Thread: Opinion:English only is a bad law

Published in the Des Moines Register and obviously a BAD opinion!

From Today's Inbox: English only is a bad law
April 7, 2008


District Judge Douglas Staskal’s ruling that only English can be on voter-registration forms should not be surprising. A bad law, passed to placate a noisy minority, has bad consequences.


The history of the United States is a history of grudgingly extending the right to vote. In the beginning, only white, propertied males could vote. Blacks, women, Native Americans, the handicapped, reformed felons, the illiterate and non-English-speaking citizens have had to fight for the right to vote, and other rights, to which they are entitled.

Let’s face it, we may claim to be a democracy, but we don’t act like it. Democracies do everything to ensure that citizens can vote. In the United States, we do so much to deny that right. We vote on a weekday. We pass laws to stop virtually nonexistent voter fraud. We make registration difficult. And more.

This is a serious problem. The right to vote is crucial to citizen participation. Our behavior, through much of our history, suggests we don’t trust citizens. We demand that so-called nondemocratic countries hold elections. Yet we seem to be the ones who are anti-democratic.

Some think that our democracy is best served when it is hard to exercise it. But excluding citizens is the biggest risk of all.

— Jon Torgerson,
Urbandale.
http://tinyurl.com/3wjo99

What total BS! Polling places will let non-English speakers bring their own interpreters when they go vote! There is absoutely NO reason why ballots should be written in anything BUT English!

How does an illiterate person vote? Someone has to explain the process to them and let them know what their choices are. This must be done BEFORE heading to the polls! Can you imagine the chaos if illiterate voters were holding up the lines at the polls?

American voters are NOT a noisy "minority", we are THE majority and expect everyone to abide by our laws! Don't like it? GET OUT!

What an idiot...if you are a citizen you should be speaking english already, since you need to speak it to get citizenship...So I guess that tells us what your motives are!

Technical correction to Mr. Torgerson:

We are not a democracy. We ARE a representative Republic.

This is kinda off topic, but there is a poll in the chicago tribune on the Absolut ad. "The ad is GREAT" is catching up to "The ad is an affront to Americans."
WE only have 27% on this one, please take a moment to visit this thread and vote.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-110909.html