Team Obama targets America's independent music teachers

Under President Obama, the Federal Trade Commission has directed its heavy hand at the Music Teachers National Association. Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal notes:

The association's sin, according to the feds, rested in its code of ethics. The code lays out ideals for members to follow—a commitment to students, colleagues, society. Tucked into this worthy document was a provision calling on teachers to respect their colleagues' studios, and not actively recruit students from other teachers. 

That's a common enough provision among professional organizations (doctors, lawyers), yet the FTC avers that the suggestion that Miss Sally not poach students from Miss Lucy was an attempt to raise prices for piano lessons. Given that the average lesson runs around $30 an hour, and that some devoted teachers still give lessons for $5 a pop, this is patently absurd.

Abuse of power, clear and simple. And the government, under Obama, seems to enjoy testing its levels of pettiness.

Or maybe pettiness isn't the issue. Perhaps we're being deliberately taken down a path to reveal how much tyranny we'll stand for, and by doing so incrementally, we're expected to become accustomed to more and more of it.

It's a tried and true formula that's been used before.

...Then they came for the piano teachers, and we said nothing...

Who's going to be Team Obama's next target?