My mother forwarded me an email she recieved from an old family friend who's a pretty staunch Republican about a speech on immigration and multiculturalism. A pretty xenophobic screed.
It was called "W: Death of America (a MUST read)" and it outlined 8 supposed ways to destroy America and California simply by leaving people be. Snip:
First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multilingual and bicultural country." History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual....
It goes on from there. My rebuttal below the flip.
First off, lets give the link to it up on Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/...
And here's my rebuttal:
I've seen the email you sent before. It's interesting to me that with all the violence, corruption, spying and abuse that we're dealing with at home and abroad that the Republicans are bringing up immigration this election cycle. It clearly not the issue of these times. Not when every month or so I look for friends of mine from my old Marine units in the Iraq and Afghanistan casualties lists afraid of who'll be on them. And worse yet, what that will do to me emotionally. So far i haven't seen any of my friends on there. But I know so many people have.
The speech in question in this mail kinda flies in the face of one of the things that has made us greater than other societies in a way. Democracy depends on difference in opinion and points of view. And most of all communicating with each other so we can all learn from our shared experiences and become a greater society than the sum of our people.
Ours is a culture of inclusion and merit. We welcome everybody to the pot luck and try their casserole. If we like it we swap recipes. We're both the better for it.
We don't tell strangers they can't come. And we don't tell them to cook what they're bringing our way or else.
And as for speaking more than one language: I agree that we all need to speak the same language to function as a society. I think we should all have the comfort in knowing that if we say "I need my insulin" or "Help, my baby's trapped in there" that people in earshot will know what we're saying.
However, how proficient can you get in english in a couple years? Heck, I've been speaking it almost my entire life and it strains my intellect to understand the terms of a contract or the language of a proposed law. So I support publishing sample ballots and such in multiple languages. Not to replace english day to day, but so citizens who really are doing their dangdest to learn it can think "Wait a second, is this really saying what I think it does" and double check it. That actually helps people learn. I've seen this in action at the ATM. I know that "tarjeta" means "card" from doing my banking. And I'm sure citizens are learning "card" means "tarjeta".
Now, that is speech is partisan rhetoric for sure and I'd be reenforcing it by addressing it point for point right or wrong. But I can respond with the same methodology.
I have 8 ways to destroy America of my own:
1: Take away the rights to due process, equal treatment under the law and the right to a trial. Instead of requiring the government to prove a citizen guilty, leave it to a citizen to prove their innocence. If they're allowed a trial.
2: Allow the Congress to shirk their duty to investigate and hold the President to account for mistakes or potential crimes.
3: Allow the President to choose which parts of a given law he wants to enforce.
4: Require the public schools to keep scores up or lose their funding. Then don't fund the program anyway.
5: Let the roads, railways, power lines and data networks that our businesses and entrepreneurs depend on to do business crumble.
6: Hire independent contractors to do the governments business and don't conduct any oversight.
7: Gut emergency services, then pretend a hurricane isn't coming.
8: Insist that the citizens go along with their leaders plans without question, or they're putting their families lives in danger.
And I can illustrate how all of these are topical:
1: George W. Bush signed this into law THIS WEEK. Habeus Corpus has been removed entirely from our legal system. He can now imprison any American citizen simply by declaring that person an enemy without proof. He now has the power to torture that citizen. We do not have the right to question the imprisonment and they do not have to give us a trial or a lawyer to challenge this. Unconstitutional, for sure. But how is the Supreme Court going to have a chance to rule on this if no citizens are allowed to object within our legal system?
2: This has been going on for 6 years. Congress has continually blocked real investigations or inquiries into 9/11 intelligence failures, Iraq intelligence falsifying, Spying on Americans without warrants (a felony), Violations of the War Crimes Act, secret CIA prisons... the list goes on.
3: Bush has been doing this through the use of "signing statements". He signs a bill into law, then adds a statement saying "I'll enforce this part but not this part".
4: No Child Left Behind has led to a mass increase in the dropout rate. Since the funds don't exist to raise test scores and school boards pressure principals to raise the median scores, they've turned to forcing failing students to either drop out or relocate. On the books it looks like scores have gone up, but what's really happened is that low scoring kids have been driven out of the system to game those numbers, left to make a claim for themselves in the world with a fraction of what they need to succeed.
5: The continued shrinking of government services we all depend on. Since Reagan, there's been a "starve the beast" strategy by Republicans to cut taxes so steeply that services must be cut to avoid financial disaster... and anybody who wants to put the services back in place has to either A) raise taxes or B) borrow money at a deficit.
The problem with that is nobody realizes the American Dream on their own.
If you have nothing and you start your own business. You work hard, grow your business. Eventually you make your mark. You're wealthy, you're wise and it's all because you took that risk, worked hard and never quit. It was the freedom and opportunity America provides that made it all possible. But it took so much you took for granted for your success to be possible.
It took roads to ship your products. It took air traffic controllers to get you safely to meetings with clients. It took electricity to light your office and power your computers. It took medical professionals to keep you and your employees healthy and productive. It took phones to take orders and networks so your employees can work as a team. It took schools to give you learned and talented employees.
And you didn't lift a finger to build the road, route the planes, build the hydroelectric dam, train that nurse or make sure the phones on the ends of the conversation can communicate with each other. Government built the road, routed the planes, built the dam, gave education grants to the nurse, standardized the phone network and taught your accountant math.
Gut services, you gut the American Dream.
6: This is happening in Iraq. Profiteering is rampant and the office that is in charge of investigating and regulating it has it's hands tied. Billions of dollars have gone unaccounted for or even worse, it's been shown they've been blatantly funneled/stolen/laundered and we're doing nothing about it. Further, private security contractors (mercenaries; we've hired thousands. Most of them US citizens) have been murdering, raping, torturing and commiting all nature of crimes there and the justice department refuses to bring charges against them.
7: One word: Katrina. FEMA used to be a cabinet level agency. Bush stopped funding it at the federal level when he became President, pushing the financial burden on state and local governments. Then he removed it from the cabinet and placed it a few levels down within Homeland Security. Then, when he was told that Katrina was going to devastate New Orleans he went on vacation. When people were holed up in the superdome, he stayed on vacation for a few days even.
8: "Stay the Course", "You're either with us or against us"... I'll just quote former President Theodore Roosevelt, remarking about WW1:
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
And I don't think Bush jr. can hold a candle to either of the Presidents Roosevelt.