Think before ink

How things change. When I was a little boy, tattoos were unusual, being associated with bikie gangs, and the like. The most respectable group who got them were probably sailors, and they are not of high repute. Today, they are common everywhere, from celebrities like Angelina Jolie to parents with office jobs in small country towns.

In "Tattooists want better regulations across the industry", Rick Kelsey tells us that groups of tattooists in the United Kingdom, where about one-third of young people now have a tattoo, disagree as the need for greater government regulation of their industry, with one organization calling for this and another arguing that greater education is sufficient.

Since government interference is generally bad both morally and in practice, I'm on the side of the group who think that no more regulation is needed: if someone wants to call themselves a tattooist, or a tattoo artist, or a dermal ink technician or whatever sells, they should be allowed to. The normal laws relating to fulfilling a contractual agreement should be sufficient, along with reviews. If happy customers, and the professional opinion of other tattooists, give good reviews about results that are clearly visible, that will benefit tattooists who do a good job, just as heart surgeons make their reputation and subsequent income from satisfied patients who stay alive to tell how well the new heart works. And just as patients can and should take doctors to court for compensation when the doctor screws up, so too must the law allow tattoo customers to take practitioners who fail to deliver the promised goods to court for compensation, and to punish them in the case of criminal negligence.

It occurred to me that the group of tattooists calling for more government control might have a less savoury and less honest motive: they might be trying to use the law to stop fair and free competition. Having already set themselves up, they don't want others to enter the business, possibly lowering their own profits. This is what we see in the efforts of selfish groups within countries who pressure governments to set up controls on free trade and business. They make up false and dishonest excuses about "protecting" poor farmers, or whatever to, for example, make it illegal for foreigners to buy land; the result is that rich elites buy up land for much less than it is worth and take advantage of the poor citizens because there is no free and fair market. This is not just dishonest, it is wholly immoral and bad for the entire national economy, except the small, selfish elites who are legally abusing their fellow citizens unjustly to benefit only themselves. I seem to have moved a bit away from my original topic here, and I didn't get to say what I actually had in mind when I started; on the other hand, this is not irrelevant to the weekend reading in Quest: a pleasing if unexpected outcome. Perhaps my subconscious brain was controlling my response here all along with this outcome in mind.

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Reference

Kelsey, R. (2013, May 3). Tattooists want better regulations across the industry. BBC Newsbeat. Retrieved  May 4, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22364980