Slate Writer Claims Texas Eyebrow Threading Deregulation Will Plunge State Into Dickensian Nightmare
Evan Bernick writes at FEE:

Over at Slate, Mark Joseph Stern warns that a Texas Supreme Court decision invalidating a requirement that commercial eyebrow threaders undergo 750 hours of training -- 320 of which were admittedly unrelated to threading -- will plunge Texas into a Dickensian nightmare, where judges will have free reign to strike down humane and necessary laws designed to protect workers.

Stern's histrionics should not be taken seriously. The Texas Supreme Court did its job, insisting upon a rational, evidence-based explanation for restrictions on liberty that is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment as well as by the Texas Constitution.

As Justice Don Willett explains in an erudite and inspiring concurrence, "The Court's view is simple, and simply stated: Laws that impinge your constitutionally protected right to earn an honest living must not be preposterous."

Such judicial engagement is required to protect what liberal Justice William O. Douglas once referred to "the most precious liberty man possesses."

Although eyebrow threading, a traditional South Asian practice, consists only in using cotton thread to remove eyebrow hair, Texas roped the threaders under the same licensing requirements that are applied to conventional cosmetologists who perform a wide variety of services such as waxing, makeup, and chemical peels.

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation issued $2,000 penalties to threaders across the state and ordered them to quit their jobs until they completed 750 hours of coursework (not a second of which is devoted to eyebrow threading) in private beauty schools, costing between $7,000 and $22,000, and pass two examinations (neither of which tests eyebrow threading).

The Slate piece goes all hysterical, claiming eyebrow threading causes staph infections and more. Really? I once had this done. They're using a thread to twist off your hairs; they aren't performing surgery. This piece seems to debunk the Slate piece's claims.

The previous Texas regulation on this was basically like requiring a brain surgeon to go to cooking school and master the soufflé before he could legally cut into your head.

Hello, idiocy! Mark Joseph Stern: hyperventilating nanny state hystericist.

via @reasonpolicy