Nope. You don’t have as much freedom to be an asshole in a place of business, even if it’s your own place of business, as you do in your private life.
Businesses are in business to serve the public, and the state has an interest in seeing that the public is adequately served, so the state gets to regulate the activities of business owners to some extent.
This is why, as others have pointed out, business owners no longer have the “freedom” to refuse to serve blacks, or Chinese, or Irish, or other minorities that they personally don’t happen to like. Speaking for myself, I don’t mind at all that that particular “little bit of freedom died”.
Now, that doesn’t mean that every type of asshole behavior on the part of a business owner, such as putting up a sign that says “English Only”, ought to be regulated by the government. But the general principle—that you can’t do whatever the fuck you want in your own business just because you own it—is perfectly reasonable, IMHO.
A reason why Ohio’s Civil Rights Commission may be going overboard in reacting to this (at least in the estimation of some) is that Cincinnati (of which Mason is a suburb) has had more than its share of racial strife in recent years (including a riot over police use of deadly force). This could be a reason for prickliness over the sign.
In looking up Mason, I find that Warren County, Ohio’s motto is “The Incredible County”. I intend to contact the state Board Of Incredibly Lame Slogans and file a complaint.
The sign is there for people who do speak English, obviously. Probably to communicate the proprietor’s distaste for multiculturalism, immigration, and whatnot. Which a fair number of Cincinnatians probably wouldn’t disagree with.
Also, while you do have to serve members of “undesirable” groups, you don’t have to make them feel at home… :rolleyes:
Against whom? Not to sound like a broken record, but your point only makes sense if you assume that refusing/not being able to learn English is part and parcel of being a certain ethnicity, that it’s as immutable as skin color or nose shape.
I lived in Indonesia for a while. During the time I was there, I learned to speak Indonesian. And why not? I was a guest in their country. It actually worked out quite well: everything on team got said in both Indonesian and English (because they wanted to practice their English on me), and as a result, my team outperformed everyone because we had fewer communications issues.
Whether we want to admit it or not, English is the language of the United States of America. It behooves people who come to this country to learn to speak, read and write the English language. It’s ruder than hell of them to insist that we learn to speak their language to accomodate them, and it is stupider than hell of us to do so.
Only to the extent that people choose to speak English. Things change.
Why? Is there something inferior about Spanish such that it shouldn’t be spoken by two people who understand the language?
And you’re proud of this aspect of your upbringing? I was taught to speak both English and my parents’ mother tongue. Multilingualism is an inborn human talent.
Bend? Human interaction is a matter of courtesy. Everyone tries their best to communicate in whatever way they know how.
Wouldn’t treating those individuals in such a different manner equate to discrimination? Wouldn’t the management of that place be subject to prosecution for it?
But he’s not refusing service to Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, etc. He’s only requiring his patrons to speak English to be served. Presumably a blond haired, blue eyed Nordic who spoke only German would get denied service. Does Ohio have a law requiring businesses to offer service in mulitple languages? Are businesses even required to offer service in English?
Just out of interest, were you fluent in Indonesian from the moment you set foot on their soil? I highly doubt it, considering that you say you learned the language “during the time [you were] there.”
I think that exactly the same thing applies to most non-Enlgish speakers in the United States and other English-speaking countries. These people aren’t stupid; they know their lives will be a lot easier if they can speak English. Every immigrant i’ve ever run across in English-speaking countries—whether Mexican, Polish, Russian, Korean, whatever—was doing everything they could to learn English as quickly as possible. They know that their future success depends, to a very considerable extent, on being able to communicate in English.
I get the shits with morons who seem to assume that every non-English speaker in America is part of some great anti-English conspiracy, some underhand attempt to make Spanish or Japanese of Chinese or whatever the official language of the United States.
Get over yourselves, dickweeds. The vast majority of these immigrants are doing their best, and will be able to get by in English in an impressively short period of time. And once they can get by in English, they will also be one step ahead of all those Americans who only speak one language.
Highly unlikely that the US will ever not be an English speaking nation. Wishful thinking on your part excepted (not that you are the only one with this pipe dream).
No, Spanish isn’t inferior to English…its just not spoken in the US. Why did my folks force me to learn English? Well, they wanted me to get one of those job things and make some of that money stuff…instead of holding on to my native language and just being another barrio gang member or another poor ignorant immigrant working in some guys lettuce field.
In retrospect I was glad they did it, yes. BTW, Spanish IS my native tongue…I didn’t need to be taught it. Too many of my friends in my old barrio STILL don’t speak very good english (they speak spanglish)…and guess what? Most of them don’t have very good jobs either. Yeah for multilingualism!! If I didn’t know better (and sometimes when I’m particularly cynical I don’t) I’d think those folks who get all teary eyed about immigrants holding onto their native languages do so because, you know, we need folks to tend those lettuce fields.
You move to a new country its on you to acclimate to them…not vice versa. I don’t expect American’s to speak my native language…I’m expected to speak their’s unless I never want to rise in THEIR society. Thats the facts of life.
I’ll thank you not to make presumptions about my dreams, pipe or not.
My point is that there is nothing morally superior about speaking English, no matter whether you are in a so-called “English speaking country” or not. All that matters is whether you are communicating with effectively with the particular person you are trying to communicate with. And there is nothing morally inferior about someone who is currently unable to speak English. You have no idea why they aren’t able to and it behooves you not to make presumptions about why they don’t.
Corrected English follows (in bold):
You move to a new country and it**’**s on you to acclimate to it…not vice versa. I don’t expect Americans to speak my native language…I’m expected to speak theirs unless I never want to rise in THEIR society. Those are the facts of life.
Oh, it is…its where I live in fact. Tell you what Monty. There is an Intel plant near Rio Rancho. You go there and try and get a job speaking nothing but Spanish or broken English…let me know how that works out for ya, ok?
Certainly I do…as long as you learn English so that it becomes your native language. Oh, and learn it well enough that your accent either goes away or doesn’t get in the way of folks you potentially want to work for understanding you. I’ll tell you…my own kids don’t speak spanish except what they learn in school. They speak American english…and they speak it like natives. My cousin, he speaks mostly spanish, though he understands english well enough and can speak it (though heavily accented). His kids speak spanish in their homes and also speak only broken english. Take a wild guess who’s family (extended family) is more successful…my uncles or my fathers?
Tell you what…why don’t you show me where I said someone was speaking broken English?
A foreign language doesn’t become your native language. One learns to speak a foreign language with native ability.
A number of my Linguistics professors had foreign accents (Turkish, Argentine, and Peruvian) and one of my Religious Studies professors had a Chinese accent. Oddly enough, that didn’t seem to hinder either their career or their teaching.
Before I reply to this, could you explain to me your usage of the terms “heavily accented” and “broken?”
I wasn’t speaking to this…I gave my views on the actual OP earlier in the thead. To recap, I think that business owners should be able to set out such a sign in the US. I think they are assholes for doing it, but its there business so to a certain extent they should have some say about it. I don’t think they should be able to discriminate based on race or religion…but language to me is reasonable. Its reasonable to require someone to ask in english if they want service…IMHO. That there is a law against it means that you can legally beat this fool up…fine. I just don’t agree with the law, though as its a law I’d go along. That about cover it?
Perhaps you weren’t. Maybe you figure that if folks immigrating to the US continue to speak their native language that they will also be able to speak perfectly understandable english as well. In my experience it generally doesn’t work that way, but YMMV. Of course, seems to me (based on a later paragraph) that you are talking about university professors who probably studied english at university, not the average immigrant.
I’m well aware of that…see your patronizing post pointing out all my flawed writen english for example. However, I can fake it pretty well, especially when I’m speaking.
You figure that your professors are a representative sample of immigrants…or to put it another way, do you think that your linguistics professor, though speaking natively another language than English is on par with my dad, a former dirt farmer in northern Mexico? You don’t suppose that the fact your Prof was, you know, educated in university and probably took english as an actual class, had somethign to do with it?
Seems pretty self explainatory to me, but ok. Spanglish…the use of spanish words or syntax while speaking english. Example. Little horse=horsisito. Broken english…when groping for an english word making the speaker stutter as they flail about for the correct word or correct usage of the word. Heavily accented english…when the speaker is using the correct words but giving them an inflection that causes a native American english speaker trouble in following the conversation or understanding whats being said.
I’m no linguist so obviously my definitions aren’t technical. You seem to be a linguist…why don’t you tell me whats wrong (and correct my poor english writing again to make me feel worse).