One thing about the U.S. Senate: If you can't count on it to do something helpful about immigration reform, you can at least count on it to do something stupid. The bill making English the national language of the United States is the dumbest thing since, well, the flag-burning amendment.
Listen up, you free-market conservatives: English didn't manage to survive as the nation's dominant language for 225 years because of federal protection. And federal protection won't make it last another 225 years. If anything in the world responds to the demands and needs of society, despite the will of government, it's language. If English can't compete, it deserves to die.
If the government wants to pass a law banning, say, Spanish language ballots, then do it straightforwardly and honestly. Don't put meaningless bromides into the law. Dang it, that's the sort of thing conservatives are supposed to protect us from.
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Es solamente política del año de la elección
I hope Marca is right, but you have to remember that people who think in Spanish around the world do not seem to have come up, until recently, with the concept of a corruption-free (not that we do it real well), democratic republic.
Crisp: You're a dumb shit. The government is spending our money promoting non-English languages in the public schools and in public employment. You want a free market? Stop subsidizing other languages.
Seems that we're all in the same boat in that regard, Chuck. I can't think of any meaningful differences between us and them other than we've accumulated vast wealth, have built a massive military machine, and think in English.
JB, At least I'm not a lowlife who personally attacks others without identifying myself.
And your point, like your insult, is irrelevant. If you want to wipe other languages out of the schools and the workplace, go for it -- and see if you can get the votes. But don't cloak it in high-minded nonsense as this bill does.
It's not a big problem in Billings.
Isn't the purpose of the bill simply to let immigrants, legal or illegal, know they should become part of our culture?
On another note - the last time I had a problem with language, was 10 years ago, at the lumberyard in Red Lodge, when a nice French couple and their daughter were trying to explain to one of our employees that they needed a cord adapter for their video camera.
I dusted off my high school french, and put together an adapter for them.
I really don't have a problem with the bill.
I have no problem with the bill either. If people want to move here (legally) that's fine with me. Learn the language and how WE do things though. You're joining OUR country, not bringing yours here. Did the melting pot get broken? I know many in other parts of the world are bi-lingual, but I wouldn't EXPECT to have Italians speak English to me if I'm in Rome.
But you might, when you are in Rome, find people very helpful, as many of them learned English in school.
I don't understand you Dave. Why did you get upset only when they were making laws about ENGLISH! Where were you when Congress was passing laws that pushed Spanish (and other languages) down our throats? We probably don't need any laws to make sure that English survives in a free market, but as usual we are functioning far from a free market. We taxpayers are being forced in many ways to subsidize language that the market would otherwise ignore (such as funding spanish radio, teachers to teach in spanish for students who don't want to learn english, forcing BY LAW businesses to accommodate it, etc.)We absolutely do need to teach foreign languages in our schools so we can better function around the world... US Students need to learn those languages, for all the same reasons that people coming here should be responding to the free market pressures to learn english. You are right, that it doesn't make sense that we should have to pass a law to make English the "legal" language but according to the lawyers unless Congress designates a "legal" language then all these other languages must be accommodated no matter the expense to taxpayers or lack of desire. Leave it to a lawyer, but if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes. The guy who thought it doesn't effect us here is dead wrong... not only are we part of the pool of taxpayers, but our local schools -- if they have but one student who needs it -- must hire what ever number of teachers it takes to teach a student in a foreign language -- again no matter the cost, and that is a priority over all other educational needs in the district. That's another one of those laws that you seem to have missed.
I'm all for people learning another language and I think I pointed out that many of our European friends are at least bi-lingual. We could do a better job of teaching foreign languages. That doesn't mean that I think foreign visitors or immigrants need not learn English. Just the opposite. It is a factor in all of us melding as one people. Let's all be real Americans- not hyphenated idiots who can't even speak to our neighbors. And yes- I might find a helpful Italian who speaks English to help me in Rome. It's just total foolishness to EXPECT Italians to bend to my needs.
As an addendum here, I just read in Scientific American Mind, a small squib about a study which indicates that bilingual people have a slight change in personality depending on which language they are speaking at the moment.
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