Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“While tooling down the freeway one day, you’re pulled over by a cop and it comes to light that you don’t possess a government-issued ‘driver’s license.’ Does that mean you aren’t a ‘driver?’ ‘Admission to the bar’ and other occupational licensing schemes don’t exist to distinguish ‘real’ lawyers, doctors, and even (in some states) hair braiders and interior decorators from ‘fake’ ones. Nor do they exist to ‘protect the public’ from less qualified practitioners. They exist to raise the incomes of people who procure those Extra Special, Very Important Permission Slips and to make it more expensive and difficult to competitively join those anointed elites. Which is why the strongest lobbying for implementing and enforcing such schemes always comes from the existing practitioners. If you ‘practice law,’ you’re a ‘lawyer’ or ‘attorney,’ whether you have government credentials saying so or not.” (10/15/26)