why
 

is that typical of the culture? Has anyone been to Weed's house when he and the missus are having a row?

Do you really think a bilingual nation is to our advantage? Do you really think that the existence of French speaking Quebec has really helped the Canadians? Has its bilingualism helped Belgium? In addition, English is the international language so our country has a huge competitive advantage in that we have native English speakers. There is a reason why there are call centers in India (where because of English colonialism there are many English speakers) and not in China or Indonesia. The United States has everything to gain by staying a single language English speaking nation and nothing to gain by becoming bilingual.

Most of the people in this country are descendents from people that came from countrys that don't speak English. Yet do you really think this country would be better off if everyone had retained their native language and taught it to their children?

The US is better off being a single language nation. I wouldn't care if it were Spanish, French or Swahili. But English is also the international language so every prudent and competitive country on the Globe is trying to teach their children English. We already have the advantage of having that international language being the predominate language - why would we change that?

In every country I have ever lived in I made a serious attempt to learn the predominate language, and it never occurred to me to expect the government to cater to my English. If I decided to move permanently to Mexico or another Spanish speaking country it wouldn't even occur to me to not improve my Spanish or expect the government to print ballots or provide services to me in English.

I have no problem with people immigrating to this country, but is it so much to ask that they learn English? Isn't it a prudent public policy to encourage English to be spoken in the United States?

So then why do you have a problem with what they are doing?

So the rule is a government should cater to your language, and if it doesn't, you don't have to pay taxes? So when I was living in Japan, should I have refused to pay taxes because the tax forms were not provided to me in English?


This doesn't seem to jibe with Replaced Texan's assertion that:

right, so why the sudden need for a law about it? I imagine that during the various influxes of non-english speakers, people made decisions on a case-by-case basis (e.g., texas, vra) about whether they needed to produce documents or what have you in a different language -- sometimes yes, I'd think, for smooth functioning; often no.

eta re: made-up problem -- there isn't a problem with having to do stuff in different languages, to the extent we do so now, so the law isn't addressing that problem. the law is thus being proposed for another purpose or purposes -- what do you think it or they might be? think hard, spanky, I suspect this won't come easy to you.

Funny, I think it is obvious so you are the one that might try and give more than ten seconds of thought to this. The law wasn't necessary before because no one ever even thought that English should not be the predominate language. Until recently the idea of a bilengual education wasn't even considered.

But now you have social engineers that think mulitculturalism, as opposed to the melting pot, is the way to go. Until we got rid of it in California by proposition, you could pass the entire way through the California public schools without ever having to learn English.

There is a certain section of the population that thinks that a bilengual United States would be a good thing and many of these progressive thinkers are in positions of power throughout the government and are putting that agenda into policy. They had screwed up the California Public Schools for a while, until that was fixed, but there influence is being felt everywhere. Hence the need for legislation.

I for one think schools should concentrate on teaching proper spelling- at least of English.

You're the one who brought taxes into this. It's your sense of entitlement that's at issue. You seem to think that you should have the right to demand documents be only in English because you're a taxpayer. But other people who pay taxes but speak another language? Fuck them.

I'm actually in favor of a strong English education in our schools. I think ESL courses are not taught correctly. But this statute doesn't address that. I think that learning a passing level of English should be a requirement for naturalization citizenship (oh wait - it is!). This law doesn't address that, either. Instead, it's almost wholely symbolic.

This is a non-issue. But somebody thinks it's important, and I'm pretty sure those same people (or their kids) are going to be the ones bitching the loudest when Spanish becomes as widely spoken as English in this country.

this is a federal law, not a state law, that is being pushed. I think that your viewpoint is very, very shaped by being in California.

to me, the law seems more symbolic than anything else. symbolic in a nasty, evil way.

Yes.

Spanky, the plural of "country" is "countries." Maybe you need to focus on your own English?

ETA Hank PMed to say he was actually referring to bilENGual. Which actually is an interesting kinda error to have made . . .

You were the first one to mention taxes. You asked if I still expected them to pay taxes even if the documents were not in their language. You are the king of the straw man argument. I never said I thought documents should only be in English because I pay taxes. Where the hell did that come from? It has nothing to do with taxes or my "sense of entitlement". Documents should be in English because that is the language of the nation. And the fact that that is being disputed just helps solidify the argument of why we need the legislation.

Why do you find it so important to focus on who is going to be complaining when Spanish is widely spoken in this country?

The day I start proofreading these posts for grammar and spelling is the day my life has become as pathetic as yours. Hopefully that day won't come any time soon.

2. Although I should remind you that most people have Fringey on ignore. When you quote her posts, you force those people to read her hate diatribes. Let's mind THAT border.

His girlfriend reads the board and she's Mexican and he doesn't mind kissing ass. Like if things had worked out better you, might be posting on some strip club chat board about how Serbian woman are the ideal of beauty and almost never need implants.

"People can speak or learn any language they like, but if they want to interface with anything paid for by tax dollars it has to be English. "

Implicit in this statement is that it is a waste of tax dollars to use anything but English. Implicit in that statement is the idea that only English speakers have a right to have a say in the proper use of tax dollars.

Why?

And I'll remind you that the "we were here first" argument is incorrect, at least with regard to California (and Texas).

My point with the bitching issue is that one must be careful what one demands - the same people who insist that there can only be one language for the govenrment are likely to regret that choice when the future majority of the country decides they were correct about the one language thing,* but decides to change the language.

* As to the correctness of the one language thing in general, I'd point out that many countries have multiple official languages, and for much the same reason (combinations of lands where the populations speak another language - and this is this case here: Spanish is so widely kept in the US because there has always been a large geographically concentrated base of Spanish speakers in certain parts of the country who became citizens without the necessity of learning English - they were there when the territory they lived in became part of the US. Obviously, not all or even most Spanish speakers are decendants of these original settlers, but their presence has created a continuity of community in the Southwest especially, with some migration to oher areas).

Switzerland has four official languages, one of which is spoken by less than 70,000 worldwide.

To.

Tal.

Burn.