You're not an engineer unless Government says so - and why this is bad for free speech

Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 11 months ago to Government
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It's no wonder that this is coming from Oregon, but the effect is the chilling of free speech. If the Government can prevent anyone but those whom they "license" from speaking out about certain issues, they become a censor.


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  • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hello Blair,
    Thanks for the short informative clip. My Grandmother volunteered for the Degree of Honor
    Fraternal organization in the 60's. I still have a small life insurance policy she purchased for me. The fraternal approach allowed the members to have power over provider of the treatment. Could not have that. Time and again it is the same old story. The govt fix is like pouring gas on a fire to put it out. Let's see , worry about a certain group hellbent on your destruction
    Bring them in unvetted and pay for them. Turn affordable medical care into the unaffordable care act. Control Education and institute a numbskull curriculum . Force equality when it goes against reality : doing a bad job or service is not equal to a job well done . A well utilized talent with skill and ingenuity has no ethnicity, bloodline or nationality it is the INDIVIDUAL that produces.
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  • Posted by ewv 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Reputation matters. Licensing is a phony reputation guaranteed in advance by government, thereby also undermining the importance of an earned reputation.
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  • Posted by ewv 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Licensing does not protect from the incompetent. It enshrines incompetence as pre-approved and protects monopolies.

    The "logic" defending government licensing implies that no could do anything without government approval. That is the opposite of a limited government in a free society under which we are free to act unless expressively prohibited as a violation of someone else's rights. Requirement of advance bureaucratic approval before acting is totalitarian.

    There is widespread opposition to the suppression of freedom of speech by the engineer in Oregon, but it almost universally concedes government licensing, which means you are allowed to speak but not think and act on your knowledge without approval. Do people really support that, or are they unthinkingly parroting what they have been told by statists thousands of times throughout their whole lives? Would they just as easily object to freedom of speech (as many already do) if that had been the 'tradition' they grew up in?
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 7 years, 11 months ago
    There are similars regulations in other states including Az. Even though I have a Mobile Hydraulics Certificate in maintaining fluid power systems which is now about 25 yrs old, I would have to retest though the Fluid Power Society to be recertified to do business here in Az. Regulations like the ones in Oregon are to protect businesses and others from incompetent people. But, Oregon is taking their regs to the legal limit and stretching it beyond reason.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Right there with you. I am the CTO of a group of companies with about 1,000 engineers. We have a short list of ones with a PE (5?), that we periodically leverage for certain things that oddly require a stamp.
    PE is generally irrelevant now.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    As is should be. How would somebody do that, in terms of engineering? The best engineers I've worked with have been those who designed the earlier Boeing Commercial aircraft. They weren't licensed. But, trust me...they were protecting the public who flew through very good engineering.
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  • Posted by ewv 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    In the 1970s there was a push from IEEE to require licensing for programming, which was squashed by IEEE members in a big controversy. Most engineers in industry do not require licenses for their work internal to or consulting for companies, or for teaching and research. The progressives want government controls over what anyone can do or say. Clearly that is too unwieldy so the problem of unauthorized individualism should be cut off at the source with controls over acquisition of knowledge.

    Here are some more links on the Oregon unlicensed thinker, but the public criticisms are too narrow, conceding government "licensing" control while saying that this example only goes too far in what at least for now still supports the 1st Amendment. If the progressives can link it to 'hate thoughts' against social controls with red lights, even that will end.

    https://youtu.be/IIPYcCii7Sg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9xVC...

    https://youtu.be/Wi4brP0sXSQ

    http://ij.org/case/oregon-engineering...
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  • Posted by $ 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, and this is what I'd like to see a return to - peer acknowledgement of status. That way you have a private system being administered by those who actually know about their area of expertise - not some bureaucrat in an office who's primary goal is collecting fees.
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  • Posted by rbunce 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, just because some government bureaucrat somewhere issued them a license does not mean they are any less likely to kill me.
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  • Posted by rbunce 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You are assuming the license grantor knows what the hell they are doing in evaluating the competency of the applicant... big assumption. Also assuming that because someone does not want to submit themselves to government licensure process means they are incompetent. Also assuming that someone who does submit themselves to government licensure process is competent.
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  • Posted by chad 7 years, 11 months ago
    He wasn't practicing as an engineer, just using simple math to make a point. He wasn't trying to build anything, the government should have taken the 'free' information and examined their problem, fixed it, then shut up. Now he is asking the government for permission to be free in hopes of establishing a better functioning slave master. Quit asking for permission.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 11 months ago
    Let's not let engineering go the way of the AMA.

    AMSE boiler codes et al saved a lot of lives, and the government was not required.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 7 years, 11 months ago
    Craftsmen's guilds started this process, with the award of titles, starting as an apprentice, then rising to a journeyman, and then a master of one's craft. The government didn't get involved, except to recognize the guild's certificate of title, until they realized they could make money by usurping the guild's authority.
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  • Posted by peterchunt 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree with Abaco. I am a licensed professional engineer. I practice engineering only in my area of expertise. If I go outside of this envelope I would get an engineer in that field to stamp it to ensure it is correct. All professions require a license to ensure that the person is competent (Lawyers, Dentists, Doctors, etc.). While those who don’t understand that these institutions are assuring competence and complain that they limit entry into the professions are wrong. They are only attempting to ensure people who meet the required competence required for that profession practice it.
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  • Posted by $ prof611 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes. That's what diplomas on the wall are for. Besides, as a matter of symantics, MDs are NOT doctors. The only real doctors are PhDs.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Robin Williams playing Popeye in a movie of the same title was ordered to pay a number of fees plus a "fee fee."
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 11 months ago
    IMO, this attack on free speech boils down to Big Brother wanting revenue.
    How do you get any kind of license? You pay for it.
    The driver's license I paid for arrived Monday.
    The concealed carry pistol I paid for arrived yesterday.
    Checks for two car tag stickers are in the mail.
    Whee! Everything at once.
    Never mind that I also need to see the dentist about a molar cap I swallowed while waiting to see how much my dental insurance will pay for $855 worth of other work.
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  • Posted by brkssb 7 years, 11 months ago
    There is no legitimate “government” certification. All government certifications are specious, censoring, prejudicial, and boorish. Appropriate education and qualification rigors still exist (fading fast BECAUSE of government bureaucracy and greed) and are easily demanded by consumers seeking doctors, lawyers, hairdressers… DO NOT PROTECT THE PUBLIC FROM OURSELVES - WE DO NOT DESERVE TO BE SO PERSECUTED.
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  • Posted by preimert1 7 years, 11 months ago
    So a person driving a train through Oregon better call himself a "train operator" or "rail road driver" even though he bears responsibility for publlic safety?
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  • Posted by wiggys 7 years, 11 months ago
    many years ago mad magazine had a cover showing many of the licenses that are issued by government and one was a license to have a license.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You're overcomplicating what I said. I don't disagree with what you're saying, though. There are times when a PE will stamp something without being involved in it enough (IMO). Those aren't good engineers. I try to keep my statements really simple, literal. There is a lot of "doc stamping" that goes on. I'm asked to do it once in a while. I don't. Love your Captain Kirk example! LOL
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 7 years, 11 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It's both, actually. I like protecting the public. I don't like a lot of other stuff.
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