Talk politics.

Ain't it just?

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Although I can also be a grammar nazi without shame (It's "different from," not "different than," and "people who," not "people that."), I also recognize that English is not, nor can ever be, a strictly regulated language. It's vain folly to be a grammar nazi. That said, what is with all this "English only" crap anyway, when it's the bastard mongrel of a hundred languages? It hasn't even been "English" since the Vikings and Normans invaded.

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I dunno but the "Make English our Offical language" signs are good for a laugh every once in a while.

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Yeah. Historically, it makes about as much sense as "stop illegal immigration" and "America is a Christian nation", the holy trinity of right-wing stupid.

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An argument can be made that allowing various languages to supplant the "original" language of a nation can lead to a sort of Balkanization and eventual collapse of national unity, and there is some historical precedent to support that fact (along with the trend that, in cases of various groups of different ethnic and national origin living near each other, it is often language, more than any other factor, that determines how they ultimately self-identify, associate and integrate - or fail to do so). We can argue how much of an affect language actually has, but it's hardly something that can be easily handwaved.

People who claim "America is a Christian Nation" are, unfortunately, ignorant.

But with regards to calls to "stop illegal immigration": is it law as a concept, in and of itself, that you have a problem with, or do you disagree with the historical right of nation states to maintain soverign control of their borders, and who crosses them?

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op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com

But with regards to calls to "stop illegal immigration": is it law as a concept, in and of itself, that you have a problem with, or do you disagree with the historical right of nation states to maintain soverign control of their borders, and who crosses them?

Repost that in Navajo and I might just bother debating it.

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do you live in the navajo nation?

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op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com

Cheyenne will do as well.

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that's a different nation.

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Exactly.

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The fact that Navajo is not a written language so obviously eludes you makes this comment that much more lolworthy.

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Actually it is one and has been one for some time. It doesn't have its own alphabet like Cherokee does but then if English used the alphabet used by Penda of Mercia it would be using Runes as opposed to the alphabet used by those damned effete Eastern Christians.

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My God man, have some mercy. The Navajo words would break the brains of these puny Right-Wingers.

F'rinstance here is "tank" in Navajo:

chidí naaʼnaʼí beeʼeldǫǫhtsoh bikááʼ dah naaznilígíí.

Would you really inflict that on the poor brains of Righties who can't even spell "Official?". XP.

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LOL "original" language. The US has been multilingual all along, and more so since. This argument has been made at every opportunity by xenophobes, but is specious. The US generates enough 'native' culture, both diverse and mongrel, to overwhelm any attempt to 'supplant' it. It is arguably the most influential, if not insidious, culture in world history.

I have more of a problem with the calls for stopping illegal immigration because of its cruel historical irony and general disingenuous nature. The majority of opponents of illegal immigrants are descendants of invaders who really oppose all immigration.

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Multilingual partially, but with a majority of one tongue (regional variations notwithstanding.) But are concerns about Balkanization (to keep using that not quite approriate word) completely irrelevent? Not everyone taling about English is a "xenophobe". Your opinion on our culture is nice, and all, but historical precedent has demonstrated more than once the fragmentation and tribalism that occurs when language becomes a barrier between groups within the same national borders. Do I see that happening in the U.S.? Probably not. But it's a disservice to a legitimate concern to just assume everyone who raises it is xenophobic.

Re: illegal immigration: I am not the decendent of an invader of any sort. I am the decendent of 20th century immigrants, folks who came here legally and earned their citizenship through legal channels. I support immigration, as it has always strengthened our nation. I welcome people of all nations, colors and creeds, because our ability to absorb the diverse offerings of our newcomers and turn them into excellence has always been one of our greatest virtues. I don't however, support illegal immigration, mainly because I think people who want to live here should begin by showing they respect our laws. So, lacking the historical irony and "disingenuous nature" you seem to be so concerned about, are my thoughts regarding illegal immigration still as easily dismissed?

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Fortunately for my conscience, I neither spoke of "everyone tal(k)ing about English" nor dismissed your personal thoughts as irrelevant. However, you seem to be ignorant of the irony, since you speak of 20th century immigrants getting their citizenship through "legal channels" without seemingly realizing that the whole legal infrastructure is built from the society of the invaders. Who approved their citizenship, exactly? The Clovis People? The Mississippian culture? No. It was the US government.

I'm not saying that modern American natives (I am native born Texan) are any less legitimate than Precolumbian ones, but to tout modern legitimacy without acknowledging the fact that it was bought with native blood by invaders is tantamount to saying that legitimacy is justified by invasion. Exactly when did the US become justified, when the Declaration of Independence was written? The Constitution? When the Indian Wars ended? When natives were given citizenship? Or when YOUR people got here?

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Well, one might just as easily argue about when Britain, or Germany, or Gaul became justified. There well could be folks annoyed that the current Italian Government is not showing sufficient respect to the decendants of Romulus Augustulus. Of course, that's silly, but there's a point to my hyperbole: I'm not deliberately being obtuse here.

But of course we have to acknowledge that our nation, like all nations, is built on the remains (and blood) of the nations that came before it. For practical reasons, both of current security and to avoid the very supplantations that have come before, we have to treat our legitimacy as real, and for want of a better starting point for that legitimacy, the drafting of the Constitution's a good place, at least for me. Does that ignore some ugly truths? Perhaps, but for practical reasons, we have to treat sovereignty as a real thing; otherwise, we might as well just do away with borders and government altogether and go back to survival of the fittest, and rule of the strongest.

I think one can hold the concerns I mention and be neither a xenophobe, nor willfully ignorant of some of the uglier parts of our own history. Nowadays, we've been left with a nation that, at least on paper, respects certain things and works pretty well, if not always perfectly. I'd argue that legal immigration, combined with that "paper", has been a part of that success. Illegal immigration, in contrast, because of it's illegal nature, involves a disrespect for law and paper, and thus threatens it. Now, the amount and seriousness of that threat are of course up for debate, but I'll still maintain that it's neither absurd, nor particularly hypocritical, to maintain concerns about these issues.

And in the meantime, we of course keep those ugly bits in mind, both to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and to inform our future interactions with those we have wronged.

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Do you mean the original Constitution (+10), or the later one Amended to include women and blacks, etc. I'm also not deliberately being picky, but treating "sovereignty" as a real thing borders upon idolatry. The US is real, sure, but it is hardly the font of moral good, even now. To elevate the nation-state above individual freedom (even those who are not legitimate citizens) is to be jingoistic, not patriotic. Illegal immigrants may indeed feel disrespect for law, but I doubt the majority have that in mind at all. Many probably don't even know what the immigration laws are, much less consider themselves criminals.

What mistakes of the past are you referring to, allowing Pilgrims to land on our shores and set up colonies without consent? They, at least, were most definitely acting in contempt of the needs and desires of the natives.

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The mistakes of the past are too many for me to enumerate here, but I'd start with the endless string of broken promises and treaties on the part of our governments. The initial settling might qualify, depanding on the nature of who claimed what land, and what their concept of ownership was. The decendents of those settlers, however, I'd consider no more party to those mistakes than you and I are to some squabble over who owned a cave 15,000 years ago. That doesn't mean we can't recognize the foolishness of such squabbling, or the bad deeds done here. We respond, I think, by ensuring that going forward we never again allow our nation to engage in such behavior, and that we ensure that the peoples who were wronged are given some form of justice, whether that be their own land on which to govern themselves, legal accomdations, etc. I'm not familiar enough what what the current decendents of the indigenous people truly want, if anything, to judge that.

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Back to the other point: Individual Freedom is paramount, in my view, if tempered occasionally by the needs of the State. There's that fine middle ground between anarchy and tyranny. However, at the risk of getting too textual: individuals who aren't citizens of our nation may have the same inherent rights, philosophically, but we can't treat them that way for legal purposes; the right to bear arms, for example, ought to be limited to citizens: as a right where the registration portion is so important, it's important that folks who do own guns must be willing to take part in that registration system.

Now, folks who are citizens of another country are certainly not without rights (and we might to well to recognize certain universal rights common to all people) but for practical purposes those rights can't be as broad as those of citizens. Now, I'm leery of the potential for abuse there; it's too easy to say: "you don't have the same rights... so let's do THIS and THIS that we wouldn't tolerate if done to our own people." But again, there's a middle ground between "let's just treat all foreigners like animals" and "let's pretend borders and citizenship don't exist".

I may just be arguing semantics at this point.

Anyway, it's questions like that have kept me from becoming a strict textualist: when Scalia can say that torture isn't cruel and unusual punishment because the detainee isn't being punished for anything, we've got a problem. Yes, it's technically true. And Yes, Scalia, you're still an asshole. It's that kind of thinking that allows for the abuses I allude to above.

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If we take it that far then humans should never have left Africa.

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Or, as Douglas Adams put it:

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."

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Not hardly. The original 13 Colonies had at least French, Dutch, German, and English spoken among the European population, likely a few smatterings of African languages where the slavers ended up putting enough of the same ethnic group together, Ladino, and all the Indian languages of the Indians not yet exterminated. English itself has been far less over all than it seems, as during much of the 19th Century you might have for instance Germans start a community in the Midwest in the 1800s and by the 1910s they were still being educated in German. After the 1910s that grinded to a screeching halt albeit.

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The majority of opponents of illegal immigrants are descendants of invaders who really oppose all immigration.

[Citation needed]

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Can you prove under Blood Quantum laws that your ancestor was here in 1491? If not then you are a descendant of invaders. My ancestors were here before the Revolution and we've proof of that (and were actually in the Continental Army). Hence I am more American, I'm willing to bet, then a lot of commenters here whose ancestors came over via Ellis Island.

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Did you tell this to the Republic of India?

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primroseburrows.livejournal.com

It's "different from," not "different than"

Well, it depends on whom you ask (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dif1.htm) (and it can also be "different to," depending on country of origin).

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Oh, I know the language is governed more by convention than by rule, but I look at this particular question logically. "Different" is a word like "disparate" and "separate", not "bigger" or "stranger". When you say, "This car is different from that car," you can substitute "separate" (the meaning is different, but the parts of speech still make the sentence logical). If you say, "This car is different than that car," however, substituting "separate" would make the sentence absurd. One car is not "more different" than another, although two cars may be more different from each other than two other cars are.

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primroseburrows.livejournal.com

Yeah, I don't like "different than" either, I was just sayin'. :) I'm kind of a fan of "different to", even though it still sounds strange to my Amurrcun ear.

Having said all that, it's very cool that Shakespeare was the first known writer to use "different from" instead of "different to/unto". I basically defer to Shakespeare for what I should have for breakfast, though, so maybe I'm a little biased. ;)

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play that funky race card, white boy.

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That fake letter to Lincoln is a work of sublime satire or a blundering reactionary diatribe?

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Whatever it is, it's a fail of epic proportions.

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it's just something else to distract from real issues.

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Which is the problem when someone like Williams tries to be clever and writes some epic fail that will dog his public life forever.

But I'm with you on the real issues not being dealt with and frankly, if somebody on the right would offer some actual viable policy, there's a lot of us who would listen. Something other than talking points and yelling NO!

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Given the Baggers are trying to have an election without ever so much as acknowledging the idea of an issues plan that will be long in coming.

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What would National Republican Congressional Committee chair Pete Sessions say? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/18/pete-sessions-nrcc-chair_n_650431.html)

Pressed repeatedly by host David Gregory to explain exactly what the GOP would do to cut the deficit -- should it regain congressional power -- the National Republican Congressional Committee chair stammered and offered platitudes:

"We need to live within our means."

"We need to make sure we read the bills."

"We are going to balance the budget, we should live within our means and we should read the bills and work with the American people."

"We need to make sure that as we look at all that we are spending in Washington D.C."

"We have to empower the free enterprise system."

In other words, the right has plenty of WHARRGARBL (http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1/fizzyland/wharrgarbl.jpg) whether we're talking about the GOP or their militant wing, the Tea Partiers.

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primroseburrows.livejournal.com

Gods, I hope so.

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That would make for entertaining TV.

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existentme.livejournal.com

Yes. Exactly. Viewpoints aside, this is the whole idea. This is always the whole idea. Always.

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the-rukh.livejournal.com

Do you think it's a sign that the PR firms are pulling their money and direction out now?

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gunslnger.livejournal.com

The Tea Party Express is just the GOP trying to get in on the name and co-opt the real Tea Parties. It's no surprise that his fellow people in that group would support him, for whatever reason.

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So your plan is to keep posting "are too!" until everyone dies or gets tired of you?

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No my plan is to wait until society crashes under its own weakness and then start my own religion and found my version of a Caliphate where everyone there after treats me as a St. Leibowitz figure.

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L. Ron, is that you?

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Not looking to L. Ron Hubbard as an example. I'm thinking more of a certain fellow from Mecca who happened to like praying alone in Caves as an example.....

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