Hotels and Boardinghouses
  • Junk Dealers and Junk Yards
  • Marine Pilots
  • Marital and Family Therapy
  • Medicine
  • Direct-Entry Midwives
  • Motor Vehicle Dealers and Buyers' Agents
  • Mobile Home Dealers
  • Nursing
  • Nursing Home Administrators
  • Dispensing Opticians
  • Optometrists
  • Pawnbrokers and Secondhand Dealers
  • Pharmacists and Pharmacies
  • Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists
  • Psychologists and Psychological Associates
  • Real Estate Appraisers
  • Real Estate Brokers and Other Licensees
  • Concert Promoters
  • Social Workers
  • Veterinarians
  • Board of Welding Examiners
Complete lists of regulated occupations, by State, are hard to find. It should be noted that Alaska has a small population, and relatively little regulation when compared with other States. Please also note that many of the items in the above list are categories, under which there are multiple job descriptions, each requiring its own license.

The OC requires people who want to work these jobs to first obtain a license from the State's own regulating agency. If a man works in a regulated industry without first obtaining a license, the State appears to claim the right to fine him, imprison him, and/or regulate him anyway.

Such a stance on the part of government clearly stands in direct opposition to every man's right to work and, by extension, feed himself and his family. If a man cannot support himself and his family; cannot feed himself and his children, because he is not allowed to work, clearly the State prefers that such people starve. If this same principle is applied to society as a whole, then it is not an exaggeration to say that OCs contemplate genocide.

But wait... I said "appears to claim", didn't I? Yes. When it comes to matters of genocide, legislators usually leave themselves an out. An example with which I'm personally familiar is the Real Estate license. Years ago, I researched the Michigan statutes (I just tried a search online and couldn't find what I was looking for, but readers are welcome to post any research you find).

Person Required.

I wanted to know who was required to have a Real Estate license in Michigan. To paraphrase what I found:
Person Required. Any person within this State, who derives more than 40% of his annual income from the sale of real estate, or who sells more than four properties in a given year, is required to obtain a license under this section.
Okay, let me please emphasise, this is paraphrased. I can't remember the percentage listed, or the maximum number of sales per year, but this was the gist of it. If anyone wants to post an actual quote, please go for it.

Anyway, the crux of my point is this: The OC has a Definitions section. Any words which are defined in that section, take on the meaning as defined, NOT the meaning of common usage. When I read through the definitions, again to paraphrase, here is what I found:
Person. Any natural or artificial being who is licensed under this Section.
Do you see the circular logic here? You are a person required to obtain a license if you sell real estate above a certain quota, but only if you are already licensed.

The bottom line here is that I learned the State cannot require me to have a license to sell real estate. At least, that's my opinion. It also seems to be the State's opinion, since they gave up after a year of trying to get me to obtain a license. It was also my dad's opinion. Dad once had a closed-door offer from Michigan's then attorney general, who offered to give Dad a real estate broker's license on the spot-- no fee, no test, nothing but Dad's signature, if Dad would accept the license. Why? Because without the license, the State couldn't regulate him.

There is one rub though: Let's say you agree to sell someone else's property for them, for a fee (commission). You perform by obtaining a buyer and closing the sale as agreed, but the seller refuses to pay your commission. So you take the seller to court. The first thing the judge will ask you is, "Do you have a real estate license?" When you answer, "No," the judge will dismiss the case. In other words, the courts will not enforce your contracts if you don't have a license.

Still, if you are clever, there are ways around this. And for certain professions, such as the one described in the following article, workers might not care so much about the enforcement of contracts. If you style someone's hair and they don't pay you, then simply never style their hair again. No huge loss, right?

Re: Right to Work vs. Licensure

Posted: Sat May 07, 2016 8:47 am
by editor
It Takes 300 Hours to Become a Shampooer in Tennessee
by Melissa Quinn

(original article: http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/02/it-ta ... -tennessee)

Tammy Nutall-Pritchard had been braiding hair with her older sister, Debra Nutall, since she was 18 years old.

Nutall taught Nutall-Pritchard the craft when she was 15, and the sisters would stand side-by-side behind the chairs of scores of clients at Nutall’s Memphis, Tenn., salon who came in to get their hair braided while chatting and gossiping with customers.

Nutall-Pritchard did well—she charged around $300 per head and sometimes made more than $1,000 each week.

“It gave me joy,” Nutall-Pritchard, 47, told The Daily Signal of working with her sister. “She told me, ‘You learn a skill, it will bring an income for you if you do it the right way.’ She taught me to be the woman I am today, and she taught me that you can be your own boss.”

But Tennessee’s onerous licensing laws governing natural hair stylists like Nutall and Nutall-Pritchard eventually drove Nutall out of the state she and her family have called home their whole lives.

As a result, Nutall-Pritchard, who worked at the shop for more than six years, was out of a job.

Now, the 47-year-old works as a school resource officer to support her three sons.

In the meantime, Nutall-Pritchard wants to continue working in friends’ salons, shampooing hair and socializing, while making some extra money on the side.

But in Tennessee, Nutall-Pritchard needs a license to do that, too.

“Something so simple, they make it so hard,” she said of the state. “Something as simple as shampooing, they make it so hard for a woman like me to make money for a better life.”

So Nutall-Pritchard, with help from Nutall and Leanna Malone, Nutall’s granddaughter, teamed up with the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free-market think tank, to challenge the state’s shampooing licensing laws and is arguing those regulations violate her economic liberty.

“For a common, everyday job like shampooing, we’re not talking an engineer or a doctor or something like that,” Braden Boucek, the Beacon Center’s director of litigation, told The Daily Signal. “For a common, everyday calling like shampooing, you have a fundamental right, and the state can’t just arbitrarily burden it.”

“To earn a living is a right,” he continued. “Everybody deserves a good job, and that’s something we should all be able to agree on.”

An Ongoing Licensing War

Nutall-Pritchard and Nutall have a long history of fighting licensing laws in Tennessee, but for them, the enduring battle scars come from regulations tied to natural hair styling.

Nutall learned braiding when she was a child and views it as an art form. At the time, there were no hair braiding salons and, as far as she knew, no easy way of opening one. So instead, Nutall decided to braid hair in between her 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift as a nurse’s assistant.

Nutall’s braiding was unique, and Memphis women began recognizing her styles in the supermarket or at the gas station. Nutall’s client base grew.

Nutall decided to purchase a space in an old bank building on Lamar Avenue in Memphis to compensate for her growing business. There, in 1995, she opened Dee-Nu-Tall Braid Academy.

Nutall continued to see success. After living on welfare and in public housing, the mother left the welfare rolls and bought a new house. The year she opened her salon, Nutall purchased her first brand new car: a 1995 Toyota Camry.

“I had to do something to come out of public housing, and it was honest and fair,” Nutall said of her business. “It bought me a new home and a new car and got me off of welfare and out of public housing, and therefore my children had an opportunity to see life in a different way.”

In 1996, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law requiring natural hair stylists to attain a cosmetologist’s license through the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners.

Natural hair braiders like Nutall had excelled in their craft for years, learning braiding from their mothers and grandmothers. But now, the state was telling them they had to log more than 1,500 hours of education through an eight-week course with costs topping $12,000, Nutall recalled, and all for a skill she pioneered in Tennessee.

The business owner lobbied state and federal lawmakers in both Nashville and Washington, D.C., urging them to roll back the regulation. Nutall tried to explain that a cosmetology license, which covers perming, relaxing, and dying, was unnecessary for natural hair stylists, particularly because their craft dissuades the use of chemicals used by cosmetologists.

“I wanted us to stand as a separate entity from cosmetology because we didn’t do anything with chemicals,” Nutall said. “We can twist hair with our hands or braid with our hands. You don’t even need combs necessarily.”

The state board didn’t budge, and Nutall ended up closing her salon in 2010 because of the expensive licensing requirements.

Instead, Nutall moved 13 miles south of Memphis, across the state line, and into Southaven, Miss. In the Magnolia State, another braider, Melony Armstrong, had successfully challenged the state’s licensing regulations for natural hair stylists, just as Nutall had attempted to do in Tennessee.

Because of Armstrong’s efforts, hair braiders in Mississippi pay $25 to register with the state and no longer have to log 1,500 hours of education and experience to earn a cosmetology license.

“When I had my own business, being restricted like that, it really takes away from your business,” Nutall said of Tennessee’s licensing laws. “It can cause you to fail as a business owner because you need to have as much activity of work going as possibly when you own a tight business. You don’t want to be the only one in there. You also want to make revenue and an avenue for other people to earn an income.”

‘The Door Is Barred’

In Tennessee, not only do natural hair braiders need to attain a license, but those shampooing hair in their shops—known officially as shampoo technicians—do, too.

The Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners defines a shampoo technician as a “person who brushes, combs, shampoos, rinses and conditions upon the hair and scalp,” and the state began requiring shampoo technicians to attain a license in 1996.

To get a license, aspiring technicians must pay a $140 fee to the state, complete at least 300 hours of education in a course on the “practice and theory” of shampooing, and must be at least 16 years old.

A 2015 catalog of coursework from the Franklin Academy lists tuition for the shampoo tech program at $2,700, which doesn’t include the $400 required book and kit, or the $100 in application and registration fees. The Franklin Academy is a nonprofit institution based in Cleveland, Tenn., that trains those seeking licenses in cosmetology.

“The curriculum is burdensome, expensive, and totally irrelevant to what they want to do,” Boucek said. “The fact they’ll specify what kit you must buy and that you have to go to school shows they’re concerned about making the individuals spend money that benefits the schools and limits competition, which is what you would expect from a statutory regime that is designed to benefit existing market participants.”

Though the state outlines the requirements to attain a license to work as a shampoo technician, it’s difficult to find a school offering a program solely in that field. The Franklin Academy, for example, no longer lists “shampoo technician” among its programs of study in its 2016 catalog of courses.

Kevin Walters, communications director for the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, told The Daily Signal in an email that none of the licensed schools offer a program specifically for shampoo technicians. However, Walters said a student interested in attaining a shampoo technician license can ask a school to provide that program, and they will do so.

Boucek, though, pointed out that those looking to acquire a license to work as a shampoo technician are effectively forced to work toward a cosmetologist license, which requires more coursework and training.

“Either they’re doing it illegally, or licensed cosmetologists are doing it,” Boucek said of shampoo technicians. “That’s a full on career. You have to go to school for years. That’s singeing, cutting hair, straightening—all these things the shampooers don’t want to do.”

In Tennessee, attaining a cosmetologist license requires more money and more time than that of a shampoo technician. Aspiring cosmetologists must pay a $190 fee to the state, complete at least 1,500 hours in education, pass a class, take two exams, and be at least 16 years old.

At the Franklin Academy, the cosmetology program cost $13,500, and that didn’t include $1,125 for books and a kit.

“In this case, [the cosmetology board] structured it so you’re required to go to school to get the shampooing license, and it’s impossible to go to school to get the license,” Boucek said. “It’s the definition of a monopoly. Only market participants can do it, and the door is currently barred altogether.”

As of April 28, there were 36 licensed shampoo technicians and more than 32,816 licensed cosmetologists in Tennessee, Walters said. Another 5,656 cosmetologists had expired licenses but were in a grace period for renewal.

The Occupational Licensing Creep

Tennessee’s licensing regulations for shampoo techniques represent a small fraction of the laws governing the U.S. workforce.

According to a study released by the Obama administration in July, the percentage of the workforce covered by state licensing laws grew from less than 5 percent in the 1950s to 25 percent in 2008.

Two-thirds of that change is related to an increase in the number of professions that require a license, the report found.

The number of occupations requiring licenses across all 50 states range from a high of 71 in Louisiana to a low of 24 in Wyoming, according to a 2012 report from the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm.

The group found a couple of the most frequently licensed occupations are pest control applicators and emergency medical technicians, licensed in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In contrast, forest workers and florists are licensed in just one state each.

Shampoo technicians, meanwhile, are licensed in four other states besides Tennessee: Alabama, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Texas.

The White House, along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, has started a push to encourage states to roll back occupational licensing laws, which this unofficial coalition argues make it difficult for workers to enter various fields and can hurt wages for those excluded.

“Licensure makes it really hard to try something,” Salim Furth, a research fellow in macroeconomics at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “If you’re committed to a career, it’s not that big of a barrier. But what if you want to try something, or you need some income while you’re in between jobs? Those kinds of workers, especially young workers, are being told you have to choose to make this a career. You can’t just try it out.”

Additionally, licenses rarely are recognized across state lines, which disproportionately affects military spouses.

In Tennessee, cosmetologists and barbers are regulated by the state Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners. The board is comprised of 14 members, and 12 of its members work in the cosmetology and barber industries, as required by law. The remaining two are members of the public.

The issue of state boards overseeing licensing requirements has been met with resistance, and economic experts warn that such boards often exist to block competitors from entering markets.

“You have a board of market participants passing anti-competitive legislation,” Boucek said of the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners.

Furth said state boards often begin to “creep” with the number of occupations they regulate.

“Once you get a board in place to do something that might have commonsense value, that board has an incentive to keep broadening their power and expanding things under their control,” Furth told The Daily Signal.

So far this year, state legislatures in Nebraska and New Jersey have passed legislation rolling back some of the regulations governing different occupations. Delaware’s governor, meanwhile, signed an executive order last month creating a committee to review licensing regulations.

Despite the action in state houses, Furth said the best chance for a permanent solution comes with how the courts are instructed to deal with economic freedom.

“We need to fundamentally change the way we think about economic freedom,” he said. “This is a basic right. This is a right to go into the marketplace, to truck, barter, and exchange. To work, to improve oneself. That’s a foundational human right, and any government that seeks to narrow or prescribe that should have to meet a high burden of proof.”

“It’s a general principle that who’s making the law here wasn’t the Tennessee Legislature saying we need to keep Americans safe from bad smelling shampoo,” Furth said. “It’s some board saying, ‘We can push down competition and push down wages by making it illegal to hire people.’”

Steep Penalties for Licensing Violations

The Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners employs between 15 and 18 “field inspectors” hired to inspect barber and cosmetology schools and shops for proper sanitation and unlicensed activity. Under authority established by the board, its legal division has the power to issue consent orders for unlicensed activity.

For a salon worker caught without a license, the consequences can be costly.

In April 2014, for example, inspector Jerry Biddle entered a Memphis salon to conduct a “lawful inspection of the premises therein” and saw a manicurist shampooing a client’s hair, according to a report he filed with the state.

The manicurist didn’t have the license allowing her to shampoo hair, Biddle wrote in his notice of violation, and was therefore running afoul of Tennessee law.

Robert Herndon, a lawyer with the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners, sent the manicurist a letter regarding the violation and offered her a deal: pay a $250 penalty or face formal disciplinary charges and attend a hearing before an administrative law judge.

Disciplinary proceedings, Herndon continued, could result in up to $1,000 in fines and a loss of the manicurist’s license.

“There are floors in government buildings filled with people whose jobs are to [find unlicensed activity],” Boucek said. “Investigators who go out and police this stuff, people with law enforcement authority.”

Walters, of the state Department of Commerce and Insurance, said there currently aren’t any complaints filed against shampoo technicians.

A ‘Sense of Worth’

Over the course of her lifetime, Nutall estimates she’s taught thousands of women across the country her technique of hair braiding, including her sister, daughter, and granddaughter, Leanna.

Nutall said she became involved in the lawsuit because of the family members like Nutall-Pritchard and Malone who would love to open up their own natural hair care salons, just as she did more than 20 years ago.

“They just can’t because of the laws, which is crazy to me,” she said. “Everybody has a right to earn a living.”

For Nutall-Pritchard, she feels the government is hypocritical, particularly when it comes to the future successes of young women.

“They want to get these young women off welfare,” she said, “but how are they going to get off welfare when you’re making it so hard with a simple trade as shampooing?”

Regardless, Nutall holds out hope that the state will come around and make it easier for young women like her granddaughter to earn a good, honest living, just as she was able to do.

“I would like to see these young people able to braid hair or to shampoo hair or to cut hair, able to do this and then earn a living out of it,” she said. “Give them something to stabilize them. Give them a sense of worth. When you work for something, you’re more proud of it because it came from your own loins. You did this.”

(Melissa Quinn is a senior news reporter for The Daily Signal.)

Re: Right to Work vs. Licensure

Posted: Sun May 08, 2016 9:06 am
by notmartha
I could not find what you posted above, but found this HERE:
OCCUPATIONAL CODE (EXCERPT)
Act 299 of 1980

339.105 Definitions; L to S.

(1) “License” means the document issued to a person under this act which will enable that person to use a designated title and practice an occupation, which practice would otherwise be prohibited by this act. License includes a document issued by the department which permits a school, institution, or person to offer training or education in an occupation or which permits the operation of a facility, establishment, or institution in which an occupation is practiced. License includes a permit or approval.

(2) “Licensee” means a person who has been issued a license under this act.

(5) “Person” means an individual, sole proprietorship, partnership, association, corporation, common law trust, or a combination of those legal entities. Person includes a department, board, school, institution, establishment, or governmental entity.
Only Legal Entities need be licensed. Legal Entities are without power until enabled. Licenses give them power they did not previously have. Man already has the power and duty to work for sustenance; he need not be enabled by license.

editor wrote:There is one rub though: Let's say you agree to sell someone else's property for them, for a fee (commission). You perform by obtaining a buyer and closing the sale as agreed, but the seller refuses to pay your commission. So you take the seller to court. The first thing the judge will ask you is, "Do you have a real estate license?" When you answer, "No," the judge will dismiss the case. In other words, the courts will not enforce your contracts if you don't have a license.
Yep, you lose the benefit of "protection" if you aren't a licensed legal entity.

Re: Right to Work vs. Licensure

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2017 5:52 am
by notmartha
Why not revoke the government’s license to issue licenses?
http://www.firebreathingchristian.com/archives/16040
What could be more idiotic than the notion of requiring a professional to attain a license from the U.S. government in order to practice their craft in "the land of the free"?

Remember: The government in question can't even figure out the difference between a boy and a girl. Or the difference between an actual marriage and two (or three or ten) homosexuals pretending.

Worse yet, not only is this government incapable of rightly defining even the most basic, necessary concepts at the foundation of civilization, but it actively wages war against the simple, clear truth on family and gender.

Think about that.

Let it soak in.

Deep.

Now ask yourself: Do we really want these people to have the power to dictate who can and who cannot practice ________ in America?

Does this government have anything remotely resembling a legitimate claim to even identifying, much less licensing, a good teacher?

Again: Think. Please think.

And remember: This government can't tell the difference between a boy and a girl. It doesn't even know what a family is. It literally doesn't seem to know up from down, right from wrong, or good from evil. If it actually does know anything true about any of these things, then we can quite confidently say that it is actively opposed to whatever that truth is.

So why are we putting up with this?

Why do we just blindly submit to this notion of government controlling everything, including whether or not we are legit teachers when it - the government - literally doesn't know its backside from a hole in the ground? (And doesn't want us to either.)

Sadly, the answer is that our parents and grandparents caved to this comical perversion of "professionalism" long ago and sent us off to be "educated" by the State, where State-licensed "education professionals" proceeded to escort us and our culture directly to the hell that we're in now.

Nice job, "professionals"!

Way to go, State licensing!

At least one crystal clear lesson has been taught, however inadvertently, through all of this insanity: Giving government the power to regulate professions is a terrible idea.

It has to go.

Right now

And we should never give it that power again...even if it does one day learn the difference between a boy and a girl.

Re: Right to Work vs. Licensure

Posted: Tue May 01, 2018 12:16 pm
by notmartha
It’s Not Government’s Job To License Professionals

http://www.firebreathingchristian.com/archives/16905
Free men and women don't go to the State for permission to pursue a profession.

They simply pursue the profession.

Free men and women aren't required to submit to the State in order to earn the right to use their God-given talents and abilities.

They simply use their God-given talents and abilities.

Free men are - get this - free to use their God-given talents and abilities to pursue professional activities knowing that other free men and women will test, judge, reward, and/or punish them according to standards of quality and honesty freely established in the free market.

See how this freedom thing works?

See how it just cuts the State out entirely where things like regulating and licensing professions are concerned?

If you do see how freedom works in this most basic sense, then you should also be able to see why the State hates freedom.

The State hates free people.

The State hates free markets.

The State desperately wants you and I to believe that without the State there to "protect" us from unqualified, shabby, deceptive, dishonest people by way of State licensing, State regulation, and State control over every meaningful aspect of economic life and culture, we would suffer immense unnecessary harm. . .

. . . as if we're incapable of establishing things like standards, regulations, licensing bodies, and regulatory agencies on our own as free people apart from the State.

. . . as if voluntary organizations and free associations simply cannot produce high standards of quality and safety.

. . . as if "freedom" and "liberty" itself are the property of the State rather than the people living under the State.

It's amazing to see just how shell-shocked and confused even the typical politically active "conservative Christian" becomes when the State's presumptive regulatory role in the professional lives of people is challenged at its foundation - a foundation that has become so blindly assumed after generations of State-run "education" that just noting its existence if often quite jarring for the average American "conservative".

Even though Scripture gives no warrant for State management and control over professions and careers, we have been convinced to assume such State control as being necessary to the health and progress of culture and civilization.

But what if Scripture is correct in its description and limitation of civil government (the role of the State)? What if God's Word on these things really is the perfect, sufficient path toward the type of civil government that actually promotes true freedom, liberty, prosperity, and security?

What if...?

We touched on this aspect of government last year in Why not revoke the government's license to issue licenses?, where we asked and explored some relevant questions:
"What could be more idiotic than the notion of requiring a professional to attain a license from the U.S. government in order to practice their craft in “the land of the free”?

Remember: The government in question can’t even figure out the difference between a boy and a girl. Or the difference between an actual marriage and two (or three or ten) homosexuals pretending.

Worse yet, not only is this government incapable of rightly defining even the most basic, necessary concepts at the foundation of civilization, but it actively wages war against the simple, clear truth on family and gender.

Think about that.

Let it soak in.

Deep.

Now ask yourself: Do we really want these people to have the power to dictate who can and who cannot practice ________ in America?

Does this government have anything remotely resembling a legitimate claim to even identifying, much less licensing, a good teacher?

Again: Think. Please think.

And remember: This government can’t tell the difference between a boy and a girl. It doesn’t even know what a family is. It literally doesn’t seem to know up from down, right from wrong, or good from evil. If it actually does know anything true about any of these things, then we can quite confidently say that it is actively opposed to whatever that truth is.

So why are we putting up with this?

Why do we just blindly submit to this notion of government controlling everything, including whether or not we are legit teachers when it – the government – literally doesn’t know its backside from a hole in the ground? (And doesn’t want us to know the difference either.)

Sadly, the answer is that our parents and grandparents caved to this comical perversion of “professionalism” long ago and sent us off to be “educated” by the State, where State-licensed “education professionals” proceeded to escort us and our culture directly to the hell that we’re in now.

Nice job, “professionals”!

Way to go, State licensing!

At least one crystal clear lesson has been taught, however inadvertently, through all of this insanity: Giving government the power to regulate professions is a terrible idea.

It has to go.

Right now

And we should never give it that power again…even if it does one day learn the difference between a boy and a girl."
We really do need to ask ourselves the question: Do we want to be free?

Really free?

Biblically free?

Or do we want the sort of counterfeit freedom routinely dispensed through unbiblical approaches to State power?

Do we want to have a vibrant, beautifully diverse culture in all the right ways?

Or do we want to be the kept cattle of a culture going to hell on a rocket fueled by pride, arrogance, and open rebellion against God?

Do we want to recognize and repent of our idolatry of the State in America?

Or do we want to prop it up and try to "make it work"?

At this point, it seems as though most definitely want to prop up the idol and "make it work", which only delays the inevitable and amplifies the consequences to life and culture when the America Idol finally does come crashing down.

During this time before that fall, however, we've all been graced with an incredible opportunity to contemplate and prepare for what's coming.

Two things that we should be contemplating is the role of biblically sound government and the consequences of unbiblical approaches to government so that, in whatever landscape we find ourselves occupying after the fall of great idols in the land, we are well equipped to lay a new and solid foundation upon which to build the beautiful culture and civilization that will one day rise over the rubble of what came crashing down before.

In that context, the hope in this series of articles is to consider ten things that are not the job of the State.

We began last week in It's Not Government's Job To Protect Us From Weeds and we hope to run through eight more after this one, culminating in a handy, easy to share Top Ten post that will provoke thought and, Lord willing, positive action.

Thank you for your interest in true freedom, liberty, and adulthood. May God soon grace us with the opportunity to pursue such things unfettered by unbiblical approaches to civil government.

In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do, so...

Soli Deo gloria, and let's roll!


Re: Right to Work vs. Licensure

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 1:45 pm
by cobra2411
Good stuff. I'll have to look again when I have more time, but my first thought is why do you need to ask permission for something you can already do. That fits in with the legal entities part, they don't need rights, so they need permission.