The Goal is Stop Free Speech! - This Happens at all Levels of Government - Have an Opinion? You’re Violating the Law!

The tactic is common at all levels, from Town Hall's to Congress. A citizen may be fully qualified with research and facts, but the person is trivialized unless the expertise is Government sanctioned through their licensing and/or qualification process. This not a set pattern for the qualification of experts. Celebrity without knowledge or expertise can go a long way as was the case with "expert" Meryl Streep testifying against Alar in an embarrassing Congressional bogus hearing.

The following story is outrageous, but it's theme is commonplace with 'public servants'! [Mooserider]

The Antiplanner :: Have an Opinion? You’re Violating the Law! :: http://ti.org/antiplanner

Feb. 7, 2011 excerpts-

A group of neighbors asked state highway officials to install traffic signals on a road near their Raleigh, North Carolina suburb. They buttressed their request with an eight-page analysis of the highway complete with maps and traffic projections.

The state was so impressed that it agree to install the traffic signals, right? Wrong. Instead, the state’s chief traffic engineer accused the neighbors of “practicing engineering without a license” and asked the state engineering board to investigate and possibly fine the local residents.

None of the neighbors purported to be engineers; none of them earned any money contributing to the report. But, said the state traffic engineer, the report “appears to be engineering-level work,” and obviously, no one should be allowed to do “engineering-level work” unless they are a state-certified engineer. Even the director of the state engineering licensing board agreed that the neighbors were violating the law if their “engineering-quality work” led to anyone being misled about the need for traffic lights....

The Antiplanner has some experience with this situation. The state of California requires foresters to be registered with the state before they can advise private landowners about timber cutting and reforestation. Although trained as a forester, the Antiplanner never worked for private landowners so never bothered to get such certification.

During the 1980s, my principle job was helping environmental activists understand planning for national forests, including forests in California. I spent a lot of time critiquing Forest Service computer runs and showing how internal agency biases led national forest managers to make bad decisions. I had an excellent track record: about half the forest plans I reviewed were successfully challenged by environmental groups.

Out of frustration, some in the California timber industry accused me of practicing forestry without a license. The accusation was absurd: I wasn’t advising any private landowners; I was responding to the Forest Service’s own invitations for public comment on its plans. Moreover, I doubt that most of the planners whose work I was critiquing were state-certified foresters. I simply ignored them, but if they had pursued their accusations they no doubt could have wasted some of my time even if they were ultimately unsuccessful. [go to above link]