-By Warner Todd Huston
Here’s a guy that really misses the point of a debate. In New Jersey’s Home News Tribune, columnist Roger Hernandez is asking why everyone is so hot and bothered about English Only legislation and claims that Spanish being spoken… well, everywhere… should be no problem for anyone. In fact, he claims that it isn’t really happening that much, anyway, so fear about it is unfounded. But, his view on the matter misses the point that it is government forcing the Spanish language via lawsuits and government intervention on the nation that English Only supporters are trying to oppose, not just the evolutions of society itself.
Writing about Lamar Alexander’s proposed legislation, the Protecting English in the Workplace Act of 2007, and using that as his springboard to lambast the English Only trend, Hernandez scoffs at anyone interested in protecting our national character via protecting English.
Alexander (a sensible moderate Republican, once upon a time) and the right-wing blogosphere are framing it as a fight to preserve our supposedly vulnerable linguistic unity.
But, after recounting the efforts to protect English, Hernandez goes off track, attacking the English Only idea from the entirely wrong direction.
It is true that the common language of the United States is English, and that it is difficult to succeed without learning it. The problem is that both questions stem from the false premise that immigrants are tearing apart the national fabric with their refusal to speak English.
Not completely, Mr. Hernandez. “The problem is” that government is being used by criminal immigrant’s “rights” activists who are attempting to sue their desires into law by constant lawsuit abuse intended to make us all bend over backwards for people who are breaking our nation’s laws on a daily basis.
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