establishment

North Carolina lawmakers recently backed away from a proposed bill that would have reformed the state’s occupational licensing laws. In testimony given before the state legislature’s Joint Legislative Administrative Procedure Oversight Committee, lobbyists convinced lawmakers to ditch plans to eliminate government licensing requirements for a dozen occupations and consolidate government licensing boards. The lobbyists argued removing government restrictions on occupations such as acupuncturists and athletic trainers would have endangered consumers’ health.

In this election cycle, we hear a lot about the “establishment.” Most people are not really sure who they are, but they are sure that they do not like them. The anger toward the establishment is not party specific and has propelled two unlikely candidates: Donald Trump on the Republican side and Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democrats.

With a surprisingly wide margin of victory, Congressman James Lankford won the Oklahoma Republican U.S. Senate primary, defeating former Speaker of the State House of Representatives T.W. Shannon by 23 points and avoiding a runoff election. Lankford now becomes the prohibitive favorite to replace outgoing Senator Tom Coburn, who is retiring with two years remaining in his current term.

Many educated Americans likely recognize the expression “separation of church and state” but probably do not know it appears nowhere in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson used it in a January…