Legal Commentary

My friend and fellow blogger (and fellow parishioner) Kyle Cupp has an interesting and thoughtful post about the coming of a bi-lingual society in the U.S., and how we ought to embrace the coming "Spanglish" transformation. I respectfully disagree.

Rather than reiterate previous concerns about a bi-lingual society, I'll post a link to a post of two and one-half years ago entitled Bi-lingual Cultural Suicide. Former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, a man once  reviled for being too liberal, now reviled for being a "racist," sets forth my views on the issue very well. Odd that I'm allied with a liberal Democrat on this issue, but, then again, Lamm doesn't toe the company line on the issue of immigration.

Personally, I think that being bi-lingual or, even better, multi-lingual, as many educated Europeans are, is of great benefit to the individual. I also think that as a matter of common sense, those of us in the Southwest should learn Spanish in order to better communicate with those who have lived, for generations past, and will live, for generations to come, among us. I've also posted about the fact that "Caucasians" in Texas are a "majority-minority," and that the trend is that they will be an absolute minority in the next decade.  That's a reality that must be dealt with. I've also blogged extensively on the issue of "illegal immigration" from Mexico and what we ought to do about it.

Actually, what we need to do is get a grip on immigration and abandon the idiotic notion that we can shut down our porous borders. No matter how many troops we station at the Mexican border, we haven't got a prayer of keeping out people because there's a market here for their services and a willingness to die to get here to provide those services. We built it, and they will come. Rant and rave, join the Minute Men, call for a 1,000-mile wall, conjure up nonexistent troops to "seal the border." Whatever you propose, you won't stop them.

If the US economy truly needs them (and I'd like to hear someone other than Pat Buchanan and Michelle Malkin offer the counterpoint on that issue), let's get the LEGAL immigration policies in shape to bring them in, in a relatively sane manner. As to those that are here, legally or illegally, we'd better figure a way to inculcate in the Hispanic population a love of higher education that the Asian immigrants seem to have instilled in their children, so they know how to take care of this drooling Gringo when he's chasing the senoritas around the rest home.

Also, let's do everything we can to get these folks to buy into the American dream: making their children as rich and miserable as any Anglo kid. Asians did it. Nothing whiter on the planet than a second generation Asian-American. Can you say Kristi Yamaguchi? Michelle Kwan? Like, FOR SURE you can! Same happy result will ensue if we stop making the "illegals" all live on the fringes and make them embrace the mainstream "Protestant Work Ethic" that Bobos love to deride, yet practice religiously. Hell, in a generation we should be able to destroy the importance of the family unit in the Hispanic culture and turn them all into secular humanist college professors of Feminism.

Worth a try.

Or, maybe I'll just buy a serape, light up a stogie, squint, head for Nogales, and hire myself out to whatever gang is fighting M-13. I'd rather go down as a middle-aged fool with a gun in my hand than die as an old fool from an adverse reaction to the chipotle sauce some health care worker with an intense dislike of gringos uses to spike my Viagra.

There's enough in the foregoing to piss off people of all political stripes. That's one reason that my site meter registers a monstrous 4 visits per day.

Whatever we do, we need to keep one language the official language that everyone must master. English has the head start, so it gets my vote. It would, of course, aid in that endeavor if Americans who are born and raised in this country could learn to read and write English properly, but that problem is of a different nature. The bottom line for me is that we need to assimilate immigrants and that we have enough factors that tend to "atomize" us without adding another crucial impediment to assimilation such as another language. As for becoming a truly bi-lingual country: "Eso no trabajará."