{"id":6383,"date":"2012-08-05T08:53:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-05T13:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/?p=6383"},"modified":"2012-08-05T08:53:02","modified_gmt":"2012-08-05T13:53:02","slug":"english-only-congressdood-diversity-is-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/05\/english-only-congressdood-diversity-is-overrated\/","title":{"rendered":"English Only Congressdood: &#8220;Diversity is overrated&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steve King of Iowa is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/08\/02\/steve-king-english-language_n_1734431.html\">an idiot<\/a>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;One of the great things about America is we&#8217;ve been unified by a common language. That common language, of course, is English,&#8221; King said during a press conference on his bill. &#8220;Our language is getting subdivided by some forces of the federal government. It is time to speak with a common voice.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Subdivided? Is that the correct word choice here? Is there a bill to create English Dialects?  Or did he mean &#8220;subverted&#8221;? <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>His proposal would also nullify a Clinton-era requirement that federal agencies provide interpreters for non-English speakers for certain activities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As a White Guy from the Midwest, King probably has <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2009\/10\/27\/when-do-immigrants-learn-engli-3\/\">some of these<\/a> people as ancestors. Whatever.<\/p>\n<p>Various human rights groups have suggested that King&#8217;s bill is racist. He is offended, and says in response:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The argument that diversity is our strength has really never been backed up by logic,&#8221; King told The Huffington Post. &#8220;It&#8217;s unity is where our strength is. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Modern-day multiculturalists are defying that<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is concern that the bill would be unconstitutional, violating tenets set forth by the Founding Fathers, all of whom spoke French.  Probably. <\/p>\n<p>During the argument&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;.Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) gave his opening remarks entirely in Spanish &#8212; with imperfect pronunciation &#8212; to make the point that the country has always been a multilingual one. Subcommittee Chairman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and other Republicans looked amused, then bored, as he continued talking, with Franks at one point fiddling with his cell phone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That was funny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve King of Iowa is an idiot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[306],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-1EX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6384,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6383\/revisions\/6384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}