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You are excused, Wally. Actually it would be cool to have a helot or at least a dweller around.Willy D
Scout:Who on earth would want to prevent a child from learning English and for what purpose--wage slavery, helotism?I could not disagree more about the intent of bi-lingual education is to deny English. As I interpret it--it is merely their view to spare the child the harsh rigors of the bruising battle with vocabulary and grammar. Their method is, however, questionable.As I opined earlier this is a Chimera. The kids will get it despite the efforts of people who, in wanting toswaddle them in comfort, may in fact be doing them harm.My family had an old tradition for teaching young kids to swim which was always terrifying, but usually worked. They took you out one Sunday summer day, walked you out on a grain elevator pier and threw you in the water. Everyone in my family could swim. Again, we seem to agree--sort of.
So according to your definition, if we decide we no longer want to pay Argentina high prices for beef, we are fully justified to warn them that unless they lower prices we will loose hell upon them and make them our latter-day helots?
Wally:What on earth are you eating that has made you so dispeptic?Although I agree that our little brown brothers from south of the border (I have a whole nest of the in Mexico city) come here to make money to send home and do not bring their families may be deficient in English. I could argue that they are the hired muscle for jobs that are too difficult or too unattractivefor Americans to do. I have worked the Mexican border for many years and as you may be aware the Mexicans are among the hardest working people on the face of the earth.I think Scout's concern was families not just guys. The parents may intend to return in those cases, but the kids, once exposed to the riches of our culture (sic) are a different matter.I do agree with you about the putative policy in Germany. Whenever I hear language and deportation vis a vis Germany, I reach for my Browning (stolen quote, slightly altered).
Check–same reason I avoid Fox News–no connection to reality (I have been told) Although never in combat I was shot at and stabbed –very intense.
Thank you for the excellent statistics–most informative.My niece dates a black guy--she has several boyfriends--and according to her the black lad saidthat in neighborhood (and it is a very bad one) some local males and females enlist in the services foreducational and economic betterment, but patriotism as we would define it was not a factor. He also allowed that the best career move for a young, uneducated and undisciplined black male, especially onewho had had a run-in with the law--was to get involved with a local gang. There are many of these here and they are into robbery, gun sales, drugs and all sorts of nefarious activities. I am sure you areaware of these types and it is unfortunate they cannot be used by the military as they are, in many cases brave, fearless and Alpha males personified.Service in some areas of the country is a tradition even when there was no draft. Have you ever read HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones? This idea is explored as is the 20 year career army man's ethos.
No No No What I say is that you are making a problem much bigger than it is. We are all thechildren of immigrants. You are upset about bi-lingual education--forget about it. Have confidence in History. Kids learn English on the street effortlessly--without homework. They do so because they have to and because they want to. The days of ethnic isolation in America are over and pockets will exist or spring up as new groups arrive--but they are short -termers--they will wither away. The number of youngpeople who are forced or choose to linguistically isolate themselves would seem to be very small indeed. A new arrival from Guatemala may never learn correct English, but we know his kids will and they willlearn it in the playground--not the classroom. Most people who speak English as a native language could not tell you what the subjunctive imperfect tense was if you offered them an apple streudel.See--we agree in principle.
Willy, the big difference between you and I is that you apparently shrug your shoulders and say it cannot be changed so must be accepted and I do not. I don't have a problem with immigrants, I am the child of one(my mother). I have a problem with immigrants that come and demand I change for their benefit. I live in Germany and speak German, I don't demand that Germans speak English for me. That is the crux of what I am trying to get at.Immigration is part of what made America great, but if immigrants stay isolated because of language differences they foster weakness instead of strength. That is the main reason I oppose bilingual education. It may fade away as you say but what about the kids that don't learn English because they were not forced to out of some desire to foster "diversity"? Are they not going to be at a disadvantage later if the pendulum does indeed swing the other way? There will be lots of disadvantaged people sacrificed to this left-wing ideal who will be stuck on the fringes of society because of a misguided ideal. If they want to speak Spanish stay in Mexico, or Guatemala. If you live in America learn English; it really is that simple. Nobody is advocating they jettison their culture, just that try to fit into our society while retaining their culture as well.? Last Edit: Today at 01:14:48 PM by scout1067 ? Report to moderator Logged
Now you are being sulky. I understand. I have never watched FOX news. I am afraid of the ghosts of my parents if they found out.
Wally:Societal norms evolve quite rapidly. Consider this. When I was a young man a girl having a child out of wedlock was disgraced as was her whole family and the child was branded for life.Today--well you know. When I was a young man only service men and strumpets got tattoos. Today--well you know.When I was a young man TV was as clean as a hound's tooth. Today--well you know.
I dont take offense at your attitude, you are misinformed. The enlisted and officer ranks come from all strata of society. The best way to describe them would be those who come from families that still value service, that cuts across all financial and educational lines. That essentially means that the vast majority of people like myself(lifers) come from families with a military tradition. Most first-termers come in to get out of the house and have some adventure while getting paid and generally make good soldiers. You would be surprised at how many enlisted types have degrees, plenty even upon enlisting. College does not necessarily mean someone is bound for officer country anymore.The problem with conscription is that we cannot use the vast mass of idiots that barely graduate high school as anything more than cannon fodder and that barely. Even the lowly infantry require a pretty good level of intelligence and technical know-how in today's army. To be honest, I would rather have fewer, more competent soldiers than more, who are just bullet magnets anyway. The volunteer ethos makes our army one of the best in the world, if we are mercenary as well, so be it. As long as there are folks willing to stand and fight so others don't have to, we don't need or require a draft. A draft will just increase the body count, not the effectiveness of our military.Report to moderator LoggedI have heard this argument before and I agree that there are people in both levels from all sections of society and with varied educational backgrounds. I have also heard about the necessity to have youngmen who can deal with the technical aspects of warfare. I agree. My good friend explained to me that when he was drafted during the Vietnam conflict, he decided to get into the Rangers because as he put it " I want the guy next to me to be as concerned about saving my life as I am--a guy I can count on."Your post would seem to suggest that patriotism and family tradition are elements that make a "lifer" and this may well be true. Does it seem to you that there are fewer and fewer people who fitthis category or is it fairly constant? You also seem to have an "elitist" or perhaps a "lifers" view of theyoung citizens who are " a vast mass of idiots". This is a Praetorian view and in my opinion not ahealthy or democratic one. The next step is to say that those who are not willing to defend their country are not patriotic, not true Americans, somehow not as good as the defenders of our freedoms. You can see where this could lead. To reiterate--I believe it is the duty of all Americans to defend their nation.How this could be done with the concerns you have for a quality military will have to be addressed by persons better informed and wiser than myself. When I was in the Navy, the most conservative andtraditional of the services, I spoke to officers very infrequently. They acted and were treated as though they were nobles and we were peasants. They ate different food, wore better uniforms, had muchbetter quarters and were paid a lot more. This was not a problem as I had a great job and little contactwith them, but i did find it ironic that my ancestors who used to kill nobles and make revolutions in the name of freedom and equality had a descendent who was part of an organization that seemed toreplicate the same structure--even down to the horses. Most EM's come from where I said in the originalpost. I think I will try to see what zip codes produce most of the volunteers for the services---bet Texas is near the top.Thanks for your tolerance.WillyD
So–it appears we agree on much. My confidence is born of optimism which often prevents a realistic appraisal of a situation–you Know–rose colored glasses. I agree about the language, but appreciate thedifficulty and reluctance of older people to embrace a new one. Oftimes it is very hard. Fromexperience I know that sometimes it is just impossible to get your mouth parts in the right place to make the right sounds and then there is the comfort factor; we don't like people to laugh at us. My wife doesGerman and I do a couple other languages and we all know certain words and syntactical oddities than defy our efforts to produce them smoothly use them with panache.Your comment about customs is interesting and I am of two minds about it--the Liberal curse. To me,female circumcision is horrible to contemplate, but I understand the cultural imperative that wouldlead a society to adopt such a practice. To a father raised in a Moslem county, the purity of his daughter is more than just a religious concern as it deals with is duty as the family head and his honor as a man. In some ways it is akin to an old Italian practice whereby a man, who was unfortunate enough to havea wife who cheated on him, was expected to kill the other man to maintain his honor. If he did not doso, the men of the village held him in contempt and made his life miserable. Obviously we cannot havethis sort of thing happening here, but you can see how it might cause mental anguish for the wrongedhusband.One final example and I will get off this. I am very glad I did not live in Europe when dueling was commonplace. The thought that I would have to defend myself from a guy who wished to stick a big blade in me because of some imagined insult is most discomforting. Yet--that was the custom and if Idid not follow the script I would be dishonored.I was going to mention American Indian practices--to them we are the immigrants and the Mormons present an interesting home grown deviation from the marriage norms, but you get the idea. I seeit is 10:30 and in my middle class household that means it is time to eat--it is our custom.Guten TagWILLYD
I saw it and thought it was wonderful (I have never been in combat). Critics have said it is wrong to depict war as a drug for some people. They have not read John Hershey's THE WAR LOVER about an 8th Air Force pilot bombing Germany. It was later made into a movie starring Steve McQueen.I do not know about the accuracy of the film, but is was riveting. Some years ago the Brits had a seriesabout bomb squads in WWII called, I think, Danger USB.
