Quote:
Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I'm not talking about immigrants. I'm talking about voters.
I don't know about where you come from, but where I come from the ballots are written in Spanish because the voters in the districts speak and read and write in Spanish*. And those voters are legitimate, registered voters who have just as much right to participate in government as anyone else. And they should not be barred from participating, or worse, not being fully informed when they do participate, because of the language barrier.
The democracy is not in jeapordy because the ballots are written in languages that the people who are making the decisions about how our country is run can understand. But the concept is certainly threatened when we start preventing people from meaningfully casting their ballots.
There are plenty of places in this country where English is not and has never been the primary language, and yet somehow the country hasn't fallen apart.
*and Vietnamese
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I have no porblem with allowing ballots to be printed in any language so people can vote.
My problem is with the assumption that one can come here and not learn the native tongue. How do we assimilate if we don't share some common langauge. English is part of our nation's heritage. If I come to your house and you ask me to take off my shoes at the door, I can't say no. You'd rightly tell me to get the fuck out.
Yes, I am fully aware that was an awful analogy, but I've been up for days.
Where were we? Oh, yes... This country has a heritage, and its heritage is tolerance, but its heritage is also English. The English language is an identifying factor of being American. I think people living here should learn it. If I moved to France, I'd sure as shit learn French. Wouldn't you?
My immigrant forebears learned the native tongue. Why was it expected of them, but not expected today? I'll tell you why - because somewhere in the middle of the last century, we got goofy and soft and shitheaded.
The liberal ethos behind this "oh, we should all speak what we like, and we must accomodate everybody's differences" is softheaded horseshit thinking. We all need to get together, and part of that means speaking the same language. I don't know how to do that, but the common sense basis for doing it is irrefutable.
