[Speed Gibson,
Wednesday May 24, 2006 at 9:41am]
What color is English?
That was the rejoinder a Rush Limbaugh caller offered, regarding the silliness going on in Washington regarding making English the official language of the United States. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid soiled himself claiming this was racist, clearly targeting the Hispanic population. His examples of why this was wrong were both irrelevant (not concerning official business) and counter to his own position. He then danced around how the bill/amendment was racist but its author wasn't.
If you've ever seen the mangled English written by foreign manufacturers in the owner's manuals, you see the dangers of transacting official government business in more than one language. Imagine the lawsuits and consequences when a statute is accidentally mistranslated, allowing citizen A speaking language X to do something however innocently that citizen B cannot.
The real goal of course is to print ballots in every language possible, which the DFL believes gives them an edge.
If you've ever seen the mangled English written by foreign manufacturers in the owner's manuals, you see the dangers of transacting official government business in more than one language. Imagine the lawsuits and consequences when a statute is accidentally mistranslated, allowing citizen A speaking language X to do something however innocently that citizen B cannot.
The real goal of course is to print ballots in every language possible, which the DFL believes gives them an edge.