Incredible statement by Tom Tancredo in 3rd debate.

[lspooner]

In the 3rd debate, when the subject of immigration was being discussed, Tom Tancredo stated that bilingual countries don't work.  Doesn't Canada work pretty well?  Most of their problems are due to socialism, not bilingualism.  And Switzerland has 4 official languages (3 of which are spoken by a significant number of people).  Doesn't Switzerland work pretty well?

[KBCraig]

Brazil is pretty bilingual -- much of the population also speaks Spanish. Belize is multi-lingual.

[supperman15]

india has seven langueges on there money and a lot of jobs that used to be profitible to have here are moving.....

[Take It In Blood]

Though mccain is a scum, I agree that another language(s) besides English that should be official are Native languages. That's it.


Why Spanish? Do'nt we need to then make more for Chinese, Russian, French etc etc etc? And we of course have some papers in Korean, Chinese.


How can you blame people for asking to put their language on papers, when they see that everything has Spanish on it.

[Rochelle]

Finland's bilingual and it works out pretty well Of course, the second official language is dying out rapidly, too, but it still worked for a while

[CNHT]

I find that in other countries, they know that English is the language of capitalism... I feel it should be official, because that doesn't stop people from printing their stuff in other languages.

Otherwise, you would be FORCED to... and I don't believe in that.

[TylerM]

Agreed. Communities and business should decide.

Who was it who, under mumbled breath, talking about immigration, said we need a national driver's license and an "impentable"(that's how he said it)  ID? Was that Tancredo?

[error]

You have to know five languages to get a job as a waiter in Hong Kong.

[toowm]

When westerners told the emperor of China to change from word symbols to phonetic letters, he told them to change, because dozens of different languages could all understand the same symbol.

Tancredo lost all credibility for me in the 2nd debate when he made the point of dissing Ron Paul in a Judas sort of way - paraphrase: "Ron, you're my friend, but you're wrong that we deserved to be attacked."

[Braddogg]

I find that in other countries, they know that English is the language of capitalism... I feel it should be official, because that doesn't stop people from printing their stuff in other languages.

Otherwise, you would be FORCED to... and I don't believe in that.

If the English language becomes official, would people be forced to use it?  If so, I thought you said that it was morally wrong to force people to print their stuff in a certain language; and if not, then what's the big deal?

[CNHT]

That's correct. I speak English so I'm not going to print my signs, for example, in Spanish or Chinese...if I don't want to.

In public schools we have to get translators for 66 languages.

I would not want to have to be forced to do that. If people are motivated they will learn the language, just as I would expect to do if I went to another country. Likewise, my family did not expect their customers to speak Italian, they learned English instead because they chose to join this country. They did not expect their customers to learn Italian just to shop with them.

You know the old saying? "When in Rome..."

[lspooner]

When westerners told the emperor of China to change from word symbols to phonetic letters, he told them to change, because dozens of different languages could all understand the same symbol.

Tancredo lost all credibility for me in the 2nd debate when he made the point of dissing Ron Paul in a Judas sort of way - paraphrase: "Ron, you're my friend, but you're wrong that we deserved to be attacked."

I thought I was the only one who heard that.  Up to that point, I thought that Tancredo, while pretty much a statist, was a pretty honest guy.  After he tried to score a few points by piling on, I lost all respect for him.

[Quantrill]

Doesn't Canada work pretty well?

Absolutely not!

Maybe it's just Quebec, I'm not up to date on Canadian issues, but everything must be printed in two languages.  Boxes of cereal?  yes.  Aspirin?  yes.  Tags for shoelaces?  yes.  Anything that is sold there must be printed in French and English, by law. 

If you think that government-coerced bilingualism is ok, then yes, Canada works pretty well.

So long to anything even remotely comparable to a free market...

[E-ville]

I do think if you live in the USa you should speak English , just as if i decided to live in Japan i should speak there language.. But this is on a totally volentary use and not forced.. I mean if you insist go ahaead and don't get the good jobs and don't progress you life because of it , it your choice.. and your outcome.

It's survival of the smartest in my book. If you cant understand that there is a need for this language then so be it.

E-ville

[supperman15]

hillary explained... so its proably not true that if we select an offical language the government can not print papers in other languages...