On opposing linguistic laws…

13 June 2007 at 10:43 pm | In Immigration, Languages, Paranoia, Politics | Leave a Comment

Every few years the debate over whether we should have a national language pops up. Personally, I find the nature of the debate a bit uninformed at best and down right stupid at worst.

 Here are some of the reasons I oppose establishing a national language:

1) We have never had a national language.

2) The constitutionality of establishing a national language is suspect at best. Where does the Federal government derive the power to establish an official language? Couldn’t this lead to the establishment of official thought?

3) A greater percentage of Americans speak English today than did in 1900. Today its close to 95% even if you count migrants. In 1900 it was below 90%.

4) The United States has always had language diversity at the state and even county level. Several states including Louisiana, New Mexico, and Hawaii are officially bilingual and others like some in New England have regions that are bilingual.

5) English will always be the de facto language of the United States since its the language of business, global culture, etc… If you want your children to be successful, you do not have them learn Cornish, you teach them English as their primary language.

6) To be globally competitive, we should require every high school graduate on an academic tract to have four years of foreign language instruction. Anyone seeking government financial aid should be required to have six years of foreign language instruction in one language or four years in one and two in another.

7) The ofificial language law experience in Canada should scare anyone away from having an official language law.

8) English was never the official language of the United Kingdom or several of its colonies including the United States and Australia.

On immigrants

22 May 2007 at 7:13 pm | In Paranoia, Politics | 1 Comment

The US can easily absorb a level of immigration at 1 percent of total population (3 million people) a year. Canada has absorbed immigrant equivalent to one percent of its population for many years without a fall in the standard of living. 

There is no job crisis or out of control population growth that is being encouraged by immigration. In many areas of this country,  the going rate for even illegal alien labor is in excess of $15 a hour. If the number of immigrants into the nation fell, there would be labor shortages in many regions, which would cause the price of consumer goods to skyrocket. There would be a crippling labor shortage if the number of immigrants fell.

The movement of people from Latin America to northern America (US and Canada) should be understood as nothing more than the historical phenomenon of migration working itself out. People throughout the course of human history have left areas of poor conditions for areas with far better conditions. What to stop the migration from Latin America, make it more attractive to stay there.

My solution to the immigration issue: Set a cap of one percent of total population per year and let anyone who is not a public safety or health risk into the nation with the understanding if they behave themselves and do not seek to live off the government for 10 years, they will gain citizenship.

Return to reality, and botching quotes

22 April 2007 at 9:37 pm | In Nanny State, Nicholas Sarkozy, Paranoia, Politics | Leave a Comment

Mark Steyn has an excellent column on why most of the academic world is nuts in response to the VT Massacre.

Fundamentally, the academic world at most colleges and universities, excluding Hillsdale of course, can be best described as resembling an mental ward. Free thought is wonderful as long as you do not go overboard with it. Some of the insanity quoted by Steyn goes to that point.

Also, I liked his point that we should quit treating college students like babies. This is an excellent point because why should college students have basic rights like voting, drinking, or serving in the military if they are helpless like middle schoolers. Either they are helpless or they are adults. You cannot have one or the other.

This reminds me of my favorite example of the nanny state going wrong: the government attempting to tell how much a college student can work on campus.

My little brother will be attending college next year and he is going to be on the federal work-study program. One of the conditions of the program, you can only work so many hours a week!

This is disgusting to me considering I have been busting my butt at the library for years now working as many hours I can. Instead, he will be limited to 10 hours a week because some bureaucrat in Washington says so.

Lets look at the facts of me:

 Ryan worked an average of 22 hours a week last semester.

Ryan got a 3.5 GPA last semester and has around a 3.5 overall GPA.

Its more than possible to work more than 10 hours and get a good GPA! Why Washington do you want to limit overachievers? Because the government hates those who are independent and successful.

Speaking of mistakes, the Collegian botched my quote in last week’s edition. I am still a Republican, but seeing most people do not understand you can have severe disdain for Bush and still be a Republican. I could launch my tirade why I do not like Bush, but that’s for another day.

It appears the French are on their way to electing a good leader: Nicholas Sarkozy!

Lesson of life for the day 4 April 2007

4 April 2007 at 7:37 am | In Nanny State, Paranoia, Politics | Leave a Comment

The Commonwealth Foundation has an excellent article detailing how raising the minimum wage from $5.15 /hr to $6.15 /hr has hurt the economy of Pennsylvania. The best paragraph of the entire thing is this one:

The philosophy that Pennsylvania can mandate itself into prosperity is flawed because it fails to recognize that the money to pay for government mandates – whether artificial wage rates, new programs or regulatory requirements – has to come from somewhere. When those mandates fall on job creators, the options for paying for them are limited. Are there Pennsylvanians who benefited from the minimum wage increase? No doubt. But either directly or indirectly, many Pennsylvania consumers and workers were and still could be negatively impacted by the government’s refusal to let the market and competition for workers dictate wage rates.

Lesson of life for the day: Government is never the solution to life’s problems. Raising the minimum wage is a feel good measure to make individuals feel better about others earning lower wages than them.

Fundamentally, raising the minimum wage does nothing to really help the economy and just prevents people from getting entry level jobs like college students.

Talk about being paranoid: Iran and the movie “300″

12 March 2007 at 7:41 pm | In Iran, Paranoia, Politics | Leave a Comment

Apparently the Iranians believe the movie “300″ is an American plot to undermine Persian/Iran civilization. Clearly the Iranians have developed a robust paranoia complex. The movie “300″ describes actual events. The Persian Army of over several hundred thousand men lost to 300 Greek warriors.  Maybe this is why they want to develop a nuclear bomb. They seem to not be able to defeat anyone when the odds are clearly in their favor.

Now I would be embarrassed by such a rout too, but I would not deny history.  It must be in style in Iran to deny history as their President denies the Holocaust. Why should we expect them to believe in battles in the distant past when they cannot get their minds to grasp events within the last hundred years?

Another example why its so hard to deal with these people. Everything is an “American, Zionist, capitalist plot to undermine the Iranian revolutionary regime.” In individuals, we refer to this as a mental disorder. In states with large armies wanting nuclear weapons, we refer to this as highly dangerous.

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