News From the Goron Front

[A Black Falcon]

Yea, that's right. They have every right to do what they want amongst themselves, at home, but in public and for general usage, they should speak English. If I went to France, I would speak English on the phone with my friends and family in America, and I would speak French on the streets. I wouldn't demand that the French all learn English (though many of them do already speak it) because I'm so stubborn. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few---the nation shouldn't have to change to accomodate the minority.

Just based on our airline pilots (and a few people in the airport) (last year we took Air France to Denmark...), the French do speak English, but with a very thick accent... it's like they don't want to really try to speak it... but hey, the French are weird. :) If 'weird' means 'wish they were still a great power', that is.

Well that's not true either. I know a nice family of Icelanders; first-generation Icelanders. I worked for them, delivering pizza at their restaurant. The parents have an accent, but speak fluent English, and their two stunningly beautiful daughters, one born in Iceland the other here, speak with NO accent...because they CHOSE TO LEARN ENGLISH. They didn't come here and bill Uncle Sam for an Icelandic-English translator. I respect them, and I'd gladly welcome more immigrants! They're industrious and make fine additions to our great land.

Just about everyone in the Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, probably Finland too...) ALREADY speaks good English, with little accent. In their own countries. Did you miss where I said 'most of Europe already speaks multiple languages'? So Icelandic people... would come here and speak English well? I'd bet they have been able to do that since elementary school!

Latin America doesn't have to learn another language to survive because Spanish is the major tounge in the region. So they just learn Spanish. Surely this concept is not too hard for you!

Oh, and before you say anything, 100 years ago most Europeans knew one language. Actually, this 'everyone knows multiple toungues unless their main language is German/French/English (or maybe Spanish and Italian, but I don't know)' thing is quite new...

You just don't get it, do you. NO ONE IS INTEGRATING ANYMORE! Say it all you want, it won't make it so. You don't even live in my country, how dare you pretend to know all our problems. I live in southern Massachusetts---New Bedford and Fall River are all thoroughly Portuguese. They speak it there. It is the language; it's like the city is a Portuguese colony. They're NOT INTEGRATING because more and more the government is saying "You don't have to, we'll adapt around you!"

New Bedford? I've been there once a few years ago. Went to the whaling museum. And some Portugese restaurant. :)

Oh, and it's as I said. In these days, we're re-evaluating the old ideas of 'make them conform to our society'. For instance, remember Ellis Island? There they'd change people's names when they didn't seem 'American' enough... now only the person themself would do that, if they wanted to. It's called "tolerance". Now, it should include the minority group adapting to the majority, for sure, but it means that the goal isn't a completely dissolved group that's the same as the main culture, it's a unique (but just as American!) group IN that main culture.

Yes, after a few generations they should learn English, if just to fit in to our society better. With it will come opportunities, for sure. But you go way too far. You cannot expect people to act just like everyone else! People are different. I, unlike you, realize that...

Okay, fine, Maine doesn't exactly have the most diversity. To be precise, Maine is dead last in nonwhite percent of population... but New Hampshire and Vermont are next, so it's a regional thing. :) But that doesn't mean that I can't say that obviously wrong positions are wrong.
Yes, of course its an absurd generalization, but it's effectively true. You talk about European nations---WE'RE NOT ONE, AND NEITHER ARE YOU, CANADA! In Europe, one has to be bilingual because they're all powerful, small, closely-knit neighbors who form a community. America is a country that (at least used to) predominantly speak English. It was founded by English settlers, who absorbed and welcomed other nationalities. You want to subdivide our country into gettos and hoodlums; I want to be able to drive from Massachusetts to Florida without a flock of translators, and changing currencies from state to state![/quote]

Ghettos aren't good. Just look at inner cities, those are in effect ghettos... not much good comes from such things. I'm sure that there is a way ethnic groups can keep some ethnic identity without all living together (and as a result not learning as much of the majority language and not going as far as they could)... now, in some cases, many people of the same nationality can help eachother -- like the Somalis in Lewiston, maybe (not that you know what I mean) -- but if it's one where they speak another language and keep apart from the majority society -- and have worse jobs, etc -- it should be something that maybe the new immigrants go to, as they don't really have anywhere else, but from which more established ones are able to get away. The fact that in some parts of the US towns are dividing on ethnic lines, with all of one group in one part and all of the others in another (like Black/Hispanic/White), I'd say, is a worrying trend...

Translation: I like to brag that I had the paid-for opportunity to go to Europe some years ago. Verily, this makes my opinions on the world and politics superior to those of you who, *scoff* can't afford to go there.

This connects to that you know. I haven't been to any Spanish speaking countries, true, but I ahve been to Europe and seen how many people there speak English...

I haven't been to Europe three times because my parents are rich or something. Middle, maybe upper middle, but not rich. It's because we have always travelled a lot. My parents just like to travel, and we were lucky enough to be able to go on lengthy (month-plus) vacations each summer because my dad's a professor and doesn't have work in summers... Oh, that 'professor' thing is a big part THERE (for our trips to Europe). Our year in Slovenia was because it was his subattical year and he taught some at the University of Llubljana, and the trip to Denmark last year was during a math conference he attended... Only England in '98 was just for a vacation.

Another half-truth. I have flags of the four countries which comprise my background: England, France, Scotland, Ireland. If that doesn't prove that I don't hate immigration (why wouldn't I just have an American flag), then you're just not listening.

No, you have a standard Republican viewpoint -- that America was built from the great variety of European immigrants who arrived up until the early 1900s.

As you can guess from what I've already said, that's completely wrong and idiotic.