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Comment by gallopingcomp | Hacker News Reader

It’s curious that you chose JP, as opposed to the much better example of Hamline University (or that stupid halloween costume thing from a couple of years back; etc, etc). Instead, we choose to entertain JP’s ever-escalating persecution complex.

It’s “persecution” only when someone I like loses or suffers, it’s “consequences” when it’s someone I dislike/in the outgroup (never mind the actual circumstances of their behavior in context). Or maybe the alternative is that no one on any side ever gets any consequences for doing anything. Lawyers never get disbarred, drivers never lose licenses, and everything is exactly the same shade of grey. /s

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Lawyers should never get disbarred, and drivers should never lose their licenses, for doing anything that the Constitution gives them the right to do.

The Canadian constitution grants one the right to speak freely with zero professional repercussion?

Nice bad faith question. Do better next time and come up with a real one if you want to engage

There’s an extended discussion to be had about the merits and drawbacks of professional licensing as state-enforced gatekeeping, but equating this with political persecution doesn’t seem useful.

Has it not occurred to you that professionals could lose their licenses for reasons that at are not solely political? Like professional malpractice, or advocating for quackery? (There’s a line to be drawn there, too, about what constitutes reasonable standards, but you seem to be suggesting that there be no standards at all.)

> Has it not occurred to you that professionals could lose their licenses for reasons that at are not solely political? Like professional malpractice, or advocating for quackery?

For malpractice such as leaving a scalpel inside of someone or amputating the wrong appendage, sure. But there's no Constitutional right to do either of those things. As for "advocating for quackery", the government forbidding someone for practicing medicine over that absolutely flies in the face of the First Amendment.

Right it’s when they lose them for political beliefs that it is political persecution.

As opposed to professional beliefs.

Which might be a tricky distinction sometimes, especially in psychology, because (1) some beliefs and speech aren’t exactly object-level, but aren’t quite political either; (2) previously non-political, purely object-level issues (eg. treatment approaches for trans people) sometimes become seen as politicized (make no mistake, JP very much played a part in making it so), or conversely lose its previous political connotation.

I am not a lawyer, but it isn’t the Constitution that prohibits lawyers from engaging in (and exploiting) conflicts of interest for personal gain.

> Lawyers should never get disbarred,

This doesn't seem obvious to me at all.

Many (most?) professions have things you need to do that are outside of considerations of any country's constitution.

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