This thread discusses the Content article: League of Women Voters Questionaire

QUOTE:
In addition we need to make it a federal law that ENGLISH will be the official language.

Why? If they want to do business in Cajun in Louisiana, German in PA, Hawaiian in Hawaii, Spanish in Puerto Rico, Samoan in American Samoa, Chinese in Chinatown, or Navajo (or anyone of the other Native American languages) why is that any business of the United States government? This is an unwarranted expansion of the role of the fed.

If any of thesegroups want government forms and other documents in their own language they should be willing to pay for them with their own money.It should not be paid for by the rest of us.This is america, they should learn to speak english.We should not cater to them.

I have to admit, the idea struck me as un-libertarian, but just about every bit of information I can gather on it shows that some 80% of Americans are in favor of it. It's a popular message, plain and simple. I read an issue paper from the Cato Institute which quoted empirical evidence that over 90% of immigrants to America speak English only by the 3rd generation. My own family is proof of that. My great grandparents spoke only Italian, my grandfather was bilingual and my mother and her siblings wouldn't know Italian from Japanese. This is taken by Cato to mean that no official language is needed. I have read other studies that claim printing government documents in multiple languages is actually working to prevent the immigrant community from learning English, leading to second and third generation children still speaking with an accent or being bilingual.

Does anyone really believe that printing more than one language on a government document accounts for a significant percentage of the federal budget?

If an industry found that their customers wanted interactions in more than one language would they be saving money by demanding that their customers speak a certain language? Or would they be serving their customers needs? Government offices should have the autonomy to serve their customers as each office sees fit.

Is having enclaves of groups that speak their own language really harmful to the US in anyway at all? Is the existence of Chinatown, Polish communities, Hispanic communities, Cajun areas, etc a problem that the Fed should even attempt some sort of social engineering forcing them to assimilate?

I think not and it certainly is not Libertarian to demand assimilation.

How can one believe in the free market, but have an exception for labor? Reason magazine has published some of their most recent addition concerning immigration on the web. See their homepage. We need to make it easier to immigrate oo the US legally. Our immigration laws are so complex and restrictive that it encourages illegal immigration.

There is a parallel to our drug laws here. Restrictive laws against something that people desire will be broken. The end result will be chaos. Our drug laws have resulted in an underground (and often violent) drug culture. Our immigration laws have resulted in an underground labor force. This underground labor force will not go away with stronger immigration penalties and laws. Instead more problems will result. We need to simplify immigration. This will make it easier to have secure borders because immigrants will be coming through using legal means instead of sneaking across.

It doesnot matter if the cost is only 1 cent the taxpayers should not have to pay it. Do you want to see road signs in chinese in chinease neighberhoods or greek in greek neighberhoods? Should schools teach only in the language of that neighborhood or culture?Since when are libertarians right about everything?I donot need reason magazine to find out what i think.I know this may be hard to imagine but libertarians can be wrong,and non libertarians can be right on occasion.There are many non libertarians who have good ideas and do care about liberty.Libertarians do not have a total lock on liberty.

Regarding English as the official language, I think the issue is whether government forms should be in one language, or several languages. The classic example is drivers license tests, which I think in New Jersey there are 40 different iterations.

In terms of what the government's policy should be, I think it should be neutral. The federal government should not interfere in State decisions regarding language. States need to decide what to do based on their own needs. The federal government's policy should be English as the primary language, but with some sort of rule of reason for special circumstances, such as using interpreters in courts.

The free market seems to reward language diversity. Vendors who can communicate in more languages can reach more markets. So, in a Libertarian world, I would expect all those private schools to be teaching French, Spanish, Russian, etc.