This gift from France has ENGLISH WRITING on her pedestal.
It may not be the best English in the world, but it IS English.
How about this line:
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips.
See for yourself.
You want to take this literally, from somebody who can't spell "tossed?"
Is it so surprising that the anti-immigrant bunch (xenophobes, to use a DICTIONARY word) also take this thing literally? They ask why America wants to import human garbage. Worthless human garbage. THat's what "wretched refuse" means, doesn't it?"
Nowhere does it say:
"Bring me people who WON'T SPEAK ENGLISH."
Hell, the broad isn't even saying "Bring me people who CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH."
I have no idea if Grandfather spoke much English when he arrived in America, or if he could even say "The Statue of Liberty" when he saw it in the harbor. But, he learned fast. So have immigrants of every race and nationality — UP TILL NOW.
Back then, the punishment for not learning the language was that you didn't get food stamps and welfare and free lodging. You remained one of the huddled masses in a tenement. If you were lucky, somebody in the family could translate for you, and you got by with your limited English. In a factory all you needed to know were a few key words.
Mostly, immigrants were grateful to be in America, the land of opportunity. Mostly, immigrants came not out of greed, but because their beloved homeland was experiencing a famine, or some bunch of fanatics had taken over the government and were killing certain ethnics. And so the Jews came. And the Irish came. And everybody came.
The funny ways of immigrants were greeted with laughter, but it was generally gentle. People laughed at "Cohen on the Telephone" and the 78rpm antics of Irish, Scottish, German, "Negro," and even hillbilly dialect comedians (such as Uncle Josh). Often the immigrants laughed the loudest. At worst, they assimilated a bit quicker, and lost the accents.
At best, they made their accents part of their charm. You might remember some charming Irish girl singing in her brogue, "Sure we're Irish, and proud of it too!"
What united everyone was a pride in the United States, and a love of the English language, the language of Shakespeare.
What compares to English? Almost NOTHING.
French is the language of love. Italian is the language of opera. Greek is the venerable language of some of our earliest poets and playwrights. Funny, all over the world, people choose English as a second language. Go to any country, and you'll have no trouble finding somebody who speaks English, maybe even better than you do.
In America? Not so much.
This was brought home to me, yet again, not by picking up the phone and being told to "press one to continue in English or numero dos para Espanol," but by seeing several useless wastes of paper letting me know that the government is more than willing to have a translator help me out if I can't read my health document, my voting document, my ANYTHING document:
Yes, quite a few trees were destroyed just because a whole bunch of people DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH.
What's the excuse? In the old days, some people had a very real one: they were going to be killed if they didn't get as far away from the Nazis or the Pogroms as possible.
They were sensible and smart: they began to learn English as soon as they learned of a train to a boat to take them to America. They certainly knew that to be in a country and NOT know the language is a sign of ingratitude.
Can you imagine sitting your ass on a plane for South Korea, China, Germany or Brazil, and expecting your new home to provide you with documents in English, translations for any and all documents, and other amenities?
Xenophobes will tell you America is FULL. We have NO MORE ROOM. This is true. It's full of morons. It's full of over-breeding obnoxious Americans, many of whom can't speak English too darn good, know what I'm saying?
Xenophobes simply do not like foreigners. Most seem to find the excuse that their ancestors came from England. If not, well, there were "good" immigrants back then, and today, ones that will blow up the Boston Marathon.
My point of view is you're welcome here if you speak ENGLISH and can fend for yourself. If your situation is truly dire, ok, there IS such a thing as charity. But how long should I wait before you've got a job and YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?
Why am I getting documents such as the above, bending over backwards for every lazy, arrogant, self-entitled greed-head who wants a piece of the apple pie? And some are going to be clannish and never speak the language? Or a tad rude, and start shooting ten, or fifty in California or Florida because they'd rather the country was only full of people just like THEM?
It's expensive and ridiculous for the government to automatically send ME several extra pages of documents in foreign languages. It's insulting that voting booklets about the candidates are automatically DOUBLE in size because a huge amount of Latinos in this country won't speak English. WON'T. Not CAN'T. They WON'T. They don't have to. They can even tune into sporting events and get simultaneous translations on the SAP channel. The country is almost bilingual now, and that's MUY LOCO.
Ever been to Montreal? It's charming for a day or two, then a damn headache. Everywhere you go, on the bus, on the train, in the store...everything is repeated in both French and English. The excuse is there's almost always been a lot of French speakers and English speakers. That's not the excuse in America, where the Spanish speakers simply grew to a majority big enough to get their own way.
What next? Signs everywhere in Arabic? In Russian, perhaps? There comes a point where you say, in English, RESPECT ME. No translation.
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