Not to hijack too much, but is this really true? How does it work in cases where a defendant speaks no English? If their attorney can’t translate, they’re just out of luck? I’m curious.
I understand the points you’ve provided but see no rationale for the will of the voters being honored at the state level, but not the national level. I see that you think that there is very little benefit to doing so, but isn’t that you position on the state level, as well? So, I still don’t get why you think it’s okay at the state level but not okay at the national level.
I don’t get this. Why when a group of citizens decide to patrol their own neighborhood to curtail crime and it is praised and called a “watch group”. But with this plan you slur the efforts as vigilantiism? The same thing happens with the Minutemen, who it seems are doing the exact same things neighborhood watch groups are. (I know you did not offer an opinion o the Minutemen so feel free to ignore this if you’d like.) But this idea of calling a group who is performing a “neighborhood watch” in a larger neighborhood vigilanties seems simply ad hominem to me.
I am not sure to what degree the death discussed in your article was due to the chairing method used, as opposed to the methamphetamines he was using at the time. Still, I’m sure that officers involved would benefit by better training. And, possibly, the idea of “chairing” should be taken off the table. But that hardly erases the good done by the Sheriff’s tough stance on crime. At least the residents of the county seem to think so. He was first elected in 1992 and is still on the job. How you view his actions as vigilane-like is beyond me.
Rules at the state level are prohibited from violating the U.S. Constitution. A bad state law can be challenged in Federal court and overthrown on a local basis without harming millions of people not in that state before they are overturned.
Laws passed at the national level have an immediate impact on far more people until they can be tossed out.
If some state wants to make all drivers’ licenses an “English only” experience, that is their right to exclude all the foreign tourists who might choose to avoid that state to avoid being hassled.
There is no action at the Federal level that requires an official national language. There are no equivalent language issues on the national level that equate to drivers’ licenses. Since it serves no purpose, I see no reason to impose it on the whole nation so that we have to work out its abuses in fifty states, D.C., and the territories. (If English becomes the “official” language, does that mean that we need to set free the Puertorriqueños right away? Or do we invade PR and force all their schools to teach only English?)
I have still never seen any reason (or productive use) for an official national language. If we pass such a silly law, are we going to order New Mexico to violate its constitution regarding how it does business? Are we going to order all the ethnic radio shows off the air on Sunday morning? Are we going to close down all the Spanish language broadcasting channels? (Would this mean that Radio Marti and TV Marti would be illegal actions of the government?) Do we get to arrest tourists from Germany and Japan who fail to speak English at the border?
If the Great State of Crimson wants to ensure that no person can participate in the purchase of property unless they can read the deed, that is up to that state to work out. Imposing such stuff on the nation is counterproductive.
“Neighborhood watch” groups encourage citizens to be alert about suspicious activities going on around them and, when justified, to report those activities to the law enforcement authorities. They don’t encourage citizens to go out and arrest suspected criminals, especially not on the basis of unusual and dubious interpretations of existing laws.
It’s debatable whether his ostentatiously “tough” stance is really significantly more effective than other methods. A criminological study found that Maricopa’s combined crime rate and clearance rate (how many crimes are committed and how many are solved) is actually worse than that of, e.g., Los Angeles County. Even the crime rate alone in Maricopa County wasn’t the lowest in the survey. And their deputy turnover rates and courtroom costs are higher than average.
AFAICT, this is just another grandstanding maneuver by Arpaio to portray himself as “tough on crime”, irrespective of what it actually accomplishes. Heck, he’s thrown dozens of posse-arrested immigrants into jail based on this dubious new interpretation—by the Maricopa County attorney—of an anti-smuggling law. If this interpretation (which is being legally challenged) gets overturned, that’s just more money that Maricopa County taxpayers are going to have to shell out for wrongful-imprisonment lawsuits. (Not to mention the waste of money involved in transforming dozens of non-violent, gainfully employed, tax-paying, economy-boosting undocumented workers into tax-supported prisoners in the Maricopa County jail.)
I’m all for proper enforcement of immigration laws, and I agree that having hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants arriving every year is a sign that the system is broken. But that doesn’t mean that this particular initiative is a smart way to fix it.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but I just want to point out that as far as I know, our language laws (which is what I assume you’re talking about) have never required commerces to change their names. It wouldn’t serve a useful purpose, and I must say that it would especially make no sense to force ethnic restaurants to change their ethnic names. So your scenario is not something that will happen, even if some states make English their only official language.
tomndebb,
But I still don’t see the difference. You say that you think the state law is silly/useless/ineffective, but are okay with that as it represents the will of the people. Why isn’t it the same nationally? If 80% of the population of a state should have their will turned into law, why not the nation. Abuses can occur in both spheres. Your slippery slope argument could, I’m sure, be applied to state extremism, as well.
And from a practical standpoint, it would be very easy to exclude Puerto Rico from such laws. Or restaurant names. Or anything that isn’t produced by the government. Your position seems unusually inconsistent.
But what about the warehouses full of apostrophes and esses? 
Wasn’t that part of the language law?
I am OK with the concept of Federalism where individual states try out new rules that can then be shut down in a localized area if they are stupid or expanded to the country if they make sense. Women’s suffrage and right-turn-on-red are examples of good laws that were tried out in different states before they spread across the country. (And the traffic law is still not embraced by 100% of the states and we have felt no need to impose it with Federal legislation.) Restrictive liquor laws are examples of bad laws that we can confine to places where they only harm the limited populations where they are in force.
I see no reason to support a law that either does nothing (your best hope) or penalizes people unfairly (my worst fear) at a national level when it has not even been tried on the local level.
My examples of renamed restaurants were sarcastic, but until it was struck down by Canada’s Supreme Court in 1988, Quebec did have a law that prohibited commercial signs that were not in French. I see no reason to believe that the “English first” crowd in the U.S. would not attempt something as foolish and I would prefer to see it tried out in local areas where its silliness could be demonstrated with as little harm to as few people as possible. Imposing some (vague and unenforceable or vague and draconian) law regarding language across the U.S. would simply cost too much, both financially and socially, for me to sit back and say, “Sure, give it a try.”
I understand the rasons you’ve supplied for why it might be wiser to try out new laws on a state basis. But that is not the question. Again, the question is, if you are fine with the will of the people being expressed in law on a state basis, why not a national one. It seems that either representatives have some resposibility to carry out the wishes of their constituents or they don’t. And please don’t invoke slavery, we’re not talking about passing a law that conflicts with the Constitution, we’re talking about something like “schools will be closed on Thursdays” or “we’re now going to issue tickets based on road-worthiness of the car, not speed”, etc. If 80% of a populace—whether State A or State B or The Country—want this law passed, why do you think it’s okay on the state level but no the national one?
Again, the question is NOT if it is wiser to “test” laws on a state level first or if you support a particular law. The querstion goes to the degree to which a populace can set the laws of their own community/country.
Court systems provide interpreters. Ótherwise they would have one hell of a due process problem if the defendant literally couldn’t understand the charges against him.
Two reasons, both already expressed, but I will atrtempt to express them more clearly, here:
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I do not want to see stupid laws applied to the whole country; I would prefer that stupid laws be tried out where the rest of the country can see how stupid they are before they are imposed on the whole nation. This has nothing to do with “representation.” I have not made any argument that applying such laws on a national basis would be morally wrong (aside from the fact that they would inevitably lead to persecution of minorities). I am only expressing my preference that they be adopted by and squelched at the smallest units possible.
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There are are specific state actions under which one might justify such laws in limited applications. There are simply no national cases where they can be justified. Applying language to drivers’ licenses is a state function. There are no national functions that could be equally treated without imposing undue hardship.
Legislation? Already in English. Court proceedings? Already in English (with translators for those who cannot speak English). Military service? Speak English.
We do not need an “official language” to require that naturalized citizens learn to speak English: we had that rule on the books for decades without having an “official” language.
How about election ballots? But again, you are evaluating the law. Make believe the law is X. Assuming it doesn’t conflict with the Constitution, why is it okay locally, but not nationally.
I’m not trying to be captious here, Tom, I simply see your position as being uncharacteristically inconsistent.
My belief is that whatever law is passed to impose an “official” language will fail to achieve any benefit while imposing negative consequences. Why should I see doing that on a national level as better than doing that one or two states at a time and then rescinding it when the clear negative results make themselves known? There is nothing inconsistent in my position. I am embracing Federalism as it has worked in this country in the hopes that it will give the country at large enough time to pull back from doing something incredibly stupid.
Perhaps if a few states had passed and tried local versions of the Volstead Act instead of springing it on the country, we might have avoided creating the huge industry of organized crime. We demonstrated that women’s suffrage would not bring the death of the Republic in such populous and financially important states as California and Illinois several years prior to the Nineteenth Amendment. If we could test such an eminently reasonable proposition that half of our population had the intelligence and right to participate in our government prior to establishing that right on the national level, why would it not be better to test whether any arbitrary shibboleth should be imposed on the country?
Why do you think that imposing some nebulous law on the whole country is a good thing and why are you eager to bypass experimentation at the state level?
And I fail to see anything inconsistent in my position. I have not argued that there is any impediment to letting the population call for stupid laws. I have only expressed the personal desire to see the populace avoid a lemming-like run for the cliffs of intolerance.
Indeed, I also see that even if many in a locality approve of a stupid law, that does not make it a smart law automatically.
Arpaio is finding that the cost to the county is multiplying because he forgot to add the legal costs, the way he applied the law was bound to create multiple court challenges, and it did.
Seeing that even the creators of the law are objecting to what Arpaio is doing with it, I do think he will lose not only the case but the taxpayers money. Also, even if one can see a law do good locally, it does not follow that applying the same solution all over the nation will make it good either. The Temperance movement found later how disastrous was Prohibition when applied to the whole nation.
I think we’re talking past each other. I understand your point that it may be wise to test laws on the state level. But you also said:
So you’re fine with that statement. Understood. What I don’t understand is if you simply substitute “Amiercans” for “Arizonans” why the people cease to have the same right to have their will expressed in law?
We are not talking past each other; you are ignoring me.
I have never said that the country, at large, does not have the right to select whatever stupid, feel-good laws they choose. I said that I would prefer that these laws only be enacted on a state-by-state basis (with the pretty clear understanding that I think they are either useless or harmful and that I would want the uselessness and/or harm displayed on smaller scales rather than being imposed on the nation).
At no time have I said or suggested that the people did not have the right to act foolishly. I said only that I will extend limited toleration to small scale foolishness while withholding any personal approval for wholesale foolishness.
Yes, I assumed that you were being sarcastic, tomndebb: I’ve read enough of your posts to get a taste of your expertise about things political, and I know you wouldn’t talk about issues you don’t know well enough. My understanding, though, is that even though before 1988 (or 1993), commercial signing had to be in French only, this didn’t mean that the names of commerces had to be in French only. I’ve seen many people here claim, like Telemark, that this meant names like Eaton’s or Tim Horton’s had to drop the ‘s but I just don’t think this was ever part of the issue. I know Eaton(’)s dropped the apostrophe for their commerces in Quebec but I believe this has always been their own decision. On the other hand, I was very young at the time, so it is possible that I’m wrong. If you have anything that contradicts me, I’d like to see it.
On the other hand, language laws, in any form, aren’t a necessary effect of declaring one language the sole official language of a province/state; they have to be separately promulgated. I also don’t know what effect declaring English the only official language of a US state would have: almost everything at the official level is already in English. It seems more like a symbolic measure to show Hispanics that life in America is in English and that they must adapt.
I believe it is just an example of magical thinking: “if we make English the official language, illegal immigrants will stop coming here because they’re too lazy to learn English.”
Not well thought out.
English only elections can get you into Federal trouble. Just ask Ector and Hale counties in Texas.
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_203/documents/ector_comp.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_203/documents/hale_comp.htm