Enough. Not a single one of you have read the legislation. If you had, you would have clearly understood that the only thing banned is sub dermal implants by tattoo artists. You can still get them by trained medical personnel! And not a single one of you criticizing me took the time to understand that tattoo artists and the Arkansas Body Modification Association BROUGHT ME THE LEGISLATION ASKING FOR MY HELP! The main bill was their bill in an effort to maintain quality standards and updates for their industry that they felt were necessary to protect their industry, them as artists and their clients. Both bills were amended several times and the artists supported both bills!
Emphasis mine, because it will be important later. She's referring to the storm kicked up as mentioned in this MSNBC article:
At issue is Arkansas Senate Bill 387 which both chambers of the Arkansas state legislature actually passed in late March of this year. The bill was then signed by the governor. Rather than banning tattoos or cracking down on the body art industry–as many headlines have suggested–the bipartisan legislation actually legally redefines the term body art in Arkansas to add the practice of scarification–the scratching, etching or cutting of the skin to produce a design.Small potatoes if you care about principle. The state government in Arkansas long ago decided individuals should not be able to make an independent living as body modifiers. They must get state permission to work and particularly to teach other artists.
Rather than a seeing the bill as a crackdown, most body artists in the state are pleased with the legislation.
[...]
In fact, [piercing and scarification artist Misty] Forsberg said she and other artists spoke in favor of the legislation in the Arkansas House, once the language banning scarification was taken out.
This law isn't a body modification apocalypse, but it does strip away additional freedom. Now only licensed physicians can insert subdermal implants, body artist trainers must have 5 rather than 3 years of licensed and regulatory compliant experience, and scarification is restricted as a regulated practice.
This may be a marginally incremental decrease in economic freedom, but what the hell, why not bring the blog back to life with something as local as the previous post? American Volkswirtschaft is about principle and even small potatoes like this matter. Anyone has the right to set up shop in the area known as Arkansas and satisfy customers seeking body modification.
Here's that emphasized section again from above:
The main bill was their bill in an effort to maintain quality standards and updates for their industry that they felt were necessary to protect their industry, them as artists and their clients.Though in the back of my mind I have always thought Industry seeks Government protection through laws that screw their independent competition, it was not until I started reading The Triumph of Conservatism by Gabriel Kolko, Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs, and listening to The American Economy and the End of Laissez-Faire 1870 to World War II by Murray Rothbard that I began to realize the depth and age of the rot in the American system.
It is a common assumption that most members of an industry are automatically opposed to additional regulation, licensing, taxes, and other forms of state economic control. You, dear reader, ought to dump this assumption immediately if you possess it. Far more often, Industry seeks additional control to protect itself through:
- new barriers to competitive entry
- artificial price supports
- socialization of costs
Thanks for this.
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