Instapundit today links to this report, about how a blogger and diabetes sufferer called Steve Cooksey is being told by a North Carolina regulator that he is breaking the law by giving tips, based on his own experience, to others about how to deal with diabetes. Good for Instapundit.
This is the kind of spat which, if it gets a decent slice of publicity, can be won by the forces of free speech and freedom of expression. Hence this posting of mine in response to the Instapundit posting, which I offer as another straw on the bureaucratic camel’s back. It will surely not be the only such straw. I like to think that, if Steve Cooksey finds out about this posting here, the fact that it is happening Abroad may cheer him up that little bit more. “Hey, this damn regulator is making me world famous!”
It helps that they have a Constitution over there, which includes a bit about how you can say what you want, even if a mere state law says otherwise.
Is Steve Cooksey, who has no “license” to offer the advice he is offering, in fact giving bad dietary advice? If so, the correct response from those who think this is to say so, and to explain why they think this. Perhaps one of them could start another blog, saying things like: “Steve Cooksey is talking nonsense.” “Don’t do what Steve Cooksey says, and this is why you shouldn’t.” And so on.
That is, or ought to be, the American way. (It ought to be the way everywhere.)
With some critical thinking skills, anyone would be able to weigh the information Cooksey is writing, and if need be ask pertinent questions, and then decide for themselves whether his advice is sound or not. This goes for anything and anyone and anywhere.
Depends a lot though on those thinking skills that are a product of the education system. Sounds like the state is just trying to protect itself from itself.
Very well said Brian.
Load that camel, then load it more!
The free speech thing needs tackling urgently in the UK and Europe too.
The Totalitarian Democracy is growing day by day.
Another:
http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/25/rural-kids-parents-angry-about-labor-dept-rule-banning-farm-chores/
He’s rubbed some public employees up the wrong way. They – “The state” – have taken offence and will undoubtedly be prepared to spend as much lawyer-money as it takes to follow this through. They, after all, are not having to pay; same old same old the world over.
To be entirely fair, having read the article it’s clear he attracted the attention of the authorities by offering paid consultations and handing out business cards for the same.
To do that is considerably different from merely expressing an opinion.
Once the notion that everything can be ‘licensed’ and ‘regulated’, this is the inevitable consequence.
Rent-seeking and producer capture are the hallmarks of a pathology in government. As P. J. O’Rourke (PBUH) said: “When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” It’s part-and-parcel of the toxic idea, so common in “social democracies” (that most oxymoronic of phrases) that all commercial activity must be licensed, monitored and managed. Credentialism is a gravy train for those in whose gift is the granting of credentials. Thus we see absurd outcomes, such as certain states banning someone from setting up shop as an interior designer without some piece of paper saying the requisite academic course credits have been obtained. You need to go to university to be able to tell someone what colour curtains they should get and charge money for it. It drives up the cost of doing business, acts as a barrier to entry and fosters a layer of bureaucratic parasites. No wonder the useless non-producers of the Left love it so.
This is all kind of a joke since Cooksey is only using this issue to build his name. The state formally closed the complaint against him on April 9. 2012 since he complied with their regulations. Right now he is just using social media to build his name. Here is a link that shows the letter form the state telling him the claim has been closed. If he lies about this, what else is he being less than honest about? http://bit.ly/ItCz9Q
More power to him, I say.
It seems that the three-truth rule may apply. There are always three truths – your truth, my truth and what actually happened.