Signs of the times
You may recall that two months ago I attended a town hall on health care where I took photos of protestors’ signs and asked them about them. (And got little in the way of rational response.)
Today my friend Bob Silver emailed me the photos below, along with this sentiment: “Thomas Jefferson (and others) said something about an educated electorate being essential to the functioning of a Democracy. Herewith, a sampling.”
I’m confident that the irony of these messages won’t escape you. But for those bearing them, it will.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I’ll only agree to make “English the official language of the U.S.” if we REQUIRE every “American”—regardless of age, education or income—to take and pass a basic language skills test before they can get any license: driver’s, marriage, electrician, dog—whatever. Nothing too complicated: just basic spelling, punctuation and grammar. Anyone who can’t pass it, we revoke their citizenship and deport them to whatever country their ancestors left, no matter how long ago they left it. Since they will almost certainly find many, many people there who speak and write English better than they do, they can be tutored until, after 6 months, they can reapply for American citizenship.
This, of course, becomes problematic in the case of Native Americans: we may believe that many of them crossed over a land mass bridge from Russia, but we have no documentation to prove this. In that case, I suppose we’ll just have to isolate them on remote, inhospitable plots of land far from our society.
Actually, now that I think about it, this could be a good way to get a free trip to the U.K. or Germany (depending on whether we use my paternal or maternal ancestors country of origin)… I would vote for this policy and then I would fail that mother!
October 7th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Barry, that’s an interesting thought. Unfortunately, all my kin was hillbillies back as far as anyone remembers, so if it happened, I,d just be sent to the places where they spell like that.