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Speak English



;)

I liked it Valerie. I agree completely with it. Although there will be those who will go on about melting pots and freedom to speak whatever anyone wants and blablabla, no one said don't speak your native language, we're just saying speak English first if you live here. Really not a difficult thing to comprehend.

yep I liked that:wah: hey im not even a grumply ole american:wah::wah::wah:

rjwould;819261 wrote: Whats the big deal? So, if I don't understand what a person is saying, then it isn't a conversation I'm going to have. This whole "speak the language" thing sounds so territorial, like a bunch of immature kids claiming the rules for being in the group. It isn't worth being part of a group that thinks like that because sooner or later their paranoia will get them into trouble and you will be left to compromise yourself to defend them. Just not worth it. Let people speak with whatever language they want to, It means nothing to me.


It should mean a lot to you as an American. It's about people having enough respect for their host country that they attempt to be understood in the native tongue. To call it paranoia insults every individual who fought for this country. When you get in a wreck because someone didn't know what MERGE meant, you might see the other reasons why knowing English (or whatever language is native to where you live) is the smart thing to do.

Well, I'm not grumpy and I'm not paranoid. I AM a very patriotic person,

though.



I had 4 years of Spanish in high school, and actually am a member of

Los Aliados... Spanish Honor Society, so many semesters of a B grade

or above. It's a nice language, and I'd be happy to converse in it a

little to help those who are at least ATTEMPTING to speak English.

It may not be the "official" language, but my very true, GUT feeling is

that is what we should speak!



Maybe you aren't in an area where it impacts you as much. I am. And

I'm tired of doing things like trying to have a store clerk set aside a

pair of shoes for me, and her English is so bad I have to use the above

mentioned schooling to tell her my shoe size. OCHO Y MEDIA. Why should

I have to do that? Tired of my tax dollars going to pay for DRIVER'S

LICENSE tests printed in different languages! It just doesn't make any

SENSE.



Maybe we should just let them use money from their home countires, too,

to pay for goods and services.



I wouldn't expect to move to Italy and have people there speak English.

I'd bust my butt to at least learn enough Italian to get by.

rjwould;819810 wrote: So, thats you and thats great, but does everyone have to think as you do and do as you would do? I think not.




No, everyone doesn't need to think as *I* do. Not by a long shot.

I was only trying to give a little insight into how I personally feel

about it...



:-6

rjwould;819323 wrote: You're carrying this to the extreme.

Nobody in this country has a lock on what is right and what is wrong. There are millions of people who have died serving America, and guess what, they disagreed on different issues. I served and I disagree with these 2 morons singing this song, but I didn't die, so does that disqualify me and my opinion?

Whats all the patriotism I hear? It's a bogus argument people use to hide their intolerance towards others.

Strip away this patriotic bullsh!t of an argument and tell me what it is you're really afraid of.

And nobody tells me what something "should" mean to me.


Well, I guess I just did. :wah:

When you're a guest in someone else's home, you defer to their ways of doing certain things. When you live here in my country and don't speak the language, to me you are no more than a guest.

When my great grandparents came here from Germany, the kids were forbidden to speak German outside the home. My grandfather said "We live in America now, we will speak English." And it was done with pride. Not with shame for being German by any means but with deference to the country who took them in for a better life. I respect this and think it is the way it should be everywhere, not just the USA.

rjwould;819819 wrote: Thats cool..



Define patriotism though if you wouldn't mind..Why do you call yourself patriotic and what in the world does it have to do with this subject?



The two people who did the song as well as RG tried to tie them together, but I'm not seeing it.


I call myself patriotic because with all of its' many faults, I believe in

this country and its' freedoms and I revere our flag and our veterans

and soooo much else... how does it tie to this subject? Well, I guess

I can only say, that I think there are those who come here that want

to take what they can get but NOT revere this country. They don't seem

to have even a hint of patriotism for THIS country that has the potential

to give them so much.



I don't want them all to totally deny who they are, what their heritage

is, it would actually be very cool to learn about other cultures. But

don't use the excuse of a march to cut school classes that I and many

others are paying for... to march down the street blocking traffic and

waving the Mexican flag!



I like what Teddy Roosevelt had to say:





"In the first place we should insist that the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equity with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming an American and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to the American Defense Society in 1919.

"Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or to leave the country," he said in a statement to the Kansas City Star in 1918. "English should be the only language taught or used in the public schools."

“We can have no "50-50" allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.



There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.



This is just as true of the man who puts “native before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.

But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.

The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.

Theodore Roosevelt

addressing the Knights of Columbus

New York City

12 October 1915

If they are that proud of where they came from, and I'm NOT saying

they shouldn't be... why did they leave their own country to begin

with? Work to make that country better. Presumably, you wouldn't

even have a language "barrier" there!!

rjwould;819830 wrote: Not everyone shares your specific values, is that ok with you?

BTW this is not your country, this country is everyones who choses to live in it and they contribute what they can. If they don't share your language, that is their choice. You nor I dictate how others should behave as long as they are not infringing on our rights....That BTW is what others try to protect, freedom..Not freedom as you define it but pure unadulterated....FREEDOM.. Not on your terms but on freedoms terms. As long as people try to define that word selfishly, there will be strife in understanding freedom. And there will be useless and senseless arguing about how others live their lives. We should all just worry about ourselves.


Not buying it, RJ. There's a price to pay for everything and being an American is no different. If you don't want people dictating how we all should live, then may I suggest an anarchic state? That would at least make sense. I repeat....if they live here and don't speak the unofficially recognized language of "my" country, then that is not their choice....that is their downfall and their disrespect. They shall receive no respect from me. As Val pointed out before, do you enjoy paying money to coddle people who don't give a damn? Enough of a damn to learn how to read stuff printed in the language we use most in the US? I don't. Many don't. But what I hate the most is the sheer disrespect.

RedGlitter;819236 wrote: we're just saying speak English first if you live here. Really not a difficult thing to comprehend.
Have you the slightest idea how few of the English speak to the Welsh in Welsh when they come to live in Wales? I doubt whether even one in ten make the first move toward trying. How do you distinguish what you're looking for from Ethnocentrism?The psychological underpinning of having ethnocentrism appears to be assigning to various cultures higher or lower status or value by the ethnocentric person who then assumes that the culture of higher status or value is intrinsically better than other cultures. The ethnocentric person, when assigning the status or value to various cultures, will automatically assign to their own culture the highest status or value. Ethnocentrism is a natural result of the observation that most people are more comfortable with and prefer the company of people who are like themselves, sharing similar values and behaving in similar ways. It is not unusual for a person to consider that what ever they believe is the most appropriate system of belief or that how ever they behave is the most appropriate and natural behavior.

rjwould;819847 wrote: Wow..Theres a lot of anger in this post, where did it come from?



Is it ok with you if some disagree with everything you have said and still live in and claim to be American?


No anger, really, although you can't see it from where you are! :-6

Mayhap a tiny bit of frustration. But I really feel much more matter-of-fact

than I'm apparently coming across!



I don't think it's my place, really, to ok whether you live here and claim

to be an American. But again, of course it's okay to disagree with

everything I've said (although I'm surprised it's a sweeping "everything"!)

doesn't bother me in the slightest.



:)

"I don't think any government document should be printed in anything but English, no signs, nothing ".

We're quite good in Wales. We print every sign in English as well as Welsh to make thinks easier for our immigrants who only speak English. Our government prints every form in both languages because we have so many English immigrants whose Welsh is so poor. Sadly few of them make the effort to learn enough of our language to cope in it.

For me it's a practical issue.

---------------- Listening to: Rachmaninoff - Yoyo Ma - Rachmaninov - Sonata for Cello & Piano in G minor, Op. 19 - 3 Andante via FoxyTunesrjwould;819845 wrote: You don't have to buy it...You're not king or queen..Your just a person like the rest of us, whom is fortunate enough not to have people ridiculing you for your choice of behavior....or are you?


You're contrary tonight RJ.

If only we could all just do whatever we wanted with no ridicule of our behavior- what kind of utopia are you living in? I spoke my piece and I stand by it- fortunately you don't have to approve of it.

spot;819848 wrote: Have you the slightest idea how few of the English speak to the Welsh in Welsh when they come to live in Wales? I doubt whether even one in ten make the first move toward trying. How do you distinguish what you're looking for from Ethnocentrism?The psychological underpinning of having ethnocentrism appears to be assigning to various cultures higher or lower status or value by the ethnocentric person who then assumes that the culture of higher status or value is intrinsically better than other cultures. The ethnocentric person, when assigning the status or value to various cultures, will automatically assign to their own culture the highest status or value. Ethnocentrism is a natural result of the observation that most people are more comfortable with and prefer the company of people who are like themselves, sharing similar values and behaving in similar ways. It is not unusual for a person to consider that what ever they believe is the most appropriate system of belief or that how ever they behave is the most appropriate and natural behavior.


I'm not interested in painting a common sense concept with fancy names that don't pertain to it to start with. Speaking the lingo of the country you live in is practical, sensical, and proper. To pretend otherwise is argument just for argument's sake.

RedGlitter;819867 wrote: I'm not interested in painting a common sense concept with fancy names that don't pertain to it to start with. Speaking the lingo of the country you live in is practical, sensical, and proper. To pretend otherwise is argument just for argument's sake.


But people only argue for this when the language being imposed is English, and they do this because they think White Western values are better spread by pretending English is best. Which is what you're doing.

We're quite good in Wales. We print every sign in English as well as Welsh to make thinks easier for our immigrants who only speak English. Our government prints every form in both languages because we have so many English immigrants whose Welsh is so poor. Sadly few of them make the effort to learn enough of our language to cope in it.

:wah:I wish I still had that em I received months ago regarding this issue.