John Edwards admits to affair with Rielle Hunter

[Lueyen]

I'd tend to agree brinstar depending on the purpose. The stimulus checks do very little to help the economy. What I do like is Oregon's kicker checks, which is essentially the same thing only not based on an attempt to do anything save give back tax monies collected above and beyond what was budgeted for.

[Martrae]

English is (or was...it's hard to tell anymore) the standard language here.

Well, no shit! I said that in the third line of my post

All I said was that you made a dumb comment ("But if you are doing it to speak to people living in your own country then it's just wrong.") because a) nobody ever brought that up, b) it's really really stupid, and c) it reminded me of college.

No one's talking about changing the national language. All Obama suggested was to learn another language and he cited Spanish specifically because it's the most useful language to learn for US citizens, as any linguist would tell you. If you don't want to get with the times and learn the language of the largest minority in the country then suit yourself. I don't care about what you do

And once again with the snide underhanded tone of condescension. Can't you discuss anything without sounding patronizing?

Obama is obviously catering to the Mexican vote with this statement, but it does underscore the prevailing attitude that the Mexicans in this country NEED to be catered to. Why? What makes them so special that they can't do like every other immigrant has done and learn the 'standard' language? Why do my tax dollars go to printing up special pamphlets and paperwork for them?

[Arlos]

There's tons of other immigrants who never learned very good english. You ever been into the hearts of Chinatowns in major cities? Guarantee you that I could go to San Francisco and go to parts of Chinatown and find maybe 1 person in 10 who spoke even moderately good english. We've got a big Vietnamese immigrant community here too, a lot of the fresh arrivals or elderly who don't speak english either, and use relatives or friends to translate.

US citizens are guilty of this more than most, too. How many of the people from the US that are currently in Iraq and have been there for years have obtained complete fluency in arabic? Can't be too many, or the army wouldn't be so desperate for arabic translators.

The thing to remember is that while people are generally very happy to be in the US, they also maintain a significant pride in their cultural heritage. Demanding that people effectively abandon their original language is tantamount to telling them to abandon their culture and traditions, which is both demeaning and absurdly arrogant.

Seriously, Americans have a major arrogancy problem these days. We are so used to hearing "America is the bestest and most powerful country EVAR" that we end up looking down on everyone else. Well, no one likes to get looked down on, so that hurts the hell out of our international relations. We act as if our culture was better than any other, our language was better than any other, and the rest of the world is backwards.

Our saber rattling due to our sense of our "Unbeatable army!" doesn't help either, as no one likes to be bullied. Not to mention, as we have patently seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, our army is NOT all-powerful. Not to mention, we're stretched to the breaking point as it is, we have NO bandwidth for additional adventurism or imperialism.

That's why McCain scares me so much. His response to every crisis seems to be to threaten them with the military or some other violent reprisal. Force should be LAST on the list of options. Continued bellicosity is just going to continue isolating us from the rest of our allies and everyone else in the world, and eventually someone's going to call our bluff, and we're going to take it in the shorts, because we are NOT the omnipotent badasses that the warhawks all seem to think we are.

What happened to "Speak softly, but carry a big stick"? It's become "Bitch loudly, whine louder, bluster a lot, and whack anyone who looks at you funny with the rapidly breaking stick".

-Arlos

[leah]

well said!

[Martrae]

Where did I say they had to abandon their native language or culture? What I said was they should ALSO learn the prevailing language. It's what 2 sets of my great-grandparents did as well and countless other immigrants.

You speak of areas where Chinese or Vietnamese is spoken exclusively. Why aren't hundreds of thousands of tax dollars being spent to make sure all paperwork is in those languages as well? Oh yeah, because they aren't the minorities that gets pandered to.

As for "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick"? You can thank the legal system for destroying that. Anyone trying it today would find themselves being sued.

[Arlos]

Uh, "Speak Softly and carry a big stick" was a method of foreign policy, originally described (and practiced) by Teddy Roosevelt. How in hell does the standing of the legal system have ANY bearing on the posture stance taken by the current presidential administration?

The fact that you think that mexican immigrants are "pandered to" reveals the depth of your xenophobia. They are the single most reviled and picked-upon immigrant community in the US today. Worse than the Irish were treated when they arrived.

Oh and yes, abandoning their original language, and raising kids solely in English *IS* an abandonment of their home culture. I'm not saying it's a bad thing for people to learn the language of someplace they immigrate to, far from it. But some people just are not adept at learning new languages. Hell, I've never had any luck with it no matter how many classes I took, and I consider myself of at least average intelligence in other areas. CERTAINLY it's not a rapid process even in the best of cases.

The fact is, even if someone DOES learn english, it takes a long time to get even basic fluency with it, as english is one of the hardest languages for non-native-speakers to learn. Hell, my mom spent years as an English as a 2nd language teacher, so believe me, I'm intimately familiar with the process. So, you don't think that there might be cause for immigrants to need to deal with the government, for driver's licenses, etc. in that often 2-3 year span it takes to get any good at English? WTF are they supposed to do in that interval, beg? Dual language forms, etc. ease that transition, and allow people to be productive members of the society while they work on better connecting with it.

-Arlos

[Lueyen]

As for "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick"? You can thank the legal system for destroying that. Anyone trying it today would find themselves being sued.

"Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is a reference to Roosevelt's foreign policy and the Monroe Doctrine, not the mindset or actions of individuals in society.

[Narrock]

[araby]

I work with a lot of Mexicans and I don't say hi or bye, or anything else in their language. When I first started working at my job, I noticed that a lot of my coworkers would though, they'd say hi, bye, and thank you all in Spanish. I know I am the only one that doesn't.

I value all of them as coworkers and people, but I'm not going to speak Spanish. If I decide to visit Mexico some day, I will prepare myself to use their language.

Leah, if you want to learn Italian, you should! My friend has the Rosetta Stone software from when she learned Italian in order to move there, and she's selling it in case you're interested. She also learned German and has been taking French lessons for the last six months. You don't have to be young to do it, just takes time and practice!

[Martrae]

Uh, "Speak Softly and carry a big stick" was a method of foreign policy, originally described (and practiced) by Teddy Roosevelt. How in hell does the standing of the legal system have ANY bearing on the posture stance taken by the current presidential administration?

You're right, I fuxored that up.

However, you are not addressing my point about why Spanish speakers get the preferential treatment and not any other minority.

My aunt is Vietnamese. She came over at the end of the Vietnam war along with thousands of other refugees. Where was the paperwork in Vietnamese for them? She didn't speak a lick of English when she arrived. She does now, though, and learning English after being raised speaking Vietnamese is a thousand times harder than learning English after being raised to speak Spanish.

You'll also find I never advocated anyone abandoning their native language and raising their kids solely in English.

I don't object to learning other languages. My kids are currently learning Latin and once they have the basics down, they'll branch out in whichever romance language (or languages) they prefer to learn. Right now my daughter plans to learn Spanish and my oldest son wants to learn French. Both are fine with me.

[Narrock]

I'm so fed up with the attitude of Mexicans that I flat out refuse to learn Spanish at this point. Screw them and their fawking elitism and sense of entitlement.

You are right about Rosetta Stone, Mart. It's also the best foreign language instruction tool on the market. Even the U.S. Government uses it.

[Arlos]

It couldn't possibly be that stuff is getting printed in Spanish because that's the most commonly spoken foreign language spoken in the US, could it? It couldn't possibly be that the government might try and get the biggest bang for its buck by picking the additional language to print things in, if it's going to go through the expense to do so, that has the highest population that would use it, could it?

I mean, FAR better that they cater to the 37 immigrant native Urdu speakers than the tens of millions of hispanics, right? That's really the entire reason. They are by far the most common, thus there are more of them in need, and since the government cannot afford to translate into every possible language when there's only a tiny group of people who would use it, they stick to the language(s) that would get the most use.

Out here, you CAN find government locations that have forms in chinese or vietnamese, simply because we have a ton of immigrants from those areas. If your Aunt had immigrated to California nowadays, instead of wherever/whenever she DID immigrate, she WOULD have had access to stuff in vietnamese. If someone were to immigrate to Podunk, Utah from Vietnam, however, they wouldn't, simply because there's not enough need for it there. It's that simple.

-Arlos

[Harrison]

I personally like the fact I can understand a conversation in Spanish. I'm a fucking nerd like that lol

[leah]

I personally like the fact I can understand a conversation in Spanish. I'm a fucking nerd like that lol

i think that's cool too :D i'm envious of my friend heather . . . she's getting married on saturday to a guy from peru and his older brother just flew in last night, and she and her friend maria took paolo (the fiance) and eduardo (the brother) out to dinner and eduardo doesn't speak a lick of english but heather and maria are both fluent in spanish so they were able to communicate perfectly.

i was able to speak spanish pretty well in high school, and i can still read it pretty easily, but i've never mastered conversational spanish, though i would love to. spanish is so easy!

[Martrae]

It couldn't possibly be that stuff is getting printed in Spanish because that's the most commonly spoken foreign language spoken in the US, could it? It couldn't possibly be that the government might try and get the biggest bang for its buck by picking the additional language to print things in, if it's going to go through the expense to do so, that has the highest population that would use it, could it?

I mean, FAR better that they cater to the 37 immigrant native Urdu speakers than the tens of millions of hispanics, right? That's really the entire reason. They are by far the most common, thus there are more of them in need, and since the government cannot afford to translate into every possible language when there's only a tiny group of people who would use it, they stick to the language(s) that would get the most use.

Out here, you CAN find government locations that have forms in chinese or vietnamese, simply because we have a ton of immigrants from those areas. If your Aunt had immigrated to California nowadays, instead of wherever/whenever she DID immigrate, she WOULD have had access to stuff in vietnamese. If someone were to immigrate to Podunk, Utah from Vietnam, however, they wouldn't, simply because there's not enough need for it there. It's that simple.

-Arlos

Oh please....there are only millions of Spanish speakers because they're here illegally. I doubt the legal ones would outnumber the other groups by that much.

And my aunt moved to Ohio where there is a HUGE Vietnamese community.

[Naethyn]

America has no official national language. It never has. Although, you must be proficient in English to get naturalized .

[Arlos]

Oh please....there are only millions of Spanish speakers because they're here illegally.

Bigotry much?

As for your Aunt, that was a different time. Perhaps she'd find them now. Either way, the amount of jealousy displayed there, of the "They got it and not me!" 4 year old variety is truly disturbing.

-Arlos

[Tuggan]

America has no official national language. It never has. Although, you must be proficient in English to get naturalized .

In 06 it was almost declared the official language, but the original bill was too hardcore for the people like Arlos. So now english is the "common unifying language of the United States". Buncha bullshit.

[Harrison]

I personally like the fact I can understand a conversation in Spanish. I'm a fucking nerd like that lol

i think that's cool too :D i'm envious of my friend heather . . . she's getting married on saturday to a guy from peru and his older brother just flew in last night, and she and her friend maria took paolo (the fiance) and eduardo (the brother) out to dinner and eduardo doesn't speak a lick of english but heather and maria are both fluent in spanish so they were able to communicate perfectly.

i was able to speak spanish pretty well in high school, and i can still read it pretty easily, but i've never mastered conversational spanish, though i would love to. spanish is so easy!

Take a class in Latin, or try to learn it on your own. Every language thereafter is easy. (if it's based in Latin, so fuck German lol)

[leah]

which is funny, because english is a direct descendant of german; it's just because we borrowed so heavily from spanish and french that it seems to be more closely related to the romance languages--really, it's a germanic language.

:nerd:

[Harrison]

Lol which is even more amusing because German is such a difficult language to learn, from my perspective.

I can read a bit of it, from gaming with Germans...but fuck if I'll EVER understand it verbally.

[Tikker]

which is funny, because english is a direct descendant of german;

I dunno if I would say that

English is a complete melting pot of the romance languages, german, slavic, etc that I'm not sure you could even really say it was a descendant of any specific language

I know enough french to read it pretty well, and I can understand spoken french decently, but I have a hard time verbally in french

spanish is close enough to french that I can generally follow the gist of a conversation, but that's about it

[Martrae]

Oh please....there are only millions of Spanish speakers because they're here illegally.

Bigotry much?

As for your Aunt, that was a different time. Perhaps she'd find them now. Either way, the amount of jealousy displayed there, of the "They got it and not me!" 4 year old variety is truly disturbing.

-Arlos

Yes, I'm bigoted because I don't like people being in our country illegally. That makes SOOO much sense.

[leah]

they're all indo-european languages, yes, but generally english is considered to be germanic. check out the linguistic family tree, yo! :D

linguistics was such a fun field of study. so nerdy, though!

[leah]

ummm poop. i fail at images