United We Stand - Speaking English

One need look only as far away as Canada to see the divisions caused when a nation tries to accommodate more than one language. The French-speaking province of Quebec escaped seceding from English-speaking Canada in the 1995 referendum by the tiny margin of only 50.6% to 49.4%.

Powerful special-interest groups in the U.S. have been using the influence and funds of the government and the public schools to try to make America bilingual. President Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 13166 (8-11-00) ordered all federal agencies to provide services in languages other than English. Four days before he left office, Janet Reno published 15 pages of such regulations in the Federal Register.

Foreign-language ballots for U.S. elections are provided in more than 375 voting districts. There is no good rationale for this unless somebody is trying to enable aliens to vote illegally. Only citizens can legally vote, and you must demonstrate the ability to read, write and speak English in order to become a naturalized citizen.

The fraud called bilingual education was decisively rejected by referenda in California and Arizona, but the Bush Administration increased federal funding for bilingual education in the 2002 education bill. Bilingual education is a fraud; it doesn’t teach two languages; instead it keeps immigrant children speaking their native tongue for six years or more. Bilingual education is a bureaucracy bent on keeping jobs for the teachers unions.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is starting to label it workplace "discrimination" for employees to be required to speak English on the job and to customers.

Some states give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Tragic, fatal truck accidents have been caused by the inability of foreign truck drivers to understand English.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued regulations requiring doctors to provide interpreters for potential non-English-speaking patients. The financial burden on individual doctors can be immense.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Alexander v. Sandoval (4-24-01) made it clear that no one has a right to sue to obtain government services in languages other than English. President Bush should rescind Clinton’s Executive Order, but unfortunately he is implementing it.

People can speak any language they want to in their own homes and private relations. But the U.S. government should speak to us only in English. Theodore Roosevelt said "We must have but one flag. We must also have but one language. That must be the language of the Declaration of Independence, of Washington’s Farewell Address, of Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech. We cannot tolerate any attempt to oppose or supplant the language and culture that has come down to us from the builders of this Republic."