ongoing racist bullshit in arizona thread

if someone can be democratically elected and, as you said, is a person who would well represent her constituency, the burden shouldn't be on that person to adjust to the democratic process, the democratic process should be flexible enough to adjust for her. ie get her a translator.

it's like if she had a wheelchair and cityhall didn't have wheelchair-access.

Yes, but state law doesn't require her to be able-bodied. It does require her to speak English.

right, which is just as stupid

yeah that was the point jon

xposts yeah that's apples and oranges.

i don't know enough about this to continue arguing and I'm willing to bet there's a case to be made for amending the current law, but its not crazy to assert that there are all sorts of nuanced ideas that are important parts of the job that cant be trusted/expected to be filtered through a translator

tho the UN does it so i dunno

gee, I wonder who brought this lawsuit against Cabrera and what their motivations could possibly be

The mayor that Cabrera tried to get recalled.

dont mind me i'm just on some "only *I* get to make fun of AZ for being racist" steez i guess

yeah the UN vs. San Luis, Arizona city council

there are like 1m poorer and smaller countries that manage to have governments that work in more than one language, no reason we cant do it even on the state level, except if we want to discriminate against people who dont speak english

she's running for city council, not president.

98.7 percent of San Luis’ population is of Hispanic origin.

but the person who represents them must speak english

agree w iatee & k3vin & aimless here. the law is shitty and racist to begin with, both on the surface and beneath, in intent. if a person can be elected by the majority of voting citizens, then they are, by definition, capable of representing those citizens in the manner that those citizens think best. that's the essence of democracy.

i mean, do we really think that elected officials should have to pass tests to determine their competency, given all we know about how tests can skew or be skewed against various groups?

otm

there are like 1m poorer and smaller countries that manage to have governments that work in more than one language,

^^^this

law is fucking stupid and racist, translating things is simple (especially in this day and age), and English is not the official language of the country

WILL WILL BE HEARING FROM THE SAN LUIS AUDUBON SOCIETY TODAY AT THREE OR AT FOUR? DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION!!!!

agree w iatee & k3vin & aimless here. the law is shitty and racist to begin with, both on the surface and beneath, in intent. if a person can be elected by the majority of voting citizens, then they are, by definition, capable of representing those citizens in the manner that those citizens think best. that's the essence of democracy

Not necessarily defending the law but she's elected to represent all the citizens, not just the majority who voted for her. Working with a translator should be a reasonable compromise though.

curious what the rationale behind the recall attempt was. Given the make-up of the town I can only assume the sitting mayor is also a spanish-speaker and that this was just some shenanigans to keep his political opponent sidelined

Not necessarily defending the law but she's elected to represent all the citizens, not just the majority who voted for her.

yeah, but my point is that anyone who wins a democratic election by definition has "the will of the people" behind them, and it's up to the people to determine who's best capable of representing their interests. the language barrier thing is, as you say, a non-issue given that translators are available, and it's a red herring in the first place, as it's not like she's completely incapable of understanding or speaking english. an arbitrary and racist standard has been imposed to bar her candidacy. i mean, what's the standard for linguistic "proficiency" and who gets to decide?

WILL WILL BE HEARING FROM THE SAN LUIS AUDUBON SOCIETY TODAY AT THREE OR AT FOUR? DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION!!!!

haha I know I should be thinking Kruschev but all I hear is General Chang from Star Trek

eh stevenson, nevermind

there are def practical reasons why you would want everyone who is voting on a bill to understand the technical language in the bill, otoh this is not a major problem in america at all and is only being made into one because people hate mexicans

― iatee, Friday, February 10, 2012 11:26 AM Bookmark

otm

federalism is a smoke-screen for racist policy, basically

― horseshoe, Sunday, 15 January 2012 21:35 (3 weeks ago

this is ridiculous btw

Eh, if not racism exclusively, it's generally a smokescreen for some other anti-social "does not play well with others" policy.

xps "The will of the people" is always a questionable concept, for me. As long as translators are provided where required, essentially putting English-speakers on the same footing as Spanish-speakers elsewhere, that should be fine. It's important that those accommodations would be made though.

Proficiency is a meaningless term without a scale to measure it against. Using the standard European scale she'd probably be looking at operational proficiency, which is the same kind of capacity to use a language you'd need to, for example, understand a degree course. It doesn't sound like that benchmark is formally in place, though - which raises the question of how would she know she'd failed the test?

Federalism has def been used as a means to evade legal norms by creating local islands of difference within the USA, and Jim Crow was clearly the biggest and worst crime that was shielded by "state's rights", but it has legitimate uses, too.

saying that the actual political structure of the united states is "just a smokescreen for racism" strikes me as beyond ludicrous.

As practiced, not on paper. (And even somewhat on paper.)

Racism was woven deeply into the fabric of the USA even before there was a USA. So, racism was going to be woven deeply into the politics of the USA from the start, by default. We've been struggling with it ever since.

saying that the actual political structure of the united states is "just a smokescreen for racism" strikes me as beyond ludicrous.

well, if you really do want to say that the united states itself is and always has been "a smokescreen for racism", then it's not so ludicrous. i mean, i think that's a rather absurdly reductive argument, but it's not totally without merit, inasmuch as the US was founded as much on slavery as on the high moral principles encoded into the constitution and bill of rights.

ilx poster horseshoe: not totally without merit

hey J.D. i meant states'-rights type arguments. i just don't believe "state's rights" is a real thing, now, or in the antebellum era. they still seem like a smokescreen for racist and more recently homophobic policy.

i should have been more precise, because i was thinking of "state's rights" arguments that were essentially pro-slavery arguments in the years leading up to the civil war and their long legacy. but frankly inasmuch as the actual political structure of the united states gives states a lot of leeway to escape federal law, it kind of pisses me off. i am kind of fascist n.b.

or, the way sparsely populated states get as much representation in the senate as densely populated ones just because of statehood. annoying!

my view on federalism:

any time a state passes a cool law like one that legalizes gay marriage, yay, but that should be a federal law.

any time a state passes a shitty law: fuck you, congress and/or the supreme court should be able to overrule you.

hey J.D. i meant states'-rights type arguments. i just don't believe "state's rights" is a real thing, now, or in the antebellum era. they still seem like a smokescreen for racist and more recently homophobic policy.

they are that, certainly, but i'm leery of arguments that reduce complex arguments to a single point of conflict. taxation, self-determination, principled anti-federalism, general paranoia, culture wars of other sorts: these things figure in, too.

at least to the extent that they aren't just a bunch of smokescreens for racism & homophobia...

anyway, that's pretty off-topic i guess.

but states'-rights arguments aren't complex! they're contentless, is what i'm saying, i guess controversially.

i guess

but frankly inasmuch as the actual political structure of the united states gives states a lot of leeway to escape federal law, it kind of pisses me off. i am kind of fascist n.b.

strongly disagree. one of the greatest things abt the constitution is the way it attempts to balance various powers with different interests against one another as a means of preventing any single power or interest from dominating government. tripartite fed, for example, or house v senate, fed v states. really fucking smart. while i'm not opposed to federal governance, nor am i inclined to uncritically support its growth at the expense of states' rights.

anyway, this barring of Cabrera from running for office is some racist bullshit

WHAT ARE STATES' RIGHTS?

seriously makes no sense to me as a concept.

well, the basic idea is that individual states retain authority over all aspects of governance not specifically or by implication delegated to the fed by the constitution. "states' rights" is shorthand for that, right?

it's cool how states could opt out of the patriot act

Horseshoe otm

states rights are stupid things that only lead to wars

what if the states had never united?

as a matter of practicality it's hard for me to find fault with that, but it seems to me when "states' rights" gets invoked in political or legal arguments no one is actually worried about the balance of power between the federal government and that of the states. it's always just this thing that's invoked as a means to furthering whatever agenda's at hand. maybe i am wrong that those agendas are always racist/homophobic, but i still don't believe anyone who claims to care about the balance of power between the states and the federal government really does. i mean maybe crazy conservatives do in the sense that they wish the federal government didn't exist, but i assume they are not super-invested in the rights of their state governments in that case.

xxxxp to contenderizer

like, people can have rights. states? get the fuck out of here with that.

it's all about states rights (until your state needs federal money)

god, right? p.s. all states need federal money.