George Will On Dangerous Ballots

"In 1906, the year before a rabbi in a Passover sermon coined the phrase "melting pot" during torrential immigration from eastern and southern Europe, Congress passed and President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation requiring people seeking to become naturalized citizens to demonstrate oral English literacy. In 1950, the requirement was strengthened to require people to "demonstrate an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language."

Hence, if someone needs a ballot written in a language other than English, that need proves the person obtained citizenship only because the law was not enforced when he or she sought citizenship.

So one reason for ending ballots in languages other than English is that continuing them makes a mockery of the rule of law - including even the prospective McCain-Kennedy law that pro-immigration groups favor. It contains several requirements that those aspiring to citizenship demonstrate "a knowledge of the English language" or "English fluency" in order "to promote the patriotic integration of prospective citizens into the American way of life" and into "American common values and traditions." How can legislators support both language like that and ballots in multiple languages?"

They can't. Politicians being politicians, they want to have their cake and eat it too, and hoping that no one notices such two-faced standards of ethics they whistle past the graveyard knowing full well that the weak-kneed will see them as being comprimisers and not thieving SOB's who'd court the Mexicans just to stay in office.

Every time I have asked someone in politics why spanish remains necessary for people who by law are required to speak English as part of citizenship, I am told that it is nothing more than a courtesy. We had a different explanation for that way back when. When second and third generation Irish, and German, and Italian immigrants would say that their forebears learned English because they wanted to be Americans first, and the spanish wished to remain spanish. And to heap epithets describing lazy spanish speaking peoples is not what I want to do, but that is what they were described as being. Many, many, NY'ers would not enter a business establishment unless the proprietors spoke at least SOME English, as this was the symbol of becoming an American, and particularly right after WWII this was an important thing. Patriotism ran rampant, and one could of course retain the lingo of a mother or fatherland, but no English, no business.

Then the liberals began working the streets. They assembled the spanish speakers into voting blocks and, as time passed, these became powerful entities that had to be catered to. Gone, but not forgotten was the premise that you speak English or you admit a disdain for the American way of life. But, ever since the spanish-speakers had those marvelous rallies a few weeks back, Americans are becoming more and more angered by the unmitigated gall of these hand-me-outs.

The slumbering giant was awakened. The backlash is still simmering and has not reached epic proportion, but you'll notice that there haven't been any such parades of hatred for the real America since. And thats what it's all about, and forget what the Loons want you to believe. The spanish do not wish to be part of the American culture. The spanish want all of the benefits of being American, but do not want to become American.

Liberal politicians successfully assembled the blacks into voting groups, and now wish to add illegal immigrants to the list of peoples handed a crutch and told they're too weak to walk on their own. But the giant is now awake and it isn't going to be as easy for them this time around.