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Originally posted by Cletus Miller
S--
Don't you answer your own implied question--Why do people want to be governed by people who have the same native tongue?
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No - because I don't know the answer except that people are natually bigoted.
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Originally posted by Cletus Miller at the end of this post when you say: "It seems to be part of human nature to not trust someone whose native tongue is unintelligible to you or at least hard for you to understand."? Seems rational enough to me. If you don't speak/read the language of your government, then you don't know what your government is doing to you.
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OK this is a good point. But the problem is in this day and age it is not a rational excuse. There are translators. Shouldnt you be more concerned with the form of government (Democratic, capitalistic, Socialist, Dictator), how the government treats you and what benefits you get from the government as opposed to what language they speak? And in Canada, the government speaks French also. It seems not so much if they can undestand the government, but they want the people in government to have the same native language. So your ruler just can't speak your language, he has to have the same native language you speak.
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Originally posted by Cletus Miller How would you feel if the official language of California (or the US) was changed to Spanish, so that all government business was transacted in Spanish and all publications in Spanish only? I would feel excluded and if I were a part of a large community of English-speakers who couldn't get the Spanish-speaking government to accomodate us, I would want my own country with English as the language of the government.
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I think to distill the issue it would be what if the California government was run by people whose native language was Spanish. They translated everything into English, and most of them spoke English, but their native language was spanish. Would I still object? I wouldn't care. If the native Spanish speakers were Republicans and the Democrats were native English speakers I would vote for the Republicans. But the kicker is, most people in the world are not that way. In Iraq the Kurds voted for Kurds no matter what their political persuasion. In Belgim the Walloons vote for Walloons. In most of the world people people choose who they vote for based more on their native language than on their political philosophy.
I think it is good that this country speaks one language. It is also good that the language is English because that is also the international language. So I would like to see English stay the language of the United States and would llike people who move here to learn it. But there is nothing special about English per se. If the national language of the United States were German, I wouldn't be that attached to it (or conversely if English was only spoken in England outside of the US) I wouldn't be that attached to it. But Spanish doesn't bother me that much because it is widely spoken throughout the world. So if we are going to be bilingual, Spanish would be the language at the top of my list.
If a bunch Ukrainians were moving here, and not learning the language and wanted to the US to become bilingual: Ukrainian and English, I would be throwing a huge hissy fit.
