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Originally Posted by Magic Wheel Memory
So said gubernatorial candidate Tim James, who proposes that the state driver's exam should be offered in English only. For the most part, I agree with him. Of course, I love the idea of America as a melting pot. Different races, religions, ideologies, etc. But if you and I live in the same country, and we can't even have a conversation, then what do we have in common? A country should be more than just a geographical territory. If you go to live in a country, and you don't learn the primary language of 90% of its residents (or whatever the number is), then are you really trying to become part of that country's society? Or are you only trying to create your own subculture?
As for the driver's exam, you could make the argument that recently-arrived immigrants need to be able to drive in order get a job and get established, while they learn English, but you could also argue that speaking English should be required to even live here in the first place.
Thoughts? I fully expect to get ridiculed for this, but that's life, isn't it?
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do they even speak
english in Alabama?
america has no lingua franca for a
reason. The issue is not should people learn languages, but should they
have to, and generally under most federal and state laws the answer is NO. So all these Pharisee legalistic americana tea bagged folks who claim "law and order" in regards to immigration issues are bigots and not respecting the laws of their own country.
in fact, the US federal government recognizes over 240 languages making US the officially most linguisitically diverse nation on earth. In most of Africa people speak five languages just to catch a bus and in Europe most kids go to school in English (which is a foreign language to Swedes and Germans isn't it I could only imagine the american kids having to go to school in French
) , why should americans be so afraid of linguistic diversity?