Originally Posted By skinnerbox Go ahead, mawnck. Tell me once again how much Romney is like Obama: <a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/gingrich-and-romney-want-say-adios-bilingual-ballots" target="_blank">http://motherjones.com/politic...-ballots</a> <> As Republican primary voters head to the polls in Florida on Tuesday, both GOP front-runners have endorsed a policy that would contradict existing law and could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country. During a recent debate, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney supported getting rid of bilingual ballots when the topic was brought up by the moderator. "I would have ballots in English," Gingrich said. "And I think you could have programs where virtually everybody would be able to read the ballots." Romney agreed. "I think Speaker Gingrich is right with regards to what he's described," he said. That wasn't much of a stretch for Gingrich, who once called Spanish "the language of living in a ghetto." Yet their glib demand for English-only ballots would require amending the Voting Rights Act and doing away with hard-won legal requirements that have existed for decades. It's a sharp turn away from the Bush administration, which despite a spotty civil rights record filed more ballot access cases on behalf of non-English speakers than any administration had before. "We used to have poll taxes, we used to have whites-only primaries, we used to not let women vote," says Myrna Perez, senior counsel with the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. "Policies that would make our ballots less accessible to Americans based on what language they speak would be at odds with that historical arc towards expanding the franchise." Bilingual ballots are no abstract issue in Florida, which has a sizeable population of Americans whose first languages are Spanish or Haitian Creole. "The Haitian population is a voting bloc, the Hispanic community is a voting bloc," says Carolyn Thompson, a Florida-based activist with the Advancement Project, a civil rights group. "They pay taxes, they've won the right to vote in their language." Under the 1975 revision of the Voting Rights Act, communities whose non-English speaking populations reach a certain level have to provide voting materials in alternate languages. There are 238 jurisdictions covered by the Voting Rights Act's language requirements. It's hard to tell how many voters would be impacted by the repeal of those provisions, but the census estimates that there are more than 19 million eligible voters who come from the communities the law is meant to serve. Ten counties in Florida are among them, four of which went Republican in the last presidential election. "Some of these ballot measures involve very complex legal language," Camila Gallardo of the Latino civil rights organization National Council of La Raza points out. "Some of the language is hard to understand even for fluent English speakers, let alone if your first language isn't English." <> The rest of the story can be found at the link. We've still got 9 more months until the election, and I'm already sick of these pasty white rich boys and their race-baiting rhetoric. No one will ever win an election from here on solely by catering to the scared white voter. These kind of campaign tactics should have gone out with 8-Track players and the Gremlin.
Originally Posted By mawnck What IS Obama's position on this? The article doesn't say, and it seems you have made an assumption.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Are you kidding me? Name me one true Democrat (no blue dogs, no DINOs) who would be stupid enough to advocate an English-only ballot, given how many non-English speakers vote for Dems. The Democrats have been representing the voters of color in our nation since the Civil Rights Act, unlike the Republicans who are now hyperfocused on keeping the white power base intact. I'm sorry, mawnck, but you're acting like an idiot on this one.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer The Obama administration issued an order back in October requiring voting boards in 248 counties to issue multilingual ballots, citing specifically the difficulty that US citizens who speak English as a second language have with interpreting the ballot issues being presented. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/bilingual-voting-ballots-_0_n_1007154.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...154.html</a>
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Name me one true Democrat (no blue dogs, no DINOs) who would be stupid enough to advocate an English-only ballot, given how many non-English speakers vote for Dems.<< Name me one true Democrat who would suspend the right of Habeas Corpus.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Name me one true Democrat who would suspend the right of Habeas Corpus.<< Lincoln!
Originally Posted By Longhorn12 Los personas que usan un lingua diferente de ingles tienen los mismos derechos que los que lo hacen. Es un lastima grande que la gente discrimina por el lingua. Los Estados Unidos no tiene un lingua oficial. Es un lugar de muchas culturas. Para destruir una cultura a su lengua es una vergüenza. As a person who is bilingual (well mostly) I don't understand why this is such an issue. I can read English, and Spanish, but I'm much more comfortable reading English. Many people I know can speak perfect English and Spanish, but prefer to read in Spanish because it is their native tongue. Bilingual votes =/= Illegal voting.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer It seems to me that if you really want people to learn English you need to be patient with them and help them to do so. Getting frustrated with them and thinking that they are idiots because they don't speak English as well as you isn't going to help them assimilate, is it?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Plus, how are immigrants supposed to learn the language when people keep inventing words like "refudiate"?
Originally Posted By ecdc I get the frustration though. Cause you know, Americans are so awesome about learning other languages and not expecting everyone to speak English when they're abroad.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan (While the above is meant as satire, it's not as much of a satire as it once was. Obama is accused, among other crimes, as being "European".)
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>(While the above is meant as satire, it's not as much of a satire as it once was. Obama is accused, among other crimes, as being "European".)<<< There was an article in my local newspaper about the Republican candidates accusing President Obama to turn the USA into a European wellfare state. The article quoted the BBC, that it seems that the word "European" turned into something bad, because of the Euro crisis. Just to let you know, it's not bad living over here ;-).
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>it seems that the word "European" turned into something bad<< They'll tell you European is the language of the ghetto. Or something.
