They Nearly Make One Weep, but Laughing's More Fun 

  

Join me in laughing out loud at some of the, uh, inconsistencies — hypocrisy, I call it in moments when I’m feeling less amused — of our friends over there on the Left.

 

Start with English as our country’s national language, discussed this week in a column by E .J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington Post. I usually scan a Dionne article casually, just enough to get the drift of his latest whine about President Bush and/or a Congress not run by the party of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

 

This time, though, there is a compelling opening sentence: “Yes, let's talk about the English language and how important it is that immigrants and their children learn it.” I read this one carefully.

 

It seems Dionne’s father, though a natural-born American, spent his early years in French Canadian neighborhoods. Spurred, Dionne says, by a first grade teacher who “mercilessly made fun of his command of the language,” papa Dionne “came to speak flawless, accent-free English.”

 

Almost all the rest of Dionne’s column is a paean to the bilingualism his French-descent parents worked hard to instill in him and his sister, all the while insisting that they speak “our nation's language clearly, and without grammatical errors.” [Emphasis added.]

 

So far, so good. If Dionne had omitted only three paragraphs, I could have embraced just about every word of his piece. The offending paragraphs address the U.S. Senate’s recent vote to designate English as our national language. This, Dionne says, is pointless “except to say to ... our Spanish-speaking population that they will be legally and formally disrespected ... ”

 

Horsefeathers. How can Dionne claim this as different for Spanish-speakers than for any others in America he acknowledges whose first language isn’t English? And why shouldn’t a national statute recognize “our nation’s language” exactly as he had three paragraphs earlier? Dionne is simply grandstanding for a population segment he wants voting consistently left.

 

Moving right along, I have a friend who is furious that the adjective “illegal” has morphed to the noun "illegals" and is applied to migrants in our country — well over 10 million and increasing by several thousand nightly — who haven’t bothered to get visas and pass through U.S. ports of entry. A similar view is elaborated in an article of some 3700 words titled “The Framing of Immigration.” This appears on the Website of an outfit describing itself as “a non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to strengthening our democracy by providing intellectual support to the progressive community.”

 

Permit me a brief digression here. Use of “non-partisan” and “progressive community” in the same sentence has now become oxymoronic. “Framing” in that title refers to words used to condition debate, unfairly in the authors’ view. “Progressive” is among myriad words that have been hijacked to euphemize the Left or its activities, all finding their place in only one of this country's two major political parties. Communism and socialism have deservedly bad reputations, so their advocates now run under the term “progressive.” This would be a stellar example of framing to condition debate.

 

I furnish the following paragraph from “The Framing of Immigration” as world class spin on the illegals’ case:

 

“The current situation can also be seen as a civil rights problem. The millions of people living here who crossed illegally are for most intents and purposes Americans. They work here. They pay taxes here. Their kids are in school here. They plan to raise their families here. For the most part, they are assimilated into the American system, but are forced to live underground and in the shadows because of their legal status. They are denied ordinary civil rights. The ‘immigration problem’ framing overlooks their basic human dignity.”

 

Being among those who think immigration — on our sovereign terms — is a very good thing for America, I regret having to reject that description outright. Particularly in the wake of the recent demonstrations, “for most intents and purposes Americans” and “assimilated into the American system” won't wash.

 

All that said, however, I would be willing to discuss the future status of these millions after our borders have been satisfactorily sealed. For sure, the guy who sneaked across last night isn’t “for all intents and purposes an American,” and neither will be the guys who sneak across tonight and tomorrow night. Once across, each is an illegal migrant. That isn’t spin; that isn’t “framing” to condition the debate; it’s fact, and their advocates are sticking their thumbs in our eyes.

 

Speaking of terms that are first hijacked and then become oxymoronic, what about “bilingual education?” There was a time many will remember when becoming educated included at least some progress toward becoming bilingual. Today, “bilingual education” is too often a euphemism for assigning Latino children with limited English proficiency (LEP) to classes separate from other students and conducted mostly or exclusively in Spanish.

 

As part of its becoming a state, New Mexico, where I live, entered into a Compact with the United States. The Compact is part of the state constitution and includes a requirement for public schools which “shall always be conducted in English.” The constitution also provides that "children of Spanish descent" not be “classed in separate schools.”

 

Guess what? New Mexico could be doing a better job for students AND be in compliance with its constitution by using English immersion to teach LEP Latino students. The only problem with that is it might reduce the extra dollars that flow to schools for bilingual education.

 

We all know what the Left thinks of anything standing in the way of arguments for more school money, regardless of impact on learning. Children and constitutions rank well behind priorities of those in charge of the almighty teachers' unions, a major and pernicious component of the Left.