Frank
http://www.leftrightnews.com

http://snipurl.com/1ugi4

Did you catch the recent one about the Archbishop of Canterbury in the UK arguing for ‘some’ Sharia law in the UK (suggesting that immigrants are OK to be Muslim first, British second when living in the UK?) – this is not only a US disease! Unfortunately this ridiculous attitude is happening all over the western countries in the name of ‘acceptance of others’ – now we are going overboard and pretending our own western culture and laws are without value. Hyphens are added everywhere.

By the way – I am a liberal, or even radically left. I believe in socialized medicine for example and would happily pay extra taxes to have a system as good as the one in France replace what exists now in the US and get rid of ridiculous insurance premiums and people going bankrupt to pay hospital bills.

In my mind, I don’t consider the molly-coddling of the Muslim extremists and Sharia law to be ‘left’ or ‘liberal’ at all even though many doing it call themselves that term – I consider it to be ridiculous and chickensh*t and just plain dumb backwards thinking.

As a feminist and being against discrimination, I am tired of everyone mentioned in the media being identified as an African-American X or a female-X – can’t they just be an ‘amazingly good American writer’ when someone writes a book review – or is that term only reserved for white male American writers and if you are not that, you must hyphenate (for what reason??)? To me those labels and hyphens become discriminatory pigeon holes in and of themselves, making someone’s acheivements seem lesser by sub-catagorizing them.

I know conservatives like to hate France, but they are big believers in integrating their immigrants. In France they have laws against wearing religious scarves and other headcovers, big crosses or turbans to public schools. They believe if you want to move to France it’s to be French, not Muslim-French or Catholic-French and that this is one way to get people from the time they are children, to integrate into western French society.

They happily recognize that the cultural basis of France is Catholic (even though officially the government is non-secular) and so they follow Christian holidays – not Muslim ones – without apology. They made speaking French part of the test to become a citizen. Why? Because funny old thing – the French speak French.

Is it really so much to demand from a person asking to be naturalized (ie adopted by another country as one of ‘its own’) that you can speak the language the majority of people in your adopted country speak? This is only to help you – in that way you have a chance of finding gainful legal employment, normal education and can properly read road signs, local laws and understand the local news broadcasts and don’t become a burden to the state welfare system or a criminal to make your living. It takes several years to gain citizenship – that should be plenty of time for someone to learn the basics of another language for this type of test.

I think in efforts to teach people ‘acceptance’ of all others and combat past racism and other forms of discrimination many people have now gone too far in the other direction in letting those who immigrate elsewhere think they can make a ‘miniature’ version of their old country to cling to forever, and never integrate into the culture of the one they CHOSE to move to. I disagree with that philosophy and like the point you made here that we should drop the hyphens and make more effort to integrate, not separate when talking about people. That way of thinking would become a habit, and I do think those kinds of subtle changes in language do have an effect on the overall psyche of how people are viewed and will help strengthen the American culture. American culture will always be a mixed – but whether that mix is compartmentalized and catagorized by hyphens or smoothly blended into a ‘whole’ depends on how we act with regards to the differences currently found in our country going forwards.

But, unlike some countries, we do not force people to provide proof of residency or nationality before letting them buy or rent property on a federal level. If we did, then people could not even do holiday rental businesses of their apartments with tourists from other countries and it would put a restraint on the property market for investments and free trade. Better to enforce existing federal laws to deport illegal immigrants in the way that is already provided for.

I don’t think the article shows that Americans are being discriminated against by this decision – it seems to me the mayor needs to learn how to bring in the right people to get existing laws enforced.

The judge seems ridiculous, to state we should consult other countries for how to make our own laws.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Mary, dtr of Gus.