Watching a documentary on occupational licensure law corruption. Louisiana a huge focus

Louisiana’s occupational licensure laws are borderline abuses of human rights

The documentary features a segment on a nice and sweet lady from Baton Rouge named sandy meadows.

Sandy meadows had little education and no resources, other than her talent for making beautiful flower arrangements which local grocers purchased from her.

Louisiana’s horticulture commission- which shouldn’t be allowed to exist- got word of this woman’s activities. It threatened to close the grocery stores that were buying Ms. Meadows’ flower arrangements because she was unlicensed.

Meadows tried but failed to get a license, because of a ridiculous written test that requires knowledge of nothing flower-related.

What makes things worse, on the part of the test that requires you to make 4 flower arrangements in 4 hours, the judges of the arrangements are licensed florists themselves, who have a financial stake in restricting entry.

Meadows spent many years trying to get licensed but never could.

She died in poverty, prevented from doing what she loved for a living.

But the people of Louisiana were protected from menace of an unlicensed flower lady


Let me make one thing clear: using the power of govt to restrict entry into your profession, in order to protect your salary, is one of the most corrupt things I can imagine doing. The people that do it deserve bad things to happen to them


Later on, another Louisiana case was discussed

In 2005, after Katrina, the trees of St. Joseph Abbey were damaged. The monks needed a new source of revenue, so they decided to make and market the caskets they used to bury their own dead.

The state board of embalmers and funeral directors, run itself by funeral directors, got word of the monks’ activities.

The state board informed St. Joseph’s abbey that if they wanted to sell caskets, the monks needed to

A) earn 30 hrs of college credits
B) spend 1 year as apprentices at licensed funeral home
C) abbey would have been required to become a funeral establishment
D)install an entire embalming facility at their abbey, even though they only wanted to make caskets