I see the licensing of professionals as a way for society to prevent
proven incompetents from continuing to practice. The part of licensing I
find objectionable is placing the licenses in the hands of organizations
interested in maintaining a monopoly on access to their profession. An
issue that has been in the news fairly often lately is the governments
dismantling of subsidies for the poor and indigent to access the legal
system. I've heard of prisoners who have studied law ... but cannot become
lawyers without attending an accredited law school. Does anyone know how
much school Abe Lincoln had before becoming a lawyer?
I see this kind of thing as a meme based on bait and switch.
Accreditation is a "good thing" ... but without someone to watch the
watchers <ad infinitum> the mantel of accreditation is used to hide
monopolistic self interest. If you talk to Drs of almost any type you'll
probably see all kinds of blathering to protect their interest in their
education.
As to the swearing issue - As a parent I have an interest in
maintaining a "clean" memetic environment for my child. Holden Caulfield in
Catcher in the Rye described it best when he talked about his distress at
his sister Phoebe having to see obscene graffiti. The tort seems to hinge
on the venue and mechanism for expressing profanity. I don't see where I
have any write to prevent you from displaying profanity on YOUR property. Or
expressing profanity on property I don't own. But, if I do own/control the
property then I should have the right to eject you from my property for
using profanity. Thus, churches aren't obligated to allow atheists equal
time and theoretically a community could enact laws that prevent the use of
community property to distribute "disturbing memes". I guess its a thin
line between not facilitating the propagation of a meme and preventing its
propagation.
I think the best issues to explore this concept on would be the
teaching of evolution. It seems to me that if a science class is mandated
then anyone with a creation myth should be able to petition the school board
to include it in the curriculum. On the other hand if a class is an
elective then its memetic base should be arbitrarily determined by the
person teaching the course.