I didn’t suggest that freedom was “limitless,” whatever that means. All that I’m asking is whether you think that the government has a right to tell small business owners what kind of signs to post on their own property. And, if you do, then whether, since you think it’s so important to get this done, you would be willing personally to volunteer some of your own money to help cover this (rather expensive) task.

If you are willing, then you probably don’t need a law; many, probably most, shopkeeps would be perfectly happy to put up bilingual signs if it weren’t for the expense of changing out the signs or adding new signs.

If you aren’t willing, then why do you think that other people should be forced to cover the costs of the project to change the signs on their own property, when (1) they don’t care very much about it, and (2) not even the people who do care about it are willing to cover the costs?

Look, if the owner of the business has a single-language sign up, and the city forces them to take it down and replace it with a bilingual sign, then they are telling them what kind of signage they can have; a bilingual sign is a different kind of sign from a single-language sign. And if the city forces the owner to put up a second sign in English, then they are also telling them what kind of signage they can have: specifically, they’re forcing them to add a sign that they didn’t think it was worthwhile to put up. You may think it is worthwhile, or important, or even necessary for the city to force business owners to use a particular kind of sign whether they’re willing to or not, but if so then you ought to be clear about what it is you support, and not hide it under euphemisms like “asking” or claims that they’re not doing what they are doing: telling small business owners how they have to identify their private business on their own private property.

Since you do support forcing small business owners to change their signage, are you at least willing to personally pony up some of the costs involved in changing all the signs out? Or do you expect them to not only be forced to meet the preferences of you and the city government, but also to pay the cost for those preferences even though they do not share them?

It may not be “too much to ask,” but a city ordinance is not a polite request. If you’re endorsing the use of an ordinance, you are endorsing small business owners being forced to change their signage, whether they are willing to do so or not.

So, just to be clear, do you believe that the government has a right to tell small business owners what kind of signage they can or cannot use to identify their own store on their own private property?