We Speak English Here

If you can read this seal, you obviously speak English.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has moved to kill an amendment that would protect employers from federal lawsuits for requiring their workers to speak English. Among the employers targeted by such lawsuits: the Salvation Army.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican from Tennessee, is dumbstruck that legislation he views as simple common sense would be blocked. He noted that the full Senate passed his amendment to shield the Salvation Army by 75-19 last month, and the House followed suit with a 218-186 vote just this month. "I cannot imagine that the framers of the 1964 Civil Rights Act intended to say that it's discrimination for a shoe shop owner to say to his or her employee, 'I want you to be able to speak America's common language on the job,' " he told the Senate last Thursday.

But that's exactly what the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to do. In March the EEOC sued the Salvation Army because its thrift store in Framingham, Mass., required its employees to speak English on the job. The requirement was clearly posted and employees were given a year to learn the language. The EEOC claimed the store had fired two Hispanic employees for continuing to speak Spanish on the job. It said that the firings violated the law because the English-only policy was not "relevant" to job performance or safety.

Are you fucking kidding me? Hey there EEOC, what is the Spanish word for "Fire" or the Russian word for "Gas Leak" or the Urdu words for "Help me, I hurt my back!"

Things we use the English language for:

• All Air Traffic Control communications throughout the world
• All US military labels on munitions, training manuals, and verbal and written communications
• All lighted "EXIT" signs in every public place in the USA I have ever been to

If I am in the thrift store and an employee yells "fire" in any language other than English, I might get the idea of what is happening from the smoke and flames, but what about that employee calling 911, or understanding someone speaking English yelling for help because they are trapped by flames in the back store-room?

I agree with John Fund from Opinion Journal.com:

"Republicans have their political problems with Hispanics over some of their approaches to illegal immigration, but they may be nothing compared to the problems Democrats have if they continue to cave in to their anti-assimilation extremists."