Who is an engineer?

When I realized in 1998 that my location was The Problem, I did not look at the other two left-coast states as the solution. They quite obviously were the same as California, just a few years behind.

Thus it is unsurprising to me that the Oregon bureaucracy and political culture just got spanked for attempting to DICTATE who may or may not claim to be “an engineer”.

For gosh sakes, could we all just agree on what is honest and real? Or do the pompous legislators get to determine that for all of us?

Just because you do not take an interest in politics does not mean politics will not take an interest in you.

Well, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman just ruled that engineers can actually claim to be engineers.

The board told Järlström that even calling himself an “electronics engineer” and the use of the phrase “I am an engineer” in his letter were enough to “create violations.”

Those regulations and enforcement actions, Beckerman ruled, are unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment. The judge directed the board to remove the definition of “engineer” from its rules and to limit its enforcement to individuals who falsely claim to be a “professional engineer.”

The ruling means that “thousands of Oregon engineers are now free to describe themselves—truthfully—as ‘engineers,’ without fear of government punishment,” says Sam Gedge, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm that represented Järlström in the lawsuit against the board.

So, dang, spending 4 or more years earning a degree in engineering and numerous years thereafter working as an engineer is actually more qualifying than gaining the approval of Oregon politicians???

Who-duh-thought?