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A comment on Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use. Parent comment

Re:Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over so... by gallopingcomp on Sunday January 15, 2023 @06:58PM (#34395035)
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.)

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Re:Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over so... by josephcsible on Sunday January 15, 2023 @07:02PM (#34395066)
> 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.

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Re:Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over so... by edgyquant on Sunday January 15, 2023 @07:09PM (#34395120)
Right it’s when they lose them for political beliefs that it is political persecution.
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Re:Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over so... by gallopingcomp on Sunday January 15, 2023 @07:24PM (#34395218)
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.

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