In the fields of free market economics and individualist ethics, licensing is understood as “the state stealing your God-given right to engage in free enterprise and voluntary association, then selling it back to you after you beg.”
And the socialist enclave of Oregon is a perfect example of the state doing just that, then, REVOKING its “permission slip” because its agents didn’t like the fact that a doctor had a different opinion than the government orthodoxy.
The Washington Post’s Hannah Knowles reports that Steven LaTulippe, a Dallas, Oregon, based physician, told a Salem public gathering last month that he and his staff do not wear masks. Or, to be more precise, Ms. Knowles put it this way:
Last month, he urged Trump supporters gathered in Salem, Oregon, to “take off the mask of shame” — though hardly a covered face was in sight — and said proudly, to claps and cheers, that none of his clinic staff wore the simple accessories shown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
But he didn’t say that the masks prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Ms. Knowles said that, and such a statement is debatable, as I have shown numerous times at MRCTV.
Heck, just last week, when writing about eight moms in Florida who were removed from a school board meeting because they refused to wear the magic masks, I noted:
And not only does the box of the most popular N95 mask actually say on it that it does not protect against the transmission of COVID19, numerous studies indicate the same for cloth masks,
Now, it’s possible that a mask could provide very limited protection from virus-carrying DROPLETS being expelled by a symptomatic person, but in late winter last year, the great tax-devouring demigod Anthony Fauci himself said that masks weren’t useful to stop the spread.
Not many months thereafter, he got caught not wearing a mask while sitting in a baseball stadium with two other folks.
Should Fauci lose his medical license and be subtly derided by Ms. Knowles and state bureaucrats in Oregon?
Dr. LaTulippe has lost his license. But, of course, he was in private practice, engaging in voluntary exchange of payment for services. He wasn’t engaged in the “noble” activity of living off the expropriated tax cash of others.
Writes Knowles:
Explaining the suspension in a written order Friday, the Oregon Medical Board said LaTulippe’s disdain for public health measures went far beyond staff going maskless. The Dallas, Oregon-based doctor not only fails to take basic precautions, the board said, but “actively promotes transmission of the virus within the extended community” by his poor example. The board alleges that LaTulippe regularly misinforms patients — especially elderly ones and children — with warnings that mask-wearing is ‘very dangerous’ and can lead to serious health issues.
Well, as I have noted at MRCTV, LaTulippe is not alone among doctors in his concern.
And one aspect of this should bring to light how the coercive government mandate of licensing blinds many people to the nature of market exchange. Knowles notes:
The state board’s catalogue of concerns begins with LaTulippe’s alleged July advice to a patient. According to the board, LaTulippe told the patient that wearing masks does not prevent the spread of the coronavirus and instructed against isolating because exposure to other people would give the patient immunity to COVID-19.
The person was ‘terminated as a patient’ a few weeks later, the board says, after questioning LaTulippe’s advice.
But when one owns or runs a private business, one is supposed to be able to operate as one wishes when offering goods or services. So, just like clients are supposed to be free to NOT BUY something, sellers are supposed to be free to NOT SELL something. In fact, both sides are buyers and sellers, engaging in exchanges. A doctor is free to have an opinion based on his or her research, and a customer is free to visit or never return. Reputation follow both parties.
As a result, a doctor in a free market, who has to satisfy customers, will try to do his or her best if he or she wants to maximize business and gain a good reputation. This, contrary to what government “doctors” like Anthony Fauci do, which is to get paid regardless of market demand or satisfaction -- and the same goes for the government bureaucrats who run the Oregon licensing scam.
As generations of economists know, licensing is a government shakedown system, and it is not the driver of quality. Stories of alleged bribery of “health inspectors” abound, and licensing is used by established industry figures as a way to block lower-priced, lower-margin upstarts from entering the market, thus preventing the poor from getting services in many, many fields.
But hey, that kind of situation allows politicians to claim that the market is too expensive, and then to ride in their tax-funded horses to claim it’s their role to “provide” for the masses.