[lg policy] California: Hug a tree, adopt a national language

[Harold Schiffman]

Hug a tree, adopt a national language



Government budgets at all levels are being stretched to the maximum,
with valuable resources and services being reduced or eliminated.
Taxes are out of control. Teachers, law enforcement, national parks
personnel among others are being down-sized, value added programs are
being canceled, parks and other valuable resources are being closed.

Al Gore, for all his shortcomings, made saving the environment a
larger priority than it had ever been. The government, from the White
House to our little city of Lompoc, hopped aboard the “save the
environment” bandwagon. We have collected newspapers, plastics, soft
drink cans, etc., recycling nearly everything we can to green our
environment.

Yet this very government that encourages the greening of America has
taken a huge step backward in one major expenditure of valuable
resources — trees cut — by requiring all documents to be published
bilingually, in English and Spanish. Therefore, every document printed
by any level of government requires twice as many trees cut down to
make more paper, requiring more fuel to cut and haul, water and fuel
to process, postage, delivery costs, etc. When you call a government
office, store, doctor, etc., you are asked to “press 1 for Spanish, 2
for English” (Isn’t this, at the very least, in reverse?).

One way to help reduce these budgets is by adopting English as the
national language. Did we print duplicate language documents after
Word War I, World War II, Korean or Vietnam wars when following these
events large numbers of legally documented German, Japanese, Korean,
and Vietnamese people chose to immigrate here? Do we print duplicates
in Cherokee, Navajo, Apache, etc., America’s original native
languages? Then, why now, and especially for largely “illegals”?

We should discontinue printing of our nation’s documents in Spanish,
eliminate having Spanish as a second language in our workplace, etc.,
and have the right to speak to someone on the phone at any government
agency or store in English without having to “press 2.” We should
adopt the French attitude — “‘If you live here, speak the language.”
Mexico’s language policy favors unilingualism — one language, Spanish.

Don Buck

Lompoc

June 26, 2009

http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2009/06/26/opinion/letters/letter01.txt
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