A Vote For English

A VOTE FOR ENGLISH
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: George Will]
[Commentary] What public good is advanced by encouraging the participation of people who, by saying they require bilingual assistance, are saying they cannot understand the nation's political conversation? By receiving such assistance they are receiving a disincentive to become proficient in English. Declaring English the national language is a mere gesture. But by ending bilingual ballots, American law would perform its expressive function of buttressing, by codifying and vivifying, certain national assumptions and aspirations. Among those is this: The idea of citizenship becomes absurd when sundered from the ability to understand the nation's civic conversation. What makes Americans generally welcoming of immigrants, and what makes immigrants generally assimilable, is that this is a creedal nation, one dedicated to certain propositions, not one whose origins and identity are bound up with ethnicity. But if you are to be welcomed to the enjoyment of American liberty, then America has a few expectations of you. One is that you can read the nation's founding documents and laws and can comprehend the political discourse that precedes the casting of ballots. Is this unreasonable? Of course not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR200605...
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