There was an article on LewRockwell.com yesterday about the debate over the language spoken in America. I think perhaps it would be helpful to step away from the emotionally-charged controversy and look at it from another perspective. Why don’t we think about immigrants from Poland, from Russia, from Germany, who continue to speak their native language in the same way? Why aren’t we offended when an elderly person from another country never masters the common language of America?
I think this comes into an ever bigger issue/problem we tend to have. I hate to say that it is the “White Man’s Burden” that has plagued our nation for over 100 years, but perhaps that is the case. At any rate, I’m really tired of this American superiority attitude. We know so much better than everyone else, and we have this divine mandate to shove what we know and have down the throats of all other human beings. What happened to respecting other cultures? Other traditions? Other ways of life? Who said that we are so much better than others that we can decide what is “best” for everyone else? Maybe I sound like a liberal. I’m sorry. They occasionally get things right.
Back to the foreign language problem in America: If businesses want to offer their products in Spanish, why not? If they want to hire Latin American people, why not? If it were truly a bad idea, they wouldn’t do it. Perhaps we don’t like it just because it doesn’t align with our own personal beliefs. But why should we allow that to interfere with the economic decisions of other entrepreneurs and business owners? You have the right to start a business and refuse to allow anyone is Spanish or speaks Spanish to enter or work at your business. But you don’t have the right to make others do that. It seems like common sense to me.
