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The opposition in Congress to making English the official language of the United States is a near perfect example of the failure of the current leadership in Washington to adopt a deeply held value of the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans want the federal government to join with 30 states in making English the official language of the United States, and yet our elites consider the adoption of this value as a distraction or worse.
Consider the Democrat presidential debate Sunday . When asked for a show of hands, Mike Gravel was the only candidate to express support for English. Barack Obama said that the question "is designed precisely to divide us" and that "when we get distracted by those kinds of questions, I think we do a disservice to the American people." If 85% of Americans support English as the official language of government, the only division is between Senator Obama and the American people.
Evita Clinton responded that she supported English as the "national" language but not the "official" language of the United States, since making English the official language would prevent the printing of foreign language ballots for U.S. elections.
It seems that only the elites can possibly see 85% support for a deeply held American value as divisive and think it is acceptable to express support for English as long as it does not actually have any meaning.
I have to agree that One official language is the way to go.
In Canada we have two English and French.
The problem comes when you try to accommodate the other. One is always the first language and it causes resentment with the other.
The cost to business having to provide service and product labeling is onerous.
Its not really the "official" status that is the problem, however. The real issue is government trying to provide services in many languages. If services are available in someone's language of origin the NEED to speak English is diminished.
I can't discriminate in hiring because the person doesn't speak English even though the vast majority of my customers speak only English. I am amazed when I meet people that have been in the country for thirty years and still don't speak the language.
Anyone ever hear of the Tower of Babel? What better way to destroy a project or a country that have everyone speaking a different language.
Black slaves, who spoke their native African languages when they arrived here were literally forced via threats of death and torture to speak only English and after they learned English, they were then flogged if they attempted to read English. Is that the unity that speaking the same language brings? Or was the insistence that they speak English really motivated by some other less noble factor? The Irish spoke English upon arrival and were considered subhuman and discriminated against. One reason was that even though they spoke English they were Catholics which from the English-speaking American's viewpoint was far more significant in terms of acceptance than their speaking English.
BTW
Your Tower Of Babel idea doesn't have statistical support.
Is that why you fail to provide any?
Excerpt
Proportionally speaking, non-English speakers were nearly three times as numerous in 1890 census (3.6%) than in 2000 census (1.3%). State-level comparisons show an even greater contrast. New Mexico was 65.1% non-English-speaking in 1890 vs. 1.6% in 2000; Wisconsin, 11.4% vs. 0.3%; Minnesota, 10.3% vs. 0.4%; Louisiana, 8.4% vs. 0.1%; and New Hampshire, 5.7% vs. 0.1%.
English as the nation's dominant language is no more threatened at the turn of the 21st century than it was at the turn of the 20th. To the contrary, it is all the other languages that are endangered – and would soon die out, if not for the replenishing effects of immigration. (Sadly, the process of extinction is already in advanced stages for most Native American tongues.) There are certainly no indications that Anglicization is slowing down. If anything, it is speeding up
Wow. How did you twist the discussion about about english as the official language to a diatribe about slaves two hundred years ago.
Nobody is talking about private citizens using whatever language they want.
Put up a sign in your store window in any language you want.Operate you business in any language you want.
If you want government service deal in one language. the costs to the taxpayers go down, efficiency goes up. I don't really see the confusion or problem with a simple solution to a problem.
And what did you not understand about the Tower of Babel. It is a clear example of what happens if people can't communicate. Statistical support??? What are you talking about.
Did you know that 87.3% of people that quote statistics just make up the numbers.
The story of Babel in case you haven't heard it.
The Tower of Babel
Many generations after Noah, when the whole earth still spoke the same language, people traveled to a plain in the Middle East and settled there.
Then they said to one another, "Let's build a city and a tower, and let's make a name for ourselves, so we won't be scattered around the whole earth."
Building Tower of Babel. Copyrighted.
The people made a tower designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself.
This decision was a direct refusal to obey God's command to go out and fill the earth. Also, the tower was designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself. The Lord looked upon the city and tower which these people were building.
And He said, "Behold, the people are organizing as one group and since they all speak the same language, nothing they imagine to do will be held back from them. Let us go down and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand each other's speech." And the Lord mixed up their language, causing them to stop building the city.
Leaving the Tower of Babel. Copyrighted.
Therefore the name of that city became "Babel", which means confusion; because there the Lord multiplied language on the earth, causing people to scatter abroad.
Excon ; my grandparents managed fine without the nation accommodating their native language in official documents. They came here with the expectation that they would become Americans and that meant learning the language .
Starman
The truth is that the nation had a sectional problem that pre-dated nationhood. I would have to say that an honest assessment of US history shows that in the short time between the adoption of the Federal govt. and the civil war (1791 - 1860 , a short 70 years) there was never a time when one could truly say the country was united . Including the Southern secession there were at least 3 serious movements attempting disunion.
The Northern win in the Civil War sorta forced the issue.
Ken,
In a way you're right. In the thread where you pulled the quote the sources were newspapers and they were reporting facts. A simili to this situation would be if I used a quote from a Stephen King novel as backup to my argument.
It seems to me that there are two issues here. One is who should be "required" to learn English. All present citizens? All new applicants for citizenship? All legal residents? All visitors? All persons making a phone call to a U.S. telephone? And wherever you draw that line, how will it be enforced, and at what cost?
A second issue is which (if any) government services and publications must be, may be, or shall not be (?) provided in languages other than English. Visa applications in foreign embassies and consulates? International trade and commerce regulations and requirements? And what about private businesses that provide services to the public? Should they be prevented from providing non-english speakers services in their own language?
These are fairly complex questions that depend on a lot of details about particular circumstances to know what is really in the best interests of the nation in each case. In the face of this complexity, what exactly does it mean to declare English to be the "official" language? Not much, it seems to me. Mostly, it looks to me like another form of anti-immigrant prejudice. Making life as inconvenient as possible for non-english speakers is a not-very-subtle way of saying "Go home, foreigner, we don't want your kind here". Never mind that for most of us who are here, you wouldn't have to go back more than a generation or two to find "their kind".
Wow. How did you twist the discussion about about english as the official language to a diatribe about slaves two hundred years ago.
Nobody is talking about private citizens using whatever language they want.
Put up a sign in your store window in any language you want.Operate you business in any language you want.
If you want government service deal in one language. the costs to the taxpayers go down, efficiency goes up. I don't really see the confusion or problem with a simple solution to a problem.
And what did you not understand about the Tower of Babel. It is a clear example of what happens if people can't communicate. Statistical support??? What are you talking about.
Did you know that 87.3% of people that quote statistics just make up the numbers.
The story of Babel in case you haven't heard it.
The Tower of Babel
Many generations after Noah, when the whole earth still spoke the same language, people traveled to a plain in the Middle East and settled there.
Then they said to one another, "Let's build a city and a tower, and let's make a name for ourselves, so we won't be scattered around the whole earth."
Building Tower of Babel. Copyrighted.
The people made a tower designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself.
This decision was a direct refusal to obey God's command to go out and fill the earth. Also, the tower was designed for worshiping the sun, moon and stars. Mankind had chosen to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself. The Lord looked upon the city and tower which these people were building.
And He said, "Behold, the people are organizing as one group and since they all speak the same language, nothing they imagine to do will be held back from them. Let us go down and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand each other's speech." And the Lord mixed up their language, causing them to stop building the city.
Leaving the Tower of Babel. Copyrighted.
Therefore the name of that city became "Babel", which means confusion; because there the Lord multiplied language on the earth, causing people to scatter abroad.
It encourages discriminatory persecution of an already persecuted minority via condemnation of their language as a threat to national unity. It can also be easily perceived as encouragement to persecute. No, you and other reasonable persons might not see it that way. But there are enough misguided fanatically inclined ignorants who will see it as a license to either commence discriminating, continue to discriminate, or intensify their discrimination with the perceived OFFICIAL APPROVAL of their government.
No twisting is being attempted. Only a provision of examples in which a common language fails to produce unity in response to the claims that language is the primary cement holding cultures together. It would be nice if having a common language worked in that way. Unfortunately history provides ample evidence to the contrary. The English and the English colonists of the original thirteen colonies which eventually became the USA, all spoke the same language but went at each others' throats due to political differences. The Spanish-speaking colonial settlers did the same against Spanish-speaking Spain. Today it's the controversial national foreign policies which are being divisive and not the supposed or bogus threat to the English language.
Yes, I am familiar with the Babel incident and agree that it led to the dispersal of mankind based on inability to communicate. What I don't agree with is using it as being a situation toward which we are headed. Present circumstances don't justify that kind of hypothetical chaotic eventuality and neither do the present statistics prove that we are heading in that direction. In fact that kind of linguistic pandemonium you describe would require an act of God and could never be reached via cultural dynamics. In fact, that's the reason why we have never seen this happen without the divine intervention.
BTW
Assuming that statistics are bogus simply because you disagree with them is not good scholarship. The information provided was acquired from Language Policy Research Unit » Blog Archive » Demographic Data If indeed the source of the statistics is questionable or the information itself has been provided in a biased way then it is your responsibility as the accuser to prove it.
No one who is a proponent is anti-immigration. That to me is a cheap shot. In fact I'd say the opposite is the case . By promoting "diversity " and other such pc. nonsense what we are creating is in essence a growing underclass in the nation. As long as you pander you are diminishing people’s ability to advance.
The immigrants themselves when polled agree . 3,000 Hispanic adults were polled by the Pew Hispanic Center in December, 2002. 91% of foreign-born Latino immigrants agree that learning English is essential to succeed in the U.S. The Carnegie Corporation poll showed by a 2-1 that immigrants say the U.S. should expect new immigrants to learn English. And I already cited a Rasmussen and a Zogby poll that showed 85 % of Americans favor English as the official language. What are you saying ?....that 85 % of Americans are xenophobic ? ;that the immigrants themselves are wrong ?
And it makes perfect sense . I would not move to Spain or Mexico without learning Spanish nor would I expect any accommodation by their govt to publish bilingual information on my behalf.
By a bi-partisan vote of 64-33, the U.S. Senate passed the amendment .
Under the amendment, English would be declared the national language of the United States government, calling upon federal agencies to "preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language of the United States of America."
The measure does not prohibit information and documents in languages other than English, it clarifies that while a government agency can opt to provide services in English, citizens do not have an affirmative right to ask for such services. An exception is made for existing federal law, such as in health care and judicial matters where bi-lingual documents are and should be published.
Excon
Ron Paul indicated in the last debate that he favors English as the official language . So does Lew Rockwell .
Again Switzerland in barely bigger than our smallest state. You can compare grapes to watersmelons, as it were. To answer ashley 19 , italians and other ethnic groups speak english when they get here yet they seem to keep there ethnic uniqueness. It's fine to speak the language in your home but have you ever been somewhere and heard people speaking another language in front of you. It's rude and usually done so they can talk about you. Sharing a language doesn't diminish the ethnic group from keeping their cultural heritage.
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