Okay, here is the scoop:
I was not happy with Sen. Roberts of Kansas lecturing Americans in a hearing yesterday that you "don't have any civil rights if you are dead."
These were the words of someone who does not understand American history on one hand and does not understand American political philosophy on the other.
Whatever happened to "Give me Liberty or give me Death?"
The words of Patrick Henry are the true spirit of American political philosophy. These words were not his alone. They were echoed widely by other Patriots, including Benjamin Franklin.
Color me disgusted.
Now I hear that the Senate today tried to make English our "official language." They didn't quite succeed, but they were able to act to "preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language of the United States of America."
http://www.iht.com/...
There is just so much about the country that we live in that this Senate does not understand.
America is a country that is founded -- not on the basis of ethnicity, culture, race, religion or language -- but on the basis of a political philosophy that is expressed in our founding documents, primary among them The Constitution.
What makes us Americans is not that we all speak English. It's certainly not that we all have European ancestors. Or that we all come from, live in or are going to the same place.
What makes us Americans is that we believe, by consensus, in The Constitution. We believe that this document constitutes our nation. We believe that this document is what our country is.
Americans do not assert a "blood and soil" right to citizenship based on membership of any national group. The French, the Germans, the British have a national identity that is intertwined with the history of a people living on a certain plot of land. (Yes, I know that this, too, is a fiction.) The French, German and English languages play a role in constituting the "nationhood" of French, German and English people.
Americans have left all of that behind.
"English" cannot be the official language of the America I know, just as "White" cannot be the official skin color. Such designations are beneath The Constitution. They are beneath the spirit of this country. They limit us. They lessen us.
This Senate has just taken the country down a notch.
They are ignoring the political history of America. They are ignoring the political philosophy of America.
They just killed a little piece of America.
Another piece.
When are we going to notice that there really aren't that many pieces left?