Friday, September 15, 2006

IF YOUR ENGLISH IS BROKEN,
WE’LL FIX IT!


I think the conservative talk show hosts must be reading my mind. Though I don’t follow them on a regular basis, I’ve noticed recently that my posts seem to parallel theirs only a day or two behind. They have more resources and time, and I just let things seethe until I have to vent.

You hear a lot of buzz about the topic of establishing English as the official language of the United States. I’ve visited a few websites on the subject, but for my own good, I don’t need to get that deep into the weeds. It’s a simple idea. No need to have committee meetings. No cause for in depth studies. No justification to waste the government’s time and energy…except to make it happen. Ah, but there’s the rub.

Illegal Hispanic (and to a much lesser extent, other) immigrants staged some show a few weeks ago. It was quite a spectacle. It turned my stomach to see—not the Stars & Stripes—a sea of Mexican flags waving in (and polluting) MY AMERICAN AIR!!! They want rights our forefathers fought for handed to them on a silver platter. They got here illegally. It’s only natural that they’d want us to allow them to stay by exempting them from rules and laws by which every native born American citizen is bound. It’s like they think we OWE it to them, or something.

I heard on a radio talk show yesterday that 82 countries around the globe have established English as their official language. Many in Africa, some in the Caribbean and elsewhere. How can we, the bastion of the modern English language and a national presence second to none, be so short-sighted as to refuse to take this simple, yet monumental, step??

Politics! Yeah, it leaves a dirty feel on my fingers for having typed that egregious word. Special interest groups that feed and feed off of illegals in our country, and libocrats in general, including the likes of the ACLU, want us to dilute the very soul of our nation by forcing other languages to be acknowledged, supported and ingrained in our everyday life. Is the very process of becoming a naturalized American citizen being infected by this cancerous disease?? I wonder just how much English the average naturalized citizen really DOES know.

English is not necessarily WHO we are, but it is most definitely WHAT we are!! If you come here to stay, you ought to have the decency, respect and price to learn ENGLISH! I’ve been to other countries where, in order to get around, you HAD to speak their language. Mexico is a perfect example. You don’t see bilingual signs, menus or labels there (beyond border towns). If you can’t understand the language, not only do you miss out of getting the full flavor of the experience, but you won’t find a national infrastructure the least bit interested in making things easy on you by spoon-feeding you to get you through.

AND, it’s utter nonsense to even consider allowing schools in the United States of America to be conducted in anything other than good old American English. It goes against everything that describes us as a country, a nation, a people. It’s misuse of tax payer dollars to dedicate one red cent to non-English educational systems within the United States. Oh, I’m a firm believer in people being polyglots, but if you’re in America, you learn English FIRST!

Maybe if we started at the city level, then the state level, eventually those lofty lawmakers on Capitol Hill might eventually get the idea. It is something I feel is fundamental in our image and absolutely essential to our common understanding.

I honestly fear the day when I stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance (if it's not taken away from us, too) to hear other languages cause a significant loss in the translation. To paraphrase, I hope we will one day become:
…one language, under God, indivisible, with literacy and understanding for ALL!

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