On the Babylonish Captivity of Barbershops

Washington State increasingly resembles an asylum run by the inmates. But anyone outside the walls can see the disastrous results of its misguided effort to combine barbering with cosmetology. In this the state was complicit, led with a ring in its nose by the vested interests of salons and haircut chains, hoping to quietly put the last nail in the last barber's coffin. They continued with a two-pronged attack: overburdening small barber shops with taxes while subjecting them to useless and irrelevant requirements and inspections by-- who else?-- cosmetologists. And this in a state so enlightened as to legalize marijuana and privatize liquor sales.

Outside the embattled state, barbering thrives as a free and flourishing profession-- one of the oldest-- with barber colleges, barber supply stores, and real barber shops in which barbers can make a living wage. These free citizens know that barbering has nothing to do with cosmetology, which is of, by, and for women. Barbering (from the word for 'beard') is by and for men. When, they wonder, will Washington give up its failed experiment, and end the years of misrule? When will it restore barbering as a proud and profitable profession, and raise the barber pole as a beacon for free men?