Senate Passes Bill Making English the Official Language

[dazzleman]

IIRC: Three US states are officially bilingual.

That's unfortunate.

It is.  They should never have instated official languages.  Official languages will always be offensive.  What are people afraid of?  That English, the ugliest and most difficult to grammatically understand might not be as powerful as it was?  English is a sign of our oppression from our former British rulers.

Well, we've moved that whole past oppression nonsense, and a lot of other people ought to take the hint.

A society needs a unifying language, and for us, it can only be English.  I think it's great for people to speak more than one language, and more Americans ought to speak another language.  But that's a totally different issue from failing to have a unifying language that virtually everybody speaks.

[Emsworth]

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If this clause is included in the final version of the bill, then there is no chance whatsoever that the courts will uphold it. If I am not mistaken, the judiciary has already declared that Miranda warnings must be given in a suspect's native language if he does not understand English.

[nlm]

Gonzales Says Vote on English Is Symbolic
Mon May 22, 7:43 AM ET
 
WASHINGTON - Despite the brouhaha the Senate has caused with its immigration bill, making English the "national language" of the United States will not change current laws, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday.
 
Immigrants-rights advocates decried the Senate's approval of the amendments to the bill last week, saying they could lead to a cutback in services for people who are not proficient in English.

But Gonzales, adding to his comments last week that the legislation was not necessary, said the Senate measure is purely symbolic.

more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060522/ap_on_go_co/immigration_english_3

Glad to see most of you are so thrilled by this purely symbolic waste of time designed to easy the pressure on the Senate to actually do something meaningful. Nice to see pandering is still an effective political tool. Yay team!

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Gonzales says this bill won't change current laws.

Whew, for a moment I thought Congress was actually passing a bill to change law.

[MaC]

Just curious, what would making English official actually do?

[nlm]

Just curious, what would making English official actually do?

In and of itself, making English official does nothing.