The Coalition of the Swilling

It does no good to enforce bad laws. The situation isn't as bad as people complain about. If another 30 million Mexicans come here, more power to them.

Just stop giving them social security, in-state tuition, and other socialist goodies.

May Day was chosen by the organizers for an entirely different reason

"Just stop giving them social security, in-state tuition, and other socialist goodies."

And we need to ammend the Constitution. If your parents are not here legally, you should not be a citizen, even if you were born on US soil. Few other countries have such a law. I know of illegals with kids who are citizens. If we kick the illegal out, who is going to support the minor citizen?

Local Tampa TV covered the less than overwhelming 300 at the protest here. They interviewed a woman who had been here illegally for 12 years...and needed an interpreter! 12 years in the USA and she still couldn't speak English!

There's no law that says that citizens have to know English. If there were such a law, then we'd have to define what is English and how well you'd have to know it to be legally fluent in it.

That means language cops. Just like the French. Just like the Quebec people (I can't spell the frog word for "people from Quebec).

Do you really want to emulate the French with their laws on whether "weekend" is allowed as a word?

I don't.

I don't care what language you speak. I don't care where you're from. I don't care, so long as you leave me alone and don't take my money.

Québécois.

I care what language you speak among the American public, especially when you're demanding services. I DON'T care what language you speak at home.

Why do you care?

There should be no services to demand, on that I agree, but why do you care what language people speak, so long as they aren't robbing people or breaking "real" laws (not administrative immigration laws)?

The language for all official government documents and functions should be english, no exceptions. speak whatever you like on the street and at home.

Exactly. And there should be no requirements on any English speaking American to EVER have to be bi-lingual to hold a position that is patently not involved with translating an immigrant's native tongue. (For example, the lady janitor who was fired from her job cleaning an office building in Miami because she didn't speak Spanish or the 60 year old, 35 year veteran teacher in the San Francisco school district terminated because she didn't pick up the Mandarin Chinese she was suddenly required to become FLUENT in quickly enough. NOR should my child have to sit through an hour class with the first half taught in English and then RETAUGHT for the second half in Spanish. If we both hadn't had jobs, that's EXACTLY what Ebola would have had to do in the Santa Ana school district. Sorry, Mike ~ there are plenty of places where catering to non-English speakers is detrimental to everyone and I will never agree with your whole laissez-faire attitude toward it. But now you're a PARENT and, should you ever run up against something like this, schmaybe you'll see where I'm coming from.)

Bingley: Define English. There is no definition that can hold up in law. It is constantly changing and growing and adding words, especially from Spanish.

THS: You point out two issues:

1. Should employers be able to hire people to do jobs as they define them or as you define them? If I want to hire someone to speak to my spanish speaking customers, I should be free to do so. That is called freedom and it is one of the basics that our country is all about.

2. Should we have public schools? No. Public schools are an abomination, and eliminating them will eliminate at least half the unnecessary public controrsey in our country. Spanish is pretty useful, but parents should be free to have their children learn as they see fit, not as some union teacher deems fit.

I'm not sure I understand the objection. You say it's impossible to legally define English; you're probably correct; does it matter?

The answer as I see it is that we don't need to legally define English in order to use only English in the public sector, any more than it was legally defined before, when nobody ever bothered to raise the question. It's not like a tax form or a driver's license application needs cutting-edge vocabulary anyway. Ten new words added from Spanish or Tagalog or Klingon won't affect the everyday words, nor change the stiffer, more formal tone of a government missive.

On the other side, the government now has to worry about translation issues and proper grammar and vocabulary for several languages. This just multiplies everyone's hassle, and ties up resources better used more sparingly.

I mean, you're the libertarian here - so why would an official language require a state definition? The government would simply speak one tongue in official documents. It would not require by law any testing in that language for citizenship. You could take the tests and the oath with as much or little fluency as you like, so long as you actually pass. None of it compelled, save in the inherent challenge of understanding and replying to the questions in English. Immigrants from half a hundred nations have managed to pull it off since before we were born, and it helped build a common bond among people who had otherwise not all that much to do with each other when they could help it. We stopped doing it, and that went hand-in-hand with an upturn in identity politics and ethnic huddling/pandering. Bad enough when it was just social discord, but at least officially we were encouraging unity and upholding it as a worthy principle through speaking a common tongue.

It's not the only thing to do to buck the trend, nor the most important, but it's a simple enough start. Get everyone able to more or less understand each other in the public sphere, and public discourse is easier.

I didn't say the government should be required to translate anything. The common language is English and we're using it just fine. That California requires translations is their business.

Providing translations for large communities that speak other languages is just good politics. If you want their votes, speak the language they speak. So that will not be stopped by silly laws. People have freedom of speech and policians will exploit that.

I say we would have to define English if we make its use the law, because that is the natural course of lawyers and the law. If you sue me to make me use English, I'll force you to explain which words are legally English. In the short run, someone will trot out a Websters, but in the long run, we'll get language cops. Or else other dictionaries will be created that contain a lot more Spanish words than you might consider to be in English.

I understand the desire for more public discourse, that is of course desired. But you can't force people to discuss things.

Public schools in California are the most egregious for forcing kids to learn Spanish only on the basis of their last name, whether they knew English or Spanish.

Without public schools, almost everyone will want their kids to learn English, just as in generations in the past. English is the de facto language of those that prosper here. Most people would probably also choose to teach their children Spanish as it continues to increase in importance.

This is all a non-issue that xenophobes have been trotting out for three hundred years.

Our country is not based on a language. It is based on a philosophy: freedom. If we speak Chinese or Tagalog or Klngon is irrelevent. The important point is that we all understand freedom.

Good answer. Agreed about philosophy of freedom rather than language as well. I thought you were actually advocating the legal definition rather than playing devil's advocate, which, looking back at the exchange, makes me question my brainpower a little bit.