Comments (34)

• TLWP Sam

  Is this then a reminder that the saying 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is really a lefty commie apologist line for the existence of the State?

  Published: June 20, 2007 7:46 AM

• Joe Cesarone

  It's a miracle that Tucker is still with us after all those visits he must have made to unregulated barbers.

  Published: June 20, 2007 8:04 AM

• Robert Brazil

  From the article:

  "The wrong is that when an experiment goes haywire it's not lab mice that suffer. Instead, it's real people — residents of Alabama — who get hurt."

  What kind of perverted worldview sees freedom, but not government social engineering, as a dangerous "experiment"? And we're talking about the most trivial freedom here — the freedom to cut hair without permission from the Great Ones.

  I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Most of us here associate America with the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence. But most Americans generally — probably over 90 percent — are in love with socialism, even if they don't like the word.

  It's dispiriting, is all.

  Published: June 20, 2007 8:23 AM

• andrew

  Of course the article fails to mention any actual disaster, hair cutting or otherwise, that would have been prevented if there had only been some special interests to get the state to regulate against their competition, er, I mean, if there had only been some caring politicians looking out for their people.

  Published: June 20, 2007 8:38 AM

• DC

  I had a genuinely difficult time ascertaining whether that was a satire or serious. Is it simply popular opinion in Alabama that things like barber shops fall under the domain of the "public good"?

  Also, I agree with Joe Cesarone's post above: stay safe, Jeff. . .there are a lot of unregulated and unlicensed barbers out there. I'm just glad I live in the well-regulated state of Maryland.

  Published: June 20, 2007 8:39 AM

• Scott D

  Wow, that article is possibly the best example of the fallacy of "begging the question" that I have ever seen. I was expecting some "horrifying" statistic about the number of deaths from infection due to unwashed scissors each year. Talk about writing from a foregone conclusion.

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:04 AM

• Dennis

  If government regulation and control would bring such beneficial results in so many other areas of economic activity, surely the press should also be subject to the great intelligence, integrity, and benevolence of government oversight.

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:06 AM

• Manuel Lora

  If the worst ever happens and a dam break causes massive loss of life and property, Alabama lawmakers will face an angry public who will ask: Why didn't you protect us when the sun was shining?

  ONLY the government can protect us! Oh, the humanity...

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:28 AM

• Teller

  "Alabama has no process to inspect dams."

  Right...they need be more like Louisiana.

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:38 AM

• Geoffrey Allan Plauche

  Rats...Robert Brazil beat me to it. I was going to say: That article is wrong on so many levels. Perhaps the worst being that its author considers free markets rather than government intervention to be experimentation on lab mice...er, humans.

  Another is his implication that government regulation will make something "the best in the world."

  What an ignoramus. Or is it ignoramuses? The article seems to be the official opinion of the newspaper staff.

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:53 AM

• hz

  I too had some difficulty determining whether that was supposed to be serious or a parody of other newspaper editorials.

  I've had an awful lot of haircuts at a particular barbershop in auburn, i guess i should count myself lucky for not becoming a victim of this tragic lapse in regulation.

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:02 AM

• Matt

  Unregulated barber shops? Oh the humanity!
  Why didn't they mention the Mobile Mankiller, who decapitated two cusomters whilst shaving them? What about the Selma Scalper who killed seven with his unregulated machete buzz cuts? And the perms...dear God the perms!

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:05 AM

• George Gaskell

  under-regulation

  Now there's a turn of phrase.

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:30 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Oh, come on! How could Tucker not know that Alabama leads the nation in accidental barber shop decapitations? Oh, the humanity!

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:44 AM

• Yancey Ward

  On a serious note, now. I, too, thought I was reading satire until near the end of the editorial.

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:46 AM

• W Baker

  As a resident of Anniston and having been acquainted with Brandt Ayers, the paper's owner, for the past ten years, I can say unequivocally that the Mises Institute has absolutely nothing to fear from Ayers or his employees - except for their profound and persistent ignorance and Mr. Ayers extraordinarily high opinion of himself. (His father, originally a missionary to the Far East, was a local newspaperman and did a brilliant job of passing on his penchant for the Social Gospel movement to his son.)

  I say this in all kindness - just as one might describe his best friend's mentally afflicted child - but Mr. Ayers and his editorial page are simpletons. They are extremely limited in any mental capacity. They are very poorly read in most subject, and they certainly have not read Mises or Rothbard and would probably stumble after the first few chapters. Their opinions pretty much follow the Democratic Party's talking points - almost to the letter. There is little or no deviation to this line. Their editorials, like the present one, are usually on a second-grade level. Generally they have one, small, minor point, and they belabor it for five or six paragraphs. In short they have no capacity whatsoever to take on the Mises Institute or even describe it very well.

  I will give Ayers and Co. two points, however. He opposed the war (probably because it was a GOP one!) and he does publish letters critical of his paper and his - I'm hesitant to use this word - "philosophy".

  To sum up the Anniston Star: it sells local advertising, covers the local car accidents, robberies, obits. Everything else is just filler.

  
  

  Published: June 20, 2007 10:52 AM

• TokyoTom

  I'm a little surprised by the rather unquestioning, pro-regulation attitude displayed this rebel state editor.

  Looks like you've got a good opportunity to turn him, Jeff.

  Published: June 20, 2007 11:19 AM

• jl

  Regarding dam inspection, if the government owns them then they probably SHOULD be inspecting them. If they were privately owned, the owner would be responsible for tort liability, and would have an incentive to take appropriate action.

  Of course the government can get away with doing nothing because they are immune from liability.

  Published: June 20, 2007 11:29 AM

• Brent

  That was the dumbest thing I've read in awhile... and I read several newspapers full of dumb things everyday!

  Published: June 20, 2007 12:48 PM

• Under Regulated Realist

  This is another rehash of the Utopia vs Reality battle.

  Utopians believe that they can force the world to be better. They think that they can use force to reduce or remove risk.

  The realist knows that force is dangerous as the application of force causes unintended consequences like MONOPOLY. The Realist understands that the world is quite risky and reducing that risk is very expensive.

  Published: June 20, 2007 3:21 PM

• Paul

  I just sent an email in hopes that it'll get printed. Some of you make some great points that I didn't include in my email, so I encourage you all to send emails or letters of your own.

  Published: June 20, 2007 3:54 PM

• Don

  Oklahoma has laws for barbers but they don't have laws for Opticians, i.e. dispensing eyeglasses. You can be working at a fast food restaurant one day and dispensing eyeglasses from a 1 hour mall-er the next. OY!

  Published: June 20, 2007 4:14 PM

• constant reader

  at first I thought it's just my lousy english, not good enough to understant such sophisticated satire. And then I read your comments...

  THIS NONSENSE IS FOR REAL??! Oh boy...

  Published: June 20, 2007 4:55 PM

• Nasikabatrachus

  I really feel as though reading that article just made me more stupider.

  As Kasper reported, Alabama does not have a system for inspecting or regulating barbershops.

  Lots of sharp instruments involved in a process where good hygiene is vital ... what could go wrong?

  Alabama--and you just thought it was mutated cannibals in the woods you had to worry about!

  Published: June 20, 2007 5:54 PM

• N. Joseph Potts

  The ONLY state in the (reconstituted) Union?
  I've got to get my freedom-loving scalp on down to Alabammy to get it shorn by an unregulated barber quick, before this outrage is put to a swift end (I ain't afeard)!
  One thing's for sure. What with unregulated Alabama barbers unable to secure reciprocity in the regulated states, my incompetent, unregulated Alabama barber won't be able to skip to another state to ply his trade when his abuse of consumers becomes known in his market.
  That's a comfort.

  Published: June 20, 2007 9:07 PM

• Liberty Dog

  I have a mental picture of this guy scurrying across the Georgia state line to get a haircut from a genuine gubment sanctioned purveyor of hair cuts.

  Published: June 20, 2007 11:23 PM

• Jonathan Bostwick

  I was envisioning something more along the lines of someone sneaking into Alabama to get one of their subversive black market hair styles.

  Hmmm...I wonder what that would look like.

  Published: June 20, 2007 11:36 PM

• Kaneda

  While we are at it, we should call for regulated Press. I mean, heck, how do we know, if the quality of this Article isn't below a socially needed norm? The Anniston Star should go forward as a good example and let itself be regulated by the state, so that we can trust everything it tells us! I mean, it's not like they aren't selling wares too, no?

  Published: June 21, 2007 2:05 AM

• George Gaskell

  The dog-walking industry is also obscenely under-regulated.

  And not just in Alabama. It's a national disgrace!

  Published: June 21, 2007 10:12 AM

• andrew

  Why stop with barbers? Who hasn't been a victim of a hatchet job by their parents. Studies show kids with good haircuts score better on standardized tests. Let's get our elected leaders involved and make parents get a license to cut their kids' hair. If we all work together we can live in a nation where our children are no longer traumatized by bad haircuts.

  Published: June 21, 2007 11:18 AM

• Tim Swanson

  Do any of you have a bloggers license? If not, your unlicensed posts and comments are surely a hazard to the public-at-large...

  Published: June 21, 2007 2:15 PM

• Lisa Casanova

  All I can say is...reading that article took THIRTY SECONDS of my life and I want them back.

  Published: June 21, 2007 4:27 PM

• P.M.Lawrence

  There's a subtle bait and switch going on here.

  Start with the idea of caveat emptor, i.e. that you have to make sure that you get what you pay for. In certain areas, usually professional like dentistry or doctors, you cannot rely 100% on the idea that the shoddy dealers will go out of business (there's a sucker born every minute, the Nick Rivieras don't need many suckers, and cowboys without much equipment can readily move elsewhere to repeat the trick when they wear out their welcome).

  So, usually, the professional sector as a whole - which as a fixed target is far more influenced by market pressures than the individual cowboys - adopts a form of self-regulation. Sure, professional associations usually collaborate with governments to enforce their own regulations, but fundamentally all they have to do is mark out the good guys so that clients can make informed decisions. That eliminates the market problem of incomplete information, and all because the market itself makes the profession self-regulate.

  Back to the bait and switch. Governments pretend that without them, you wouldn't get the cowboys removed. But the only evidence for this is that they usually remove cowboys - thus crowding out self-regulation. It's a circular argument. The Alabama case shows that barbers don't really need much regulation, or you really would get self-regulation. (Of course, if governments stopped regulating without doing a proper hand over, they themselves would create transitional damage that they would use as an excuse to get back into regulating - they would pretend that a season of cowboys meant that cowboys couldn't be removed otherwise.)

  But the newspaper is probably right about the correlation between local culture and Mises type activity, though I can't see any direction of causality or relation to common causes or whatnot.

  Published: June 21, 2007 11:08 PM

• George Gaskell

  Even under-regulated Alabama hasn't witnessed this problem:

  http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL238985120070625?feedType=RSS&rpc=22&sp=true

  Published: June 25, 2007 10:59 AM