Do you feel the same way about doctors? Should anyone be entitled to call him or herself a doctor, under free speech, and it's up to the individual to find out if they actually attended medical school?

I appreciate what you're saying, but clearly the real issue with licensure of engineers (or any other profession for that matter) is NOT protecting the public. It's for creating monopolies. This is just one more piece of evidence of that.

"the could have had a licensed civil engineer put a stamp on the document and that would have avoided something that shouldn't have happened in the first place"
The PE would have to have "responsible charge" over the design, otherwise it's "doc stamping". In other words, a PE gets to bill a bunch of hours to comply with the law, and then it's her/his skin on the line if something is wrong.
There's an Internet acronym for I am not your lawyer (IANYL) because the state bar will go after even the appearance of practicing law, regardless of if there's a legal services agreement in place. There's no I am not your engineer (IANYE) acronym. Engineers are lousy at this. Captain Kirk argues with Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy about whether sleeping with the alien is affecting his judgment, while Scotty is in the background getting stuff done.

I find this very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I'm both. I'm an engineer and the government says I'm an engineer (get it?). The real issue with licensure of engineers is protecting the public. In doing the study this gentleman did on traffic lights he in no way endangered the public. They are just picking on him. I don't agree with this - But, he could have had a licensed civil engineer put a stamp on the document and that would have avoided something that shouldn't have happened in the first place...if that makes any sense. But, anybody has a right to do what he did. In fact, society could have really benefitted from it. But, they don't really care about society...

Regardless of licensing, the public is not safe from lawyers.
Anyone who has any condition adversely affecting his health is not safe from the dictatorship of the AMA. That is caused by licensing, not remedied by licensing.

"This is rent-seeking behavior."

Bingo. And whomever has the power to tax/license has the power to control.

I'm sure Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would be appalled, however.

This is rent-seeking behavior. Engineers set it up to inflate the price of engineering services. Doctors and lawyers do it, but we do a lousy job (it's good we're lousy at this) of stopping practicing without a license because there are industrial exemptions that allow you to use the word without being licensed. You just can't use it in the context of a project that requires licensure. Traffic light timing probably does require licensure. Usually projects like specifying power lines or wires in a building require it. Oddly, medical equipment does not. The companies go through FDA process controls, which results in more engineers being hired, but the engineers don't put their PE # on the docs and are not personally liable.

I like to think engineering is not as strict about licensure as law and medicine because engineers look at the larger picture and see it for what it is. I think lawyers and doctors are likely ON AVERAGE (certainly not all) to take the claim on face value that licensure is for public safety and they're not going to question the issue b/c it's outside their area of practice.