Conservative Co-Worker Says: Black Market Barbers Are A Menace to Society!

Here we have a video of a New Hampshire liberty activist who decided to perform a manicure...without a license! (Gasp!!)

Thankfully, the Thin Blue Line is there to apprehend this terrorist before he was able to do more cuticle damage to innocent Americans.



Seeking to get a Conservative opinion, I forwarded this video over to a co-worker of mine who is a dyed-in-the-wool, red-blooded Christian Conservative.

His take?

Yes! String the guy up! We must obey the law no matter what it says! The law is there for a reason!

Oh? And exactly what reason is that?

Apparently, that little piece of paper that you get from spending hundreds of dollars (or more) on beauty school classes and licenses will stop serial killers from opening barber shops to lure unsuspecting victims to their graves. There is also a health component involved.

I'm sure everyone has read about that epidemic of disease that swept the country last year, which was traced back to black market barbers...right?

Hahaha... I shit you not. I swear on my grandmother's urn, those were his actual words.

Of course, I got the sense that he was pulling my leg. (He had to be. Who in their right mind believes crap like this??) So after ridiculing him (as he properly deserved) for being, well...insane...I approached him and asked him to be serious and tell me if, in his Conservative view, the proper role of the state was to control and regulate the ability of people to ply a trade, even one so innocuous as performing manicures.

In his view, yes, it absolutely was. The State should and properly has the power to erect barriers on an individual's freedom of enterprise. No person should be able to start a business or perform labor for someone else without State approval. When I accused him of being a protectionist, his response was that it's nothing more than "political malcontentism". He rejected the thought that this was the real economic analysis of the issue.

Licensing creates special interest groups who can extract higher than normal market prices from legal restrictions on competitive commerce. That is economic fact, as indisputable as the sky is blue and the grass is green.

So then I asked him...what if his wife decided to pick up a pair of scissors and give his son a little trim behind the ears. If an unlicensed barber is such a menace to society that government needs to jail people who have not jumped through bureaucratic hoops to enter the Barber's Guild, then what is it that magically transforms this unlicensed mom from a risk to the very life of her offspring into a model of safety and integrity?

There's no money involved, said he.

Well, actually there is. If you don't pay someone else to cut your hair, you are essentially paying yourself to do the service.

Oh, well, a mom cares about her kid, so that's ok.

Apparently, this paragon of capitalism thinks that business people hate their customers, and plot ways to harm, maim, and kill the people who come to them for goods and services. Thank God for the State and its magical documents!

Does anyone really believe conservatives know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to economics and liberty?

I sure as hell don't.