Tim James "Language" Ad

[KingMerv00]

According to the EEOC:

http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/national-origin.html#VC

I'm not arguing that what I'm saying is clear cut or settled. I just believe there's a reasonable case to be made.

I should also point out that the case you mention is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights act, NOT a violation of the 14th Amendment.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I should also point out that the case you mention is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights act, NOT a violation of the 14th Amendment.

Yes, I understand that completely, but I understand why you needed to point it out. What I'm driving at is that I'm really not coming out of left field with this notion about language being tied to national origin and national origin being a suspect class. I think it has traction should a group decide to pursue it. Problem is, the groups are usually relatively small (otherwise they would have a translation, right?). And, correct me if I'm wrong, the government in question could simply provide the translation and remove the basis for the suit. We would essentially need two parties to fight this out to the highest court.

To me, the only real way around it is to argue about the size of the minority being big enough to justify the expense. I have seen laws (California labor laws) that required the government to provide translations for groups of a certain size but not necessarily everyone, but that was not a 14th Amendment case. In Arizona they ruled that English only in government, which would have prohibited the use of any language besides English (meaning if a clerk spoke Hungarian, he could not assist somebody in Hungarian) would have an adverse effect because it mostly affected Hispanics, a suspect class.

 

[Uncayimmy]

I understand. But I don't agree.
Yes, it does discriminate. In a rational, necessary way.

There is a solution that does not require discrimination. I already gave that.

It is exactly as reasonable as your argument that treating English preferentially is not unacceptably discriminatory, and for exactly the same reason.

Nope. You can keep asserting that without any reasoning, but it won't make it true. I have made a very strong case for English being the de facto official language in the USA. Do you think it would be possible to pass a law in Cantonese? Issue a court ruling in Japanese?

 

[Michael Redman]

I understand. But I don't agree.
Yes, it does discriminate. In a rational, necessary way.

There is a solution that does not require discrimination. I already gave that.

You can't mean to only discriminate in favor of English speakers. I must have missed your solution.

It is totally reasonable to offer tests in Spanish, if that helps a significant minority of your citizens, and not offer tests in Hungarian, if that would help virtually no one.

It is exactly as reasonable as your argument that treating English preferentially is not unacceptably discriminatory, and for exactly the same reason.

Nope. You can keep asserting that without any reasoning, but it won't make it true.

The fact that you reject my reasoning doesn't mean it isn't there.

I have made a very strong case for English being the de facto official language in the USA. Do you think it would be possible to pass a law in Cantonese? Issue a court ruling in Japanese?

Yes, you have made a case for English being the de facto official language. I'm not disputing that at all. And, yes, we don't write laws in any language other than English. No one is disputing that.

So?

You are making an argument for discriminating in favor of English speakers on the basis of utility, but you are rejecting the idea of discriminating in favor of other languages on the basis of utility. The "de facto official" issue is special pleading.

 

[Philosaur]

Well, you are being annoyingly contradictory because you're not offering anything beyond an assertion.

I'm just feel I'm working against a totally disingenuous opponent here. If I brought up the numerous foreign political analysts who don't speak English, or who do speak English and are able to accurately portray our government, politics, and laws to others--will you just pull a no-true-Scotsman and say that they don't *really* understand because they aren't using English?

Show me binding court decisions in an language other than English. Do you have evidence that not providing translators would be a violation of the 14th Amendment?

Good point. I can't show such a court decision, because I don't care enough to do the research. So no, I don't really know if translators are there to protect the plaintiff's or defendant's rights, or if it's simply at the convenience of the government.

The ADA is not an "outgrowth" of an amendment. What makes you say that? It's a statute, and it can be repealed at will.

Are you quibbling over terminology, or actually saying that the ADA is not directly related to the 14th amendment? I'm not talking about its place in legal taxonomy, I'm talking about the spirit of the statute.

Do you want to get into a philosophical debate about civics? The point is that people are expected to obey the laws the laws and pay to operate it. This goes from the country down to the smallest municipal districts. It's a two-way street. The government is not Wal Mart.

Yeah, you sure put [whoever it was who said the government is Wal-Mart] in his place!

If you promise to keep making remarks like "And the citizens serve the government," then I'll debate civics with you any day.

Sounds to me like you don't really understand the 14th Amendment. It binds the government to providing equal protection. Creating preferred classes is unequal protection - this is undeniable.

I can only figure that you must think that after the state of Alabama translates the test into a couple of prominent languages that it's going to then utterly refuse to allow speakers of other languages to take the test. If that were the case, then yes, there would be a new privileged class (and thus a new suspect class). But I don't see where you would get this idea unless you are being deliberately uncharitable in your reading of what I'm trying to say.

You're actually just asserting with no reasoning.

Just because you don't agree with my reasoning doesn't mean it's not there.

Additionally, you have yet to refute my arguments that knowing English is not necessary for understanding American law. You just keep asserting that it is. I've provided very clear counter-examples:

You said the government conducts its business only in English, I say that it uses other languages when necessary.

You said it's necessary to understand English because much legal jargon is not translatable into other languages. I've countered by saying that there are people (I can give you names) who translate American legal and political thought and discourse to and from English all the time. Also, American law is a mix of British common law (most of which was NOT written in standard American English), Napoleanic law (like in Louisiana, which was in French), Biblical law (translated from Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc), and Roman law (which is the source lots of our legal Latin).

 

[luchog]

It is totally reasonable to offer tests in Spanish, if that helps a significant minority of your citizens, and not offer tests in Hungarian, if that would help virtually no one.

Wrong. "Virtually" doesn't mean absolute, therefore there is a non-zero number of people who would be negatively impacted.

Offering special privileges (translations for their language) for one ethnic group or nationality, while denying it to another simply because they do not form a sufficient arbitrarily-decided percentage of the population is a classic example of Tyranny of the Majority. To exclude any minority group is a violation of Constitutional principles.

I agree that the only fair and just solutions would be to mandate English-only requirements for all official government communication (with the proviso that non-English speakers have the option of relying on a third-party translator); or to mandate that all languages spoken by citizens and resident aliens be accomodated equally. To do otherwise violates the "fair and equal treatment" principle and creates privileged groups.

 

[luchog]

Second, considering how much Latin there is in American law, it's amazing anything ever gets done! I mean, how can *anyone* know what habeas corpus or modus operandi means? It will forever be a mystery because these complex legal terms can't be translated in such a way that our simple English-speaking minds could grasp...

In the middle of that hyperbole, there's an important point that you seem determined to miss.

First, those are very complex terms in a legal context, which are often misunderstood by those not educated in Law. Second, fully defining the meaning of these terms in that context would require pages of explanatory notes and references to case law. Third, debates still continue over the meanings of these terms and their applicability to specific case examples.

Adding the idiosyncracies of another language on top of that exponentially increased the complexity; because not only do the terms need to be translated, but the contexts and debates would also need to be translated; and there would unavoidably be debate and controversy about the accuracy and applicability of any particular translation. Such debates are complex enough when only the English language is involved; but add in Lao or Basque or Tlingit, and eventually the debate would become unwieldy and prevent resolution of the actual issue at hand or untenable misunderstanding.

There is nothing unreasonable about mandating sola lingua for official government purposes. It is unreasonble to create privileged groups based on arbitrary criteria.