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Police1.com announces, "A bill passed by the Washington State Senate earlier this month would remove the requirement that applicants for city firefighter, police, and sheriff's office jobs be able to read and write in English."
SB 5274 reads: "This bill builds off legislation in 2018 to ensure lawful permanent residents have eligibility for civil service and enhances inclusiveness for those applicants. With some adjustments in language, this bill can promote diversification of Washington’s public service by encouraging and highlighting bilingualism and multilingualism."
The measure would also remove the language requirement for fish and wildlife officer positions.
Regressive, not progressive.
Ultimately disastrous.
Be informed, not misled.
The bill has passed the Senate and moved to the Washington House. It's scheduled to be discussed in the executive session. It's expected to pass.
Why are the state's public servants trying to diminish the effectiveness of state government?
The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Javier Valdez, said the legislation would increase the pool of candidates available and help diversify the state's workforce.
“If an applicant is capable and qualified to do the job, we must remove the barriers that prevent them from working as a public servant,” Valdez said. “Washington is a diverse, multicultural state, and our workforce should reflect that.”
"Removing" barriers?
“This latest left-wing equity push neither makes sense nor serves the public,” said Seattle Radio host Jason Rantz, who argued speaking English is a necessary requirement to perform even the most basic tasks associated with the jobs.
He argued the bill would hinder public safety.
"This latest left-wing equity push neither makes sense nor serves the public. While Democrats pretend you don’t need to understand the English language, it’s a necessary requirement for these positions," he said.
Rantz brought up practical problems that would result from this change.
"If they cannot read English as a police officer, how will they be able to understand written policies or read information from the Mobile Data Computer inside police vehicles? How do they prepare required reports if they cannot write in English?" he asked.
Calling it a "transparent attempt" to socially engineer diversity, Rantz warned it would put unqualified people in these jobs and endanger public safety.
He said, "It puts our safety at risk. These are public safety jobs. One misunderstood policy or incorrectly completed form can harm people or lead to a criminal’s release. Is that inevitability truly worth this ridiculous attempt to force diversity?"
SB 5274 is scheduled for executive session in the House Committee on Community Safety, Justice, & Reentry this week.
I've seen bilingualism and multilingualism at work. Guatemala is one example.
Many of our readers know that for a number of years, I was involved in leading teams of people from the US to countries all over the world to help start Christian churches---often, not always, but often in the most underdeveloped countries of the world.
We started and built about 20 churches in Guatemala. I spent a good deal of time in the country, which resulted in some lasting friendships.
One of those friendships was with the president of the country, who had, at that time, recently accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. He became a biblical Christian. Formerly he had been known for his brutality.
He told me in a personal conversation that the greatest challenge in Guatemala was "multiculturalism and multilingualism." He said it creates barriers that are all but insurmountable.
The country still has 25 languages and 22 additional Mayan languages, and two other Indigenous languages.
The president of the country told me that at that time, there were about 80 different dialects of those languages. It was a country nearly unable to function because they couldn't communicate.
State Senator Javier Valdez (D-Seattle) was joined by ten other Democrats to sponsor the bill. The Democrat argued it would help address current job shortages and "promote diversification of Washington’s public service by encouraging and highlighting bilingualism and multilingualism."
Is Rep. Valdez trying to recreate Washington State in the image of a third-world country? Does he seek to "remake" America as President Obama often said he wanted to do? Or is he and those who have voted for SB 5274 simply that uninformed?
Or is he and his cohorts simply trying to cancel the idea of a merit-based culture?
Victor Davis Hanson has written that "Americans Die When Merit No Longer Matters."
He says, "Either the Department of Transportation and Secretary Pete Buttigieg, or the head of the FAA, or the quality of either ground crews, pilots, or air traffic controllers—or all combined—are putting American travelers at mortal risk."
"If not corrected," he notes, "these near-death airline experiences and the near collapse of the U.S. commercial aviation system presage catastrophes to come."
Hanson also points out that these same issues exist in our military, listing a series of wrong decisions from the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to the lack of recruits for military service and the lack of U.S. weapon arsenals.
Then he says this:
America’s security, safety, prosperity, and postmodern lifestyles are not our birthright.
They are the dividends of centuries of prior hard work, unfettered freedom of speech, disinterested research, and a meritocracy.
Tamper with any of that and the system begins to fall apart.
The United States then will resemble the miasma we see in most of the world abroad, where ideology suppresses free inquiry, political correctness warps research, and tribalism trumps meritocracy.
Many of the major airlines have established racial and gender quotas for government pilot training programs. United Airlines has set quotas to ensure half of its trainees will be minorities or women. Since 2013, the FAA has been lowering standards for air traffic control qualifications to achieve de facto race and gender quotas.
In testimony before Congress, our top military brass has bragged not of their reduction in standards for enlistment but of their “diversity” hiring, as they purportedly ferret out “white supremacy” and “white rage.”
In sum, our government is playing with our lives as it prefers diversity, equity, and inclusion over ensuring the best-qualified employees are hired on the basis of racially and gender-blind competitive tests and experience.
Keep it up and there are going to be a lot more Afghanistan-style surrenders, Chinese surveillance craft in our skies, and airline nightmares.
Takeaway
If Washington State passes SB 5274 into law, moving critical services---fire, police, ambulance, etc., from merit-based hiring to some kind of a social "inclusion"-"forced diversity" that excludes speaking English, we will see the same results as we see in Biden's America.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.