Again With Neo-Liberal Kvetching

Matt Yglesias:

Complaining about barber licensing is fun, but the real damage of bad occupational licensing policies is done in the health and education sectors.

The rest of the post concerns the damage done because trained dentists are required to oversee teeth cleaning.  First, not one word about the damage done to education by requiring educators to be educated. Second, did you know that dentists can perform biopsies and minor surgery for oral cancer? They can. Do you think  that having a trained medical professional on hand during routine teeth cleaning might lead to the early discovery and treatment of oral cancer? My guess is yes.  Easy is it to complain about regulation from a position of vast ignorance and ideological opposition to state intervention for reasonable reasons.

Sort of like arguing that  protecting puppies is really  corruptly seeking to

 raise the cost of breeding dogs, making it ever-more difficult for middle-class American families to be dog-owners.

Do I think Yglesias wants to hurt puppies?  Not really. But his lazy ideologically driven opposition to sensible regulation authorizes puppy-haters who are fellow neo-Liberal, Reganite, Thatcherite, Glibertarians to make the same lazy argument.