Originally Posted By dshyates Santorum tells Puerto Rico that if they want to seek statehood they need to speak English. This is unconstitutional. What is it with strict constitutionalists that they don't understand the Constitution? <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/14/us-usa-campaign-puertorico-idUSBRE82D16Z20120314" target="_blank">http://www.reuters.com/article...20120314</a>
Originally Posted By barboy Rick is right on this one. If you want to hang with us, then speak and write English.
Originally Posted By dshyates No, Rick is wrong on this. It is unconstitutional and therefore illegal to require a declaration of an official language. Speaking in different languages is protected under the Freedom of Speech. So, no Rick is most definitely NOT right on this issue.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Living in South Florida makes me a little sensitive on this matter. I don't think those who speak Spanish (or any other language other than English) should have the expectation that they will be able to do any kind of business in their own language. That said, you would be surprised by how many are offended if there isn't a Spanish speaking person to help them. I went to Italy for one month and took Italian to prepare myself to be there. If you are going to move here...take the time to learn the language. Puerto Rick is an entirely different situation though. And, as far as I know their official languages are Spanish and English...with Spanish being primary.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer I don't understand why people who don't think that the government is capable of performing any service want the government to require the citizens to speak a certain language. I thought that the purpose of government was to serve the people, and if the people speak a different language than that is the language that the government needs to speak, too. Do we really want to go back to post-Norman England where the nobles and kings spoke French while everyone else in the country spoke a different language? Is this a government of, by and for the people, or do we want the government to tell us what language we are allowed to address it in?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Santorum really should familiarize himself with the U.S. Constitution sometime. He'd be amazed at what's in there.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder The guy is an idiot. Let's annex territory that has ALWAYS spoken Spanish and tell them to speak English. What's next Adolph, co-opting Canada and cleansing them of those cowardly French?
Originally Posted By wahooskipper How many languges should the government have to be capable of providing help in? In Florida you could literally have dozens of languages. For a small town government office should they be required to provide multilingual speakers to address all of those nationalities? I think that is ridiculous. Particularly when society right now wants all of the services but with little tax obligation. I had a woman call me once who was outraged that we didn't have someone on staff who spoke Mandarin Chinese. I mean, come on. The absurdity of that doesn't strike anyone else?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Dear Citizen, You have the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, but only in the languages allowed by law. The official language of the United States government is English in the General American or American Standard English dialect using Middle Atlantic regional vocabularies. Any communication with the government not meeting these guidelines will be sent back to the originating person or entity for correction. If the communication is not resubmitted in the forms of English approved by the Department of Homeland Security it will be discarded or ignored after being reviewed for possible terrorist content. Only by communicating with the same dialect and vocabulary can your government serve you effectively. Thank you for your cooperation.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney But wahoo, this is Puerto Rico we're talking about. I have no idea why they'd even want to become one of the United States anyway, considering the mess we're in.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Tom, you didn't answer my question. Are you suggesting there should be a one to one ration of bilingual employess for every language represented in a given community? If someone who speaks Vietnamese moves to Podunk, Idaho should Podunk be responsible for recuiting a staff member who speaks that language? That is preposterous. My community has 9 City employees with 65,000 residents. Should all 9 of us have to learn 3 different languages so we can community with the 20 some dialects that may be spoken in our community? Of course not. I went to many communities in Italy (not found in the Fodor's magazine) where you would be hard pressed to find anyone who spoke English. And, you know what? I was completely understanding of that...to the point that I decided to take some personal accountability and learn enough of my host country's language that I could get by. I guess I sound pretty nationalistic but there has to be some common sense that enters into this discussion. As for Puerto Rico maybe I'm wrong, but I thought their official languages were both Spanish and English.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer There doesn't need to be a one to one ratio, but there should at least be a way to bring in interpreters as needed. I work for a health care system that serves a community with dozens of different languages, and we contract with an interpretive service to enable our patients to communicate effectively with their care providers. For me, the difference between the US and other countries is our founding philosophy that government was created by the citizens to serve them. If a significant portion of citizens in a particular area speak Spanish, then the government needs to provide services in Spanish as well as English. I think people should be encouraged to speak the Lingua Franca of English, but we also need to make sure that the government that was created to serve the people is able to conduct business in the languages that the people speak.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper That I can get behind, to a degree. Yes, in our government we do have people who speak Spanish. We are, after all, in South Florida. But, we don't have anyone who can speak Mandarin Chinese. So, if the government is obligated to get a translator for said person, who pays for it? There are local governments across America right now on the verge of bankruptcy because for years they have tried to do everything for everybody and it just wasn't sustainable. If the citizenry wants 100 services but is only willing to pay for 50 services then something has to give.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Start with <a href="http://translate.google.com/" target="_blank">http://translate.google.com/</a>
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Here is an idea...maybe the person speaking in Spanish can use the Google Translate feature. Take some frigging responsibility for crying out loud. Government does not exist to hand us everything on a platter, contrary to popular belief.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Or maybe the government office could have a computer with a page bookmarked to google translate, rather than everybody bringing his own laptop. That would make more sense.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Government doesn't exist to hand us everything on a platter, but it does exist to serve the people.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Government does not exist to hand us everything on a platter,<< Grover Norquist doesn't want it to exist, period.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Tom...that is a nice sentiment...but the reason governments across the country are in fiscal emergencies are in part due to the fact that elected officials want to placate everyone without consideration for the fiscal limitations. Granted, there has been abuse and misuse of tax dollars at all levels and that should be rooted out. But, beyond that is just a severe lack of common sense. I could cite hundreds of examples that would be extremely boring to everyone. It is similar to my regular frustration that we are abusing the theory that "the customer is always right". No, that isn't true. The customer is often wrong. But, if we never call the customer on that then we are empowering them to continue to abuse the system.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Government does not exist to hand us everything on a platter, contrary to popular belief.<< Wahoo, you're clearing an intelligent guy, but it's statements like this where you lose me. Popular belief? NO ONE believes that's government's role. Reagan's "welfare queen" represents a tiny minority of abusers; most people aren't like that.
