A genuine citizen legislature like ours will produce some uniquely ridiculous legislative proposals. HB546 is that while also being a protectionist effort to create a cartel. Requiring State licensing to create a protected occupation – a monopoly on the price of admission and practice.
Related: In NH You Need a License to Shampoo Her Hair but Not to Perform Her Abortion
New Hampshire is famous for licensing. When we finally unlicensed hair-braiding, it made international news. If you want to shampoo hair, you need a license (and 1500 hours of approved training.) To perform an abortion, you need the desire and a willing patient – no license.
It’s weird.
It is also illegal in the Granite State for any therapist (coach, pastor, or person), using art or otherwise, to provide consultation to someone who wants to be a heterosexual. If they’re going to be gay, all the way, but not back.
Democrats suck. And Democrats (Peter “I love Licensing” Schmidt and David Watters) are behind the Art Therapy Cartel bill, HB546. Drew Cline at the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy notes that,
The messaging is always about licensing being needed for insurance coverage, or the danger posed by poorly trained art therapists. Yet the bills always define art therapy as broadly as possible and include criminal penalties for its unlicensed practice. Classic rent seeking. … Never mind that art has been considered therapeutic since cave men started scratching on rocks, or that the practice known as art therapy was invented by an artist, not a licensed therapist.
Does anyone know anyone who, regardless of credentials has used, seen, or heard of art being used as a means of therapy? As soon as we learn to draw art becomes beneficial therapy for many regardless of skill or the experience of any mentor.
I’ve shared some deep and inciteful moments while rearranging the condensation on the side of a cold beer. No license.
But if HB546 becomes law in New Hampshire, “it would be illegal for anyone to offer “art therapy” services unless the instructor has “a masters or doctoral degree from an accredited college or university in a program in art therapy….”
When do we get a cartel for music therapy, dance therapy, water therapy (swimming), book club (wine therapy), or any conversation between two (or more) human beings that includes a conclusion that could be construed as unlicensed professional help?
“Using the process and products of art creation to facilitate clients’ exploration of inner fears, conflicts, and core issues with the goal of improving physical, mental, and emotional functioning and well-being.”
Art instructors have been doing this for centuries. Without a license. Suddenly, in 2020, it’s a danger to the public?
And another Left-Wing sop to prop up ridiculous tuition rates for expensive degrees held, primarily, by what amounts to wealthy left-leaning, Democrat voting, “experts.”
Demanding a master or doctorate for all but a few professions is little more than wealth redistribution from “patients” (or the taxpayers when they are paying the freight) to liberal institutions of higher learning and the politicians they support.
We need less licensing not more.
