Your assumption is that they are doing it at all. I'm asking for evidence. The Democratic Party's standard-bearers are a black man, a white woman, and a Mormon. In 2008, their top-six Presidential finishers were in order: a black man, a white woman, a white man, a Latino man, a Catholic white man, and another white man. And there's outside odds that John Kerry finally comes out. The GOP top six in 2008 were all white men, with one of them a Mormon and the rest either Catholic or WASP. Where is there anti-ethnic or anti-female or anti-anything discrimination in today's Democratic Party?
The problem with regulations is that politicians like to generalize by labeling a concept they call "regulation" as good and bad in itself, which leads political types to come up with political words like "overregulation" or "underregulation". But the reality is that regulation can be fall into the category of good regulation, mostly harmless but unnecessary regulation, and bad regulation. The good regulations are often necessary, and even if they are not, they are beneficial to society. The mostly harmless but unnecessary regulations are often bureaucratic tools for government to justify its own unnecessary growth and power. Bad regulations can also be in the category of government overreaching for its own purposes, but more often they are the brainchild of self serving interest groups with political influence. A good leader with common sense should know how to discern the difference between different types of regulations and then regulate or deregulate accordingly, rather than support or oppose "regulation" in a generic sense. Unfortunately, we don't seem to elect many leaders who understand this. That seems to be particularly true at the local level, where our leaders seem to either want to regulate everything that moves or else strive to get rid of regulations without rhyme or reason.
Not sure about nurse to neurosurgeon. But a good paralegal should be able to work their way up to partner, right?
I choose to engage you in your own conversation. Please cite one example of where the Democrats are not the liberal party engaging in this issue.
This depends on the state, but in some places the paralegal can by sitting the bar exam. States that permit "readers" to sit the bar are fewer in recent decades, but traditionally this was the way it was often done. A handful of states still allow it.
http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1240&Itemid=165 Democrats are not fighting this. A true liberal party would in the name of economic justice. While I was talking about medicine the same can be said for law or architecture or most other licensed professional positions.
How in the hell is this systemic discrimination against anybody??? It's in one state!!! It's about interior decorators!!! But let's compare this to Jim Crow or the current contraception fight.
To a great extent, they're regulated by the professionals themselves. To change the system requires a governmental power grab. I guess that is the point I was trying to make before.
And I'm okay with that. Like I said before sometimes you need the government there to increase and ensure personal liberty.
Your point is that the licensing system is bad. I'm no expert so I won't try to argue for or against it. What I'm trying to understand is how you seem to "know" that the licensing system discriminates against minorities and women. For example; right now, in political science faculty departments, roughly 1/4 of the tenured faculty are women. Thirty years ago, it was about half of one percent. Yet everyone who gets into a poli sci tenure track position has a PhD - a very time consuming license, if you ask someone currently in the bowels of getting one. The same growth can be measured for ethnic minority faculty members. Do you have a study that shows how licenses systematically discriminate against these groups? Anything beyond anecdotal evidence or case studies? And do you have any proof that suggests that ending the licensing system eliminates this alleged discrimination?
Fair enough. I don't disagree with that statement as a generality. Many self regulating systems haven't done their job. Insurance, for example, hasn't done this well as an industry. That's why I'm content with the health care power grab.
Exactly. I get the line of thinking here. People see nurse practitioners doing more of the work that family physicians have traditionally done, and CRNAs doing more of the work that anesthesiologists have done, and start wondering what the value of the four years of medical school and the several years of residency are. Well, there is a lot of value in those years of school. People like to dismiss theory at the expense of on-the-job experience, but when it comes to diagnosing problem in the most complex machines in the world, all six billion of which are unique in their own way, there simply is no substitute for the schooling that comes with an MD. Are there crummy docs? Sure. Are there great nurses? Sure. Is it ridiculous that it costs so much to become an MD? Absolutely. My own mother was in the Air Force Reserve for several years, followed by three years of active duty, to get her medical school paid for. But while saying that medical school costs too much is right on the money, questioning its value is ludicrous.
My point is that the licencing system is flawed and unnecessarily exclusive, not that it's bad. Everything else is your projection, not my belief.
In no way am I suggesting that medical education lacks value. What I am questioning is that the knowledge acquired in post graduate school MUST be acquired at an accreditied university for it to have actual and legal value. In an age where people can carry the entirety of human thought in their pocket it just seems like this model as the only acceptable avenue is outdated. The goal should be a professional level of skill and knowledge. How those two things are achieved should be expanded, not contracted based particularly on unnatural economic exclusivity. One last thing. I find a great hypocricy on the right regarding this issue. They are so hell bent on the 'right to work' when it comes to union labor but are silent when it comes to professionals. To me, they are the exact same issue.
Can you show me how this exclusion targets any group along any characterization other than "those with licenses versus those without?" And by doing so, can you show me why any government needs to intervene to remove or change the licensing system? And then why, if everything else is my projection, did you type that licenses discriminate against women, minorities, and families? And if you did indeed type that, can you show me where you draw that evidence?
Insurance is regulated out the ass. It is nothing like a free market, though bizarrely, lots of people claim it is as free as the wind, then use that bit of bullshit as a bludgeon against "laissez faire heath care" or what have you. It may be free-ER than a totally centralized system, but by no means is it free, or even all that close to free.
did it start out that way, or were most of the regulations created because of abuses by the industry? They've had their fair share. Are you saying they should not be regulated or that they're over-regulated? Or are the regulations mostly sensible and to protect people financially? also, aren't most insurance regulations state regulations? I thought they were, but don't know.
False choice. I'm saying they are generally over-regulated, and that the answer is not MORE regulation, since most regulation ends up resulting in regulatory capture and other government/industry cozying.
It wasn't meant to be a choice, it was a question - which I think you then went on to answer. I disagree, imo that's not the regulations, that's the way business (and later administrations who like the business more than the American people) fight the regulation, buy cozying up to the regulators, or actually becoming them with an administration's help. Regulators and the industries they regulate do need further separation imo - that problem is real enough, I just have a different opinion on the cause. It's a hard one though as the industry is probably where you'll find the most knowledgeable people and one or two of them might actually want to regulate bad practices of their ex-industry. But are those the people actually taking the regulatory jobs or are they just going to promote the ex-business's agenda with a rubber stamp (aka Monsanto and the USDA)?
No, I did not. The choice you presented was binary and incomplete. You asked if it: 1. started that way, or 2. was mostly precipitated by the industry being a bad actor toward their customers. They don't fight shit if they're of any size whatsoever. They LOVE the concept of regulation, because it keeps competition out. If the regulators/government didn't have power, the subjects of the regulation would have no incentive to buddy up to help wield that power.
Your post also alludes to something like the following: http://www.cs101-class.org/hub.php http://www.udacity.com/ These are sites offering high level college courses for free, following the same syllabus taught at high level universities like Stanford and Berkeley. Most courses right now are on Computer Science, but this is the same idea of free, easy-access, and high quality education that the internet and mass communication can provide. Such sites have just started up over the past year, and as you can imagine, colleges are monitoring the situation closely, as it can change the face of education. Apparently 100,000 students from across many different countries and educational backgrounds signed up for a free online AI course last year. The will to learn is there, its the cost that has held many people back. There still time to register for courses this week on both sites, if any of you are interested. I'm taking that Programming a Robotic Car course on Udacity myself.