The Horror Of Unlicensed Cosmetologists

Many have heard the term “ratioed,” get thrown around a lot recently. According to Urban Dictionary, it is defined as the following:

Being revealed as an idiot on twitter by having a high ratio of comments to likes and retweets.

The progressive think-tank Think Progress was ratioed pretty hard recently when they released an article called “Koch Brother’ Anti-Government Group Promotes Allowing Unlicensed, Untrained Cosmologists.”

Here are a number of great replies to the article they linked:

What is wrong with u ppl? U call getting govt permission to engage in mutually beneficial transactions “progress”?

How do all these people safely do their own cosmetics at home? We must make everyone get a license whether they work in the business or not! See how stupid that sounds?

Sounds like progress to me, less barriers for the poor isnt a bad thing.

Thank G-d. The Kochs are cool and occupational licenses are shit

Of course a group named “think progress” would believe that everyone owes fealty to the state & their licensing fees and supports restrictions on the free trade of services

Why do you hate minorities trying to make it in the US?

How dare they let those that can’t afford licenses work!

Occupational licensing keeps people down. Smash that shit, power to the people!

Progressives hate poor people pass it on

Unlicensed, untrained Think Progress stooge churns out smear piece against useful humans

Hi I’m from the state thinkpiece licencing board, just noticed this piece was written by an unlicenced untrained thinkpiece writer

Barring people from entry is awfully crony of you.

Heaven forbid someone cuts my hair without a thousand hours of training. It might grow back.

yes God forbid someone do nails without the government saying it’s ok

those extremist libertarians are at it again supporting *checks notes* lowered barriers of workforce entry and increased social mobility for low earners and immigrants

Knee-jerk pro-government group promotes barriers to entry that hit poor the hardest, believes consumers of African hair braiding shouldn’t be able to choose their own braider unless that person has over 1,000 hours of irrelevant gov’t-mandated training in Euro-style cosmetology

Stupidest idea. A license to use scissors?

on this one, Koch Bros are right and TP is wrong.

You should be following all of these people if you have a Twitter.

Of course, this article is quite easy to make fun of. Which is why I will do just that. However, it is only fair I look at the arguments being made:

Americans for Prosperity says the way to lift people out of poverty is to let them use dangerous chemicals and sharp blades without training.

And they are 100% right. There’s a reason Shane Killian used just this as an example in his video decade old video “What Is The Free Market.”

And anything can be dangerous. Should I need training to shave since that uses a “sharp blade”? Should I need training to drink anything other than water because they have “dangerous chemicals”?

And don’t forgot, as I’ve mentioned time and time again, even a pillow can kill.

Americans for Prosperity — a right-wing tax-exempt dark money group bankrolled by petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch — posted three videos in the past several days arguing against occupation licensing. These spots each feature Dick Carpenter, the director of strategic research for the Institute for Justice (another Koch-linked anti-government organization) arguing against government licensing of professionals, laws he claims are designed to “keep people out.” The group also created a website and petition urging government to “stop burdensome licensing laws.”

The thing that bothers me about this paragraph is that it — and the rest of the article for that matter — seem to imply that only the Koch brothers are against occupational licensing. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

There’s the already mentioned Shane Killian, but what about Reason? Try as I might, I could never once find Think Progress even acknowledging Reason — the biggest libertarian publication in the country — even exists. On 8/1/2017, John Stossel released a video calling for a removal of occupational licensing for Reason.

Reason isn’t owned by Charles Koch, it’s owned by the Reason Foundation which is chaired by Thomas Beach. The video also existed to promote the book Bottleneckers. That book was published by a company called Encounter, which was founded by Peter Collier. Notice how his last name is not Koch.

And of course, while I hate to feed a fed horse (I’m trying to stop using anti-animal terms), I should point out that Think Progress says nothing about progressive billionaires like Warren Buffet and Robert De Nero.

Either way, Think Progress is fear mongering about a free market, and it’s getting sad.