-Caveat Lector-
Oakland begins building the tower of Babel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
� 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
The city that gave us Ebonics just established language quotas for municipal
employment.
Last week, Oakland's city council voted unanimously to require certain
departments to fill vacancies with workers who are bilingual in either Spanish or
Chinese until there's one such employee for every 10,000 residents who speak these
tongues. (Thanks to porous borders, 35 percent of Oakland residents now are
foreign-born.) San Francisco is expected to embrace the same language-coddling later
this month.
At the council meeting, resident Carol Kolenda was jeered for stating the
obvious, when she told immigrants, "It's your choice to learn the language or not
learn the language."
Also last week, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Alexander vs. Sandoval, a
challenge to Alabama's official English law. Prior to its approval by an 85 percent
vote in 1990, Alabama gave drivers' tests in 15 languages, including Farsi. After the
amendment passed, the test could only be taken in English.
Though she'd lived in America 17 years, Martha Sandoval never bothered to learn
our language well enough to take an exam written in English. On the theory that her
adopted country should adapt to her, Sandoval decided this was discriminatory. So did
the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which held the law violated the 1964 Civil
Rights Act. By a 5-to-4 majority, the Supreme Court reversed that ruling, holding a
citizen can't sue a state under the act unless authorized by Congress.
It declined to rule on the constitutionality of official English, a stand
against language fragmentation taken by 24 states to date. Jim Boulet of English First
called the decision "a chilling reminder of the slender threads upon which hang the
last shreds of our nation's linguistic unity."
Bill Clinton left that fabric in tatters. The lower court ruling in Sandoval was
the excuse for Executive Order 13166, issued in July 2000, mandating that all
federally funded entities, in areas with large immigrant populations, provide for
bilingual communication in public contact positions.
Washington has been busy passing guidelines to implement the order. The
Department of Justice now requires "competent" interpreter services at all security
checkpoints, and reception and information desks -- at an undetermined cost to
America's English-speaking taxpayers.
Congress could have the last word here. H.R. 969, with 50 cosponsors in the
House, seeks to repeal Clinton's order. Given sufficient public involvement, the bill
has a fair chance of passing. Bush could repeal 13166 without congressional
involvement, if the White House didn't fear alienating alien lobbies.
At the Oakland council meeting, non-English speakers were compared to the
handicapped. If we provide special assistance for the physically disabled, why not the
language-impaired as well? -- it was argued. But those who don't learn English have
chosen their disability.
The ACLU, which represented Sandoval, compared Alabama's English-only policy
(for official business) to its whites-only policy of the 1960s -- a cunning but flawed
analogy. Race is an innate characteristic. People aren't born in a language
straitjacket.
It is an organizing principle of liberalism that America not only has a moral
obligation to take in an unlimited number of immigrants, but the latter have an
absolute right to the delivery of tax-funded services in the language of their choice.
This diversity dogma could soon result in a national crisis. Today, 10 percent
of our nation is foreign-born. The Census Bureau projects that over the next
half-century, two-thirds of all population growth will be due to future immigrants and
their descendants.
If newcomers can't talk to us and those from other lands, what will become of
our nation? How can we reason together if we can't communicate with each other?
Will Americans of the future have to take a 15-language electronic translator to
the supermarket? Will high-school classrooms resemble sessions of the General
Assembly, with simultaneous translation over headsets?
How can immigrants identify with America if they can't read Lincoln's words in
the language in which they were spoken? Will we devolve from e pluribus unum (out of
many, one) to a multicultural boarding house, whose fractious tenants babble at each
other incomprehensively in a welter of tongues?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID="649
Don Feder is a columnist for the Boston Herald and the author of "Who is afraid
of the Religious Right?"
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
