Thread: Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

Nord Jim, I think I have to agree with you on this one. If I moved to Rome I would have to do as the Romans or languish in Italy. This is the way my people made it when they came here, if you want to do something other than starve, you'd better learn to communicate. The shame these days is that now the marketplace is demanding that Americans speak spanish in order to take financial advantage of those coming from down south. I was raised aDemocrat, became a Reagan Republican, and they are both full of it. Hence my bashing of Gore earlier,GW would get the same.

We are agreed. I will remember this day fondly.

j

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

This is one of those cases in which I could wish that conservatives would stand on their principles

gasp! conservatives! I'm shocked you would use such a label Who are these .... conservatives? lol

I think the US ought to require that its people use English as its common language. But it doesn't have to be legislated into law that way, we as citizens can require it ourselves. If you want to do business with me or join in our activities, you need to have a working knowledge of the common language and if you're right off the boat you should be taking steps to learn.

- Lee the Idealist

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

gasp! conservatives! I'm shocked you would use such a label Who are these .... conservatives? lol

I think the US ought to require that its people use English as its common language. But it doesn't have to be legislated into law that way, we as citizens can require it ourselves. If you want to do business with me or join in our activities, you need to have a working knowledge of the common language and if you're right off the boat you should be taking steps to learn.

- Lee the Idealist

If you'll look back at numerous threads on this section, you'll find that conservatives are normally self-identifying.

But I still don't know who these "liberals" are.

j

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

gasp! conservatives! I'm shocked you would use such a label Who are these .... conservatives? lol

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

But I still don't know who these "liberals" are.

piece of cake:

The cancer within! The worm that dieth not!!

I think you guys may want to learn to read English.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

l
I think the US ought to require that its people use English as its common language. But it doesn't have to be legislated into law that way, we as citizens can require it ourselves. If you want to do business with me or join in our activities, you need to have a working knowledge of the common language and if you're right off the boat you should be taking steps to learn.

- Lee the Idealist

Mr. Idealist, I have several practical suggestions to you as a US representative. To implement your suggestion, please discontinue doing business and any other activities in non-english. Also please stop doing business with anybody who doesn't adhere to this principle. Call your banks and credit card companies and if at any point you are advised to press "1" for english, press 0 and advise the operator that you are discontinuing your business relation with that company. Furthermore if you ever call customer service and the representative tries to pass a heavy indian accent for english, please don't waste your productive time and just toss the malfunctioning product in the garbage - no need to purchase products from the same company in the future.

Finally you must give away all your razors which are not labeled in plain understandable english. These will include those bearing the communist SFK stamps (they are disguised cyrillic) as well as any razor with a hint of umwald or anything else which makes no common sense in english. And by english I most certainly mean american, it's is just the traditional name to refer to it.

Perhaps it's a good idea to start learning some Spanish, just in case

Thank you for the nod Gugi!

Originally Posted by Nord Jim

An open marketplace, free from unwarranted regulation, is indeed a conservative principle, and has been a central plank of the Republican platform for as long as I, at least, can remember -- as has the notion that the federal government should only regulate what the states cannot. Both, unfortunately, have been more honored in the breach than in the observance, as far as Republican performance in office has been concerned. It's one reason I left the party.

j

Perhaps I am a bit confused here, but while an open market is something that many conservatives support, it is in and of itself a capitalist principle and has nothing to do with conservatives. We just get lumped in with each other all the time. Conservatism has more to do IMHO with the old "God, Family, Country" ideal, as well as a generally positive attitude towards one's country. It is also a somewhat religious based ideology, many of it's traditions steeped in the various religions that served as founding stones (both good and bad) for our country.
Of course, I tend to take a simplistic view of such things. I also resent "Republicans" being called "Conservatives" when they are often nothing of the sort. They are made from exactly the same cloth as their supposed "opponents" the Democrats, but in reality it's all a shell game IMHO.
I consider myself a conservative on some issues, capitalist on some, and a deep dyed in the wool nationalist. Not, however, a Republican or Democrat. These days, IMHO both of the parties have so homogenized themselves beside one viewpoint (that completely misses the point for most Americans) or the other (which also misses the point equally) that they don't even see what the true issues genuinely are.
Just my opinion, of course, but I don't think my tax dollars, for instance, should be involved in congressional investigations of baseball, for crying out loud.

Just an example.

John P.

I think we should insist that well off youngsters from families that have been American for generations learn to write intelligible English first. Then we can worry about the immigrants that are busting their tails to make a living here doing work no one else wants to do.

I went to Yale and always tested well and blah blah blah and if you required me to learn a second language or face deportment, I'd have to start packing because I've got a tin ear for languages. I think we need to cut some slack to people that are trying to make a go of it in this country doing hard work.

Having said that, I don't like the fact that we enable ignorance of English by posting Spanish language translations of so many things - forcing it is one thing, making it easy not to learn is another.

Incidentally, I do think our schools should copy the Scandinavian model and start teaching second and third languages from elementary school on. That way most people can get programmed to handle more than one language while their brains are still developing. And with the globalization of the economy it is a shame that we are not making ourselves competitive in communication skills.

Originally Posted by gugi

Mr. Idealist, I have several practical suggestions to you as a US representative. To implement your suggestion, please discontinue doing business and any other activities in non-english.

Done

Also please stop doing business with anybody who doesn't adhere to this principle. Call your banks and credit card companies and if at any point you are advised to press "1" for english, press 0 and advise the operator that you are discontinuing your business relation with that company.

That isn't very practical US representative! I can still do business with those in the company who can communicate in English!

Furthermore if you ever call customer service and the representative tries to pass a heavy indian accent for english, please don't waste your productive time and just toss the malfunctioning product in the garbage - no need to purchase products from the same company in the future.

I went through those years and came out living simpler and happier

Finally you must give away all your razors which are not labeled in plain understandable english. These will include those bearing the communist SFK stamps (they are disguised cyrillic) as well as any razor with a hint of umwald or anything else which makes no common sense in english. And by english I most certainly mean american, it's is just the traditional name to refer to it.

Ah, but my Wapienica razors are exempt as I purchased them from a non United Statian! And what's an umwald? me speaky english

Quote:
Furthermore if you ever call customer service and the representative tries to pass a heavy indian accent for english, please don't waste your productive time and just toss the malfunctioning product in the garbage - no need to purchase products from the same company in the future.
I went through those years and came out living simpler and happier




I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS DEBATE. I THOUGHT ONCE THEY PASSED YOU ON TO THE GUY IN INDIA IT WAS CODE THAT YOU HAD TO THROW THE PRODUCT AWAY AND NEVER BUY FROM THAT COMPANY AGAIN. HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY GOTTEN SOMETHING FIXED ONCE YOU GOT DIVERTED TO INDIA? IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? i THINK A GUY IN INDIA ACTUALLY MANAGED TO NUKE MY CABLE BY REMOTE SOMEHOW BY AUTHORIZING THE WRONG PULSE - SOMEHOW I FEEL THAT SHOULD BE BANNED BY AN INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSLE TREATY OR SOMETHING. AND THEN THERE WAS THE GUY IN INDIA THAT REFUSED TO CORRECT MY ADDRESS FOR A PENDING DELIVERY EVEN WHEN WE SHOWED THEM THE EMAILS WE SENT GIVING THEM THE RIGHT ADDRESS AND FURTHER EMAILS NOTING THEY'D TRANSCRIBED IT WRONG. AND THEY HAD SOME REASON.....LIKE THEY AREN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING OUR ADDRESS WRONG BUT WILL SEND A NEW PRODUCT TO THE WRONG ADDRESS AGAIN IF IT DOESN'T GET TO THE RIGHT ADDRESS THE FIRST TIME THEY SENT IT TO THE WRONG ADDRESS.