English as the US official language?

[tylerdurden]

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However, we all believe in some modest level of government intrustion in our lives.

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No. I don't. I "accept" government intrusion but I don't "believe in" it or think it's right.




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There is no right/wrong in political debate, just as there is no such thing as absolutist morality.

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That's true. However, we CAN say for a fact that imposing an official language *is* a restriction of personal freedom.

In your proposed "restricted" official language system where only government business is required to be conducted in the offical language, you're still restricting people's freedom.

In the market, I can do business with vendors (and buyers) that speak my preferred language. Unfortunately, the "market" in government services is somewhat uncompetitive.

You claim that the government has a right to use the language that they want to (I'm not sure governments actually have rights, but we will allow it for this discussion) but what you don't mention is that people don't have any choice in goverments (assuming it's non-trivial to move from country to country).

Now, that said, the people we're talking about got here somehow. And it is unreasonable to expect the government to be able to conduct all of their activities in every language on earth at any given time. There's already a defacto official language for government forms. I don't see any need to add legislation. If you cant read the required forms, get someone who can. Government obviously has an incentive to provide forms in language that large numbers of people can comprehend, as it's counterproductive to imprison large percentages of the population for non-compliance. Just let it work itself out instead of imposing your desires on the system.

[Bulbarainey]

yes, except for puerto rico