Russell797
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He is perfectly within his rights to call himself an engineer because he is one. He did not claim to be licensed in Oregon. The First Amendment makes no mention of a certification requirement to engage in public discussion, or a requirement to disavow undisputed educational credentials.
Not when he misrepresents himself to an official board. To the board he is not a recognized engineer. He has educational requirements. He is not certified. He claims himself to be an "excellent" engineer. Fine, maybe he is. There will also be not so excellent engineers out there. The board has no way to know who is who unless the individual passes the licensing tests. He misrepresents himself and does so repeatedly after being told he does not qualify.
Experts are important to our society. We rely on them. They must be properly vetted. If the guy will not play by the rules, then he should give it up.
He is free by the 1st Amendment to say whatever he wants in public, but not to an official board who's job it is to ensure competence. He must be a licensed engineer to have a voice in that setting. He does not. Period.
Not unless the state says so, apparently. These days you can't make a cup of coffee and officially call it coffee unless you have the proper coffee certification. This whole certification frenzy is an attempt to make exclusive domains out of ordinary professions.
Ikr, many states license different areas. While licensing jobs which may have some risks involved for customers (such as food handling) makes some sense, other occupations such as hairdressers, florists, and those who work with dead people have no risks to other people if the person fails at his job.
This would be funny if it were not so sadly reminiscent of 1984 and Brave New World. One can only hope the author is right and these over-zealous regulators will be publicly slapped down.
Oregon is suing engineers for . . . speaking up about engineering?
A man is fined $500 for sharing his opinion, or what the state calls practicing engineering without a license.
- George F. Will
- ·
- 12 hours ago
Beginning this week, Washington hopes that infrastructure, which is a product of civil engineering, will be much discussed. But if you find yourself in Oregon, keep your opinions to yourself, lest you get fined $500 for practicing engineering without a license. This happened to Mats Jarlstrom as a result of events that would be comic if they were not symptoms of something sinister.
Jarlstrom’s troubles began when his wife got a $150 red-light-camera ticket. He became interested in the timing of traffic lights and decided there was something wrong with the formula used in Oregon and elsewhere to time how long traffic lights stay yellow as they transition from green to red. He began thinking, Googling, corresponding and — here he made his big mistake — talking about this subject. He has ignored repeated demands by the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying that he pipe down. So the board considers him to be, like Jesse James, Al Capone and John Dillinger, a dangerous recidivist.
Not that it should matter, but Jarlstrom actually is an engineer. He has a degree in electrical engineering, served in a technical capacity in the Swedish air force and worked for Sweden’s Luxor Electronics before immigrating to the United States in 1992. He is, however, not licensed by Oregon to “practice engineering” — design skyscrapers, bridges, etc. — so, according to the board, he should not be allowed to talk about engineering or even call himself an engineer. Only those the board licenses are admitted to the clerisy uniquely entitled to publicly discuss engineering. . . .
He lives in Beaverton; most likely the fine was trivial to him. ANd well its Beaverton, it is a rich and snobby area.
That being said here is the civil-rights lawsuit that the guy filed.
http://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ECF-1-Complaint-1.pdf
The stink seems to be over the fact that Järlström claims to be an engineer. He could have cleared this up at the beginning by asserting that he is an amateur engineer and not a licensed engineer. Or he could have just not claimed to be an engineer and presented his findings while expressing his background in the field of electronics.
He was fined for claiming to be a an engineer and presenting information under that guise. In the State of Oregon to be considered an official engineer you need to be certified. If he wasnt being a snob and just said that he was an amateur engineer then there wouldnt be a big stink. There are board certified engineers for the same reason that there are building regulations; safety.
He has a background in engineering, might even be good at it. But he should have presented himself that way. But instead he presented himself as an engineer without indicating it as an engineer background and not certified.
It's public comment on a public issue. He's not acting as an engineer on anyone's behalf. He merely cited his qualifications to explain why he took up the issue. The only issue here is the First Amendment, and the rent-seeking enemies of free speech will be slapped down, to the benefit of all of us.
As I said the guy went around presenting himself as an engineer not stating that he isnt a licensed engineer. Had he stated that he was an licensed engineer he wouldnt have been fined. The guy specifically contacted the board that licenses engineers and claimed that he was an engineer. It is one thing to go on the local news and title yourself as an engineer, but contacting the board and claiming to be an engineer is going to get them to check and see. Clearly the problem id him making a claim that isnt true; he isnt a licensed engineer. A simple fix would have been for him to do the obvious: make it clear that he isnt licensed. Then he would be able to speak freely. Which he could have done at anytime. But instead he is conflating this to make his lawsuit viable. He wants to be able to call himself an engineer without bothering to prove his educational background.
If he and titled himself an amateur engineer nothing would have come of it. Its the same a doctor that isnt licensed, he has rules and regulations that he must obey or he will get in trouble. Either this guy is stupid or has no understanding of how come engineers need to be board certified. You dont want someone just making **** up when it comes to safety.
Again there was an option that this guy could have used to still get his message out. He simply could have expressed that he was not a board certified engineer. But he refuses to do that, why?
There's no "went around." He was in a public forum. He could have called himself a witch doctor and it still would not have had any impact on his First Amendment right to speak.
He was fined for talking about an engineering topic. The First Amendment doesn't require a license. To claim otherwise is definitely over-regulation.
So a doctor from another country can come here and practice medicine without state certification?
The board fined the guy for pretending to be a engineer. If the guy just didnt claim to be an engineer then there would be no fine. Either-way we are here and we all presumably read the guys assertions, so no one was stopped from speaking. The guy was only fined for trying to act as if he is an engineer. How do you prove that you are an engineer? The same way that you prove that you are a doctor or pilot or lawyer.
Are saying that no one needs to take a test to prove that they are qualified?
The guy was trying to make a legal argument, and made the claim that he was an engineer. In that setting he should have said that he wasnt a real engineer.
When it comes to doctors and engineers they should prove their qualifications. what if the guys numbers do not add up? Does that matter to you? Or is this really just a subject that you are asserting and the actual details of the case do not matter to you?
How a user with the forum ID of "Freedom from all" can arrive at the conclusion that he has no freedom to express is own description of his skills (an engineer) without being fined is, well, more than a little mind numbing.
But I'm going to be generous and assume you haven't read the op or article (at least not carefully) and are unaware of the circumstances.
<snip>
That is the unconscious (and conscious) mentality of all state regulators; consistent with an apt description of Fascism written by Benito Mussolini.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/instit...light-cameras-oregon-says-yes/2/#3c0d72577f3e
Mats Järlström: I Am an Engineer - IEEE - The Institute
Now hold on a minute. In a earlier post I mentioned the lawsuit and offered that it would be interesting to see how that plays out. https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/12/08/oregeon_proposed_motion.pdf
Yes I offered some opinions and some facts, BUT nowhere did a side with whatever the hell you are going on about. I mean here you are going on about Mussolini fascism and a bunch of hyperbole crap.
The problem such hyperbole is that our system actually works. So all this libertarian alarmist crap was pointless. The board fined a man under poorly written laws. The man filed a lawsuit and partially won. In the end the board never had any power to infringe on the right to free speech, and you cannot act as if you are a board certified and qualified engineer if you are not (in certain situations). As I already said one of the problems was that Järlström calls himself an engineer without fully explaining what that means. His ignorance stems from Sweden not certifying engineers in Sweden. Evey one seems to gloss over the fact that lawsuits happen and especially if people die over someones engineering. There needs to do some kind of regulation of people in the field of engineering. Bridges fall and kill people because of bad engineering. This guys algorithm could or could not be correct. If his ideas are implemented it could kill people. Sure the guy claims to be a great engineer but how do you really know? Perhaps he left Sweden because he couldnt get a job as a engineer because he isnt good?
of course none of that matters because this guy is just a poster boy for the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm. So they are biased as all politicized non-profits are. As I am sure that you site a left leaning equivalent. What you get is hyperbole cases and stories that do well in biased circles. But if you are not in those circles it was it is, biased opinions. But the base love that crap.
Ikr, many states license different areas. While licensing jobs which may have some risks involved for customers (such as food handling) makes some sense, other occupations such as hairdressers, florists, and those who work with dead people have no risks to other people if the person fails at his job.
. Again I said that the results of the lawsuit will be interesting. That wasnt me picking up all that baggage that you just unloaded.Your missive should be engraved as the arch-type of what is wrong with the knee jerk authoritarian mentality that venerates the state as demi-god; a litany of excuses, rationalizations, and alarmist (and speculative) fears of liberty exercised by individuals.. Predicated on the principle that no one has freedom unless they are 'granted' it by a government board or sympathetic judge, such "thinking" is indistinguishable from the identical assumptions under fascism: "essential liberty is only what the state decides" as Benito tells us.
You miss the obvious: our system only "works" in the sense that burden is always on the repressed individual to prove he has a right to be free and who is forced to seek initial permission and adjudication from his oppressors. When they don't give permission then the oppressed can spend the money, time, and emotional cost of a lengthily court battle. In other words, this system works under the assumption that anything not expressly permitted is illegal.
Did the state, the government board, have to prove that the man's freedom of speech was an attempt at fraud? Did it find a victim of crime? Was it answerable to anyone but themselves before they fined him? Nope - rather they spent two years acting like petty bullies using the resources of the State of Oregon to quash this fellows speech. Disgusting.
And your "defense" of said repression? It is nothing more than lame and speculative gibberish over 'what might happen' if this fellow had liberty to think of himself as an engineer (which, by any common definition, he is). Your lurid imagination runs wild over events that have not happened - "falling bridges", "ideas that could kill people", and unsubstantiated (and made up) fears about why this guy left Sweden.
In other words you got nothing but baseless assumptions (and, by the way, I DOUBT that they lack certifications in Sweden).
This "poster boy" is also known as an ordinary citizen with an opinion that was needlessly hounded by an out of control agency, and he is no more (or less) a poster boy than the scores of tens of thousands that confront proto-fascist badge heavy mentalities at every level. Anyone who actively builds, landscapes, does any kind of professional occupation or business, runs into them routinely.
Its just too bad that their are many like you who think they support "freedom from everyone", and then fail to see how contrived, narrow and small their view of liberty and freedom is.
The board fined the guy for pretending to be a engineer. If the guy just didnt claim to be an engineer then there would be no fine. Either-way we are here and we all presumably read the guys assertions, so no one was stopped from speaking. The guy was only fined for trying to act as if he is an engineer. How do you prove that you are an engineer? The same way that you prove that you are a doctor or pilot or lawyer.
Are saying that no one needs to take a test to prove that they are qualified?
The guy was trying to make a legal argument, and made the claim that he was an engineer. In that setting he should have said that he wasnt a real engineer.
When it comes to doctors and engineers they should prove their qualifications. what if the guys numbers do not add up? Does that matter to you? Or is this really just a subject that you are asserting and the actual details of the case do not matter to you?
The first amendment isn't immune from regulation...IE: permits for protest marches, protest zones, slander laws, etc.
He was offering public comment in a public forum.
Your missive should be engraved as the arch-type of what is wrong with the knee jerk authoritarian mentality that venerates the state as demi-god; a litany of excuses, rationalizations, and alarmist (and speculative) fears of liberty exercised by individuals.. Predicated on the principle that no one has freedom unless they are 'granted' it by a government board or sympathetic judge, such "thinking" is indistinguishable from the identical assumptions under fascism: "essential liberty is only what the state decides" as Benito tells us.
You miss the obvious: our system only "works" in the sense that burden is always on the repressed individual to prove he has a right to be free and who is forced to seek initial permission and adjudication from his oppressors. When they don't give permission then the oppressed can spend the money, time, and emotional cost of a lengthily court battle. In other words, this system works under the assumption that anything not expressly permitted is illegal.
Did the state, the government board, have to prove that the man's freedom of speech was an attempt at fraud? Did it find a victim of crime? Was it answerable to anyone but themselves before they fined him? Nope - rather they spent two years acting like petty bullies using the resources of the State of Oregon to quash this fellows speech. Disgusting.
And your "defense" of said repression? It is nothing more than lame and speculative gibberish over 'what might happen' if this fellow had liberty to think of himself as an engineer (which, by any common definition, he is). Your lurid imagination runs wild over events that have not happened - "falling bridges", "ideas that could kill people", and unsubstantiated (and made up) fears about why this guy left Sweden.
In other words you got nothing but baseless assumptions (and, by the way, I DOUBT that they lack certifications in Sweden).
This "poster boy" is also known as an ordinary citizen with an opinion that was needlessly hounded by an out of control agency, and he is no more (or less) a poster boy than the scores of tens of thousands that confront proto-fascist badge heavy mentalities at every level. Anyone who actively builds, landscapes, does any kind of professional occupation or business, runs into them routinely.
Its just too bad that their are many like you who think they support "freedom from everyone", and then fail to see how contrived, narrow and small their view of liberty and freedom is.
I have to ask this question, are you an electronics engineer? I am and have been since 1978, although I'm retired, so I don't need my state sanctioned license anymore, does that make me any less of an electronics engineer? The last I knew, the laws physics governing electronics are the same in Sweden as they are in Oregon. With that being said, do I not have the right to comment on an issue that I have full knowledge of because I no longer have a sanctioned license by the state? If so, since when does the State of Oregon require a license to exercise my free speech on a subject that I am well versed in?
He was investigated by the Oregon Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying for the "unlicensed practice of engineering,'' after he sent his traffic light calculations to the state board, and identified himself as an engineer to local media and the "60 Minutes'' TV news program, or in discussions with the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. Järlstöm's interest stemmed from a red-light-running ticket that his wife received in 2013.
The state fined him $500 for violating a state law that governs who may call themselves an engineer, finding he wasn't an Oregon-registered professional engineer.
A state panel violated a Beaverton man's free speech rights by claiming he had unlawfully used the title "engineer'' and by fining him when he repeatedly challenged Oregon's traffic-signal timing before local media and policymakers, Oregon's attorney general has ruled.
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