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June 10, 2004

One Nation, Debajo de Dios

And where we speaky the Engrish, damnit! (says Michelle Malkin)

Two politicians in Maryland are now in trouble for stating the obvious: People who work in customer service should speak English.

No, they shouldn't.

Correction: they should, if the person calling speaks English. If the person calling speaks Spanish, a business-person who wants that customer's business should hire a Spanish-speaking customer service agent, or just have the English-speaking ones talk slowly and add an "o" to every word.

And out-of-control multiculturalism is to blame for the failure to preserve America's common language.

"Failure to preserve America's common language?"

Well, goodness, this would certainly explain why when I went to work today, went to Arby's, picked up some groceries, and said hello to someone on the street, every single one of them looked at me with confusion in their eyes and then babbled at me in an alien tongue. It's so clear - no one speaks English anymore!

¿Dónde está la casa de Pepe? La casa de Pepe está allá.

It all started a few weeks ago when former Gov. William Donald Schaefer walked into a McDonald's restaurant he had frequented regularly for years...After encountering difficulty with a newly hired worker with poor English skills, he quit going to the restaurant out of frustration. "I don't want to adjust to another language," he declared publicly. "This is the United States. I think they should adjust to us."

And love it or leave it while you're at it. Oh, and "nanny nanny boo boo" on top of that.

Here's the solution - it's so obvious that even Gov. Schaefer was able to pluck it from within the confines of his apparently sloped brow:

Don't go to that McDonald's.

Vote with your dollars. Write a letter. Picket on the sidewalk and yell at those wetbacks that they damn well better learn to speak like you so you get your Big Mac just the way you like it.

But keep the law out of it.

Who hasn't had an exasperating experience like Schaefer's? In my neighborhood, I've run into English-challenged McDonald's workers who can barely muster a "Hi," a "Welcome" or even a grunt acknowledging my existence while they fiddle with their dumbed-down cash registers.

And I've walked into a McDonald's full of middle-class white kids on summer break who can barely muster a "Hi," a "Welcome" or even a grunt acknowledging my existence.

Maybe we should legislate kindess and courtesy and happy smiles while we're at it (of course, political extremists on either end of the spectrum would soon find themselves out of work). Hey, maybe Michelle could then man the counter at Mickey D's and show them how we do things in America! Yeehaw!

I expect my order to be wrong when I pick it up at the drive-through window, and I never bother going back to get it fixed.

Then you are both a pessimist and a stupid consumer. Don't blame McDonald's for your own lack of action. Isn't the right-wing supposed to be all about personal accountability - and yet now it's some poor Mexican immigrant's fault that Michelle didn't get a Biggie Fry in the end.

Don't think so. Boo hoo hoo.

At a Michael's craft store last week, I asked an employee (loitering listlessly in the scrapbooking aisle)...

Implied: Them thar Mexicans is lazy!

...where the fabrics were. "Fah-brics?" I repeated slowly and gestured fruitlessly, drawing a rectangle in the air with my index fingers. She shook her head in horror and mumbled: "No understand." Oh, silly me.

Well, duh, you didn't say "Fah-bric-os." Dumb chink.*

At my local Wal-Mart, nationwide employer of workers of dubious immigration status, I listened as a checkout lady from Africa blabbed endlessly in her native language to two visitors hanging out by her station...

(WWR note: insert pointless whining here please while neglecting to mention one's miraculous ability to choose to shop elsewhere - to write letters - yada yada)

Whatever happened to "Thank you, please come again"?

Michelle, we're men - just once and we're ready for nappy time.

Asked about Schaefer's commentary, and what an arctic blast of fresh air it was, Gov. Ehrlich provided full-throated support. "I reject the idea of multiculturalism," Ehrlich told WBAL host Ron Smith. "Once you get into this multicultural crap, this bunk that some folks are teaching in our college campuses and other places, you run into a problem. With respect to this culture, English is the language."

You will be assimilated. Let's outlaw any language other than English, anywhere, at any time, in the United States. Under threat of punishment by death. Why, if those damn fur'ners can't get us the right size of Soft-Serve Cone, let's teach'em a thing or two 'bout how we do things in the goddamn United States of America!

Ooh, maybe Toby Keith can write a song to accompany the death squads!

And it is under increasing assault. In the classroom.

I'm all in favor of English immersion classes for students. Requirements for government-sponsored education are a far cry from telling Joe Smith who owns the local bagel shop that he cannot cater to his customers as he sees fit.

At the ATM machine.

Oh, poor Michelle, I suppose it might be a pain when she has to break out her abacus** when presented with more than one option on a screen.

And on the phone (pet peeve: "For English, please press '1'").

I've yet to hear it ever say first off "Para el español...;" so, Michelle, just go ahead and hit "1" rather than listening to the menu and allowing your hatred of foreigners to be fueled by something so minor. Perhaps if there was some legislated standard for IVR menus that could guarantee that "1" would always be for English... hmmm... just make sure the IVR isn't built in Japan, or the instructions might have all those funny drawings of slashes and such on the back! Oh, sure, the Japanese call it writing, but Michelle calls it gobbledy-gook (which is not to say that she thinks Japanese people are actually North Vietnamese, although with the slanty-eyes and failure to speak the Queen's English, it's probably all the same to her).

The difference between past and present immigration experience is the existence of a defiant anti-assimilationist lobby that encourages legal and illegal aliens to resist adapting to the American way of life.

So far, the "American way of life" seems to amount to "speaking English." If that is the depth of our culture, I'd say we don't have much of one. Perhaps we should have re-education camps where we teach the little brown people to love baseball, apple pie, Chevrolet, and their mothers.

Look at our voting booths, where local and state election officials across the country are being forced to provide foreign-language ballots, bilingual poll workers and voting materials to non-English-speaking people.

OK, and equating what private companies wish to do in order to cater to customers (or to lose them, as the case may be) is equivalent to the government's role how?

In March, the Bush administration ordered Harris County, Texas, to provide all voter registration and election information and supplies, including the voting machine ballot, in Vietnamese as well as English and Spanish. So absurd is the drive to protect the rights of "minority-language citizens" that the little town of Briny Breezes, Fla., was required to publish election notices in Spanish -- even though everyone there speaks English.

Again, this is not comparable to your Big Mac getting screwed up. If you equate getting your daily dose of dead cow with your right to vote, then - well - you're a complete imbecile.

The language-Balkanizers naturally attack their opponents as racists and immigrant-haters.

Why would they do that? I mean, what with the "love it or leave it" and "lazy wetbacks" diatribe, where would they get that idea?

Jorge Ribas, a Hispanic activist, likened Gov. Ehrlich to Adolf Hitler and Gov. George Wallace.

All this tells me is that all sides of a debate have their share of idiots. You're just the idiot on the other side, Michelle.

Most politicians would crumple in fear and start singing "Kumbaya." But both Ehrlich and Schaefer have refused to retract their remarks.

Freedom of speech - it's a wonderful thing. Especially when you're free to speak in the language of your choice.

Also, "Kumbaya" is a no-no, since it's not proper English, but an African-English pidgin. We must move to outlaw it immediately!

Befuddled professors and reporters view the controversy as some kind of calculated political maneuver by Ehrlich, instead of a rare outbreak of common sense.

Right. Because politicians never pander. Never.

We could use more of it. Plainspoken English is an effective antidote to muddled multiculturalism.

No, plainspoken English is an effective way to get me to do business with you. If you choose not to offer that, there is always someone else who will.

I think clear thought and intelligent commentary are precious things - it's for that very reason I'd never pay a cent for anything that Townhall.com publishes.

Let's not overlook the greatest irony in all this - Michelle is the daughter of Filipino immigrants. I wonder how proper their English was when they landed on our shores, and how they might have fared if they couldn't get a job because they didn't speaky the Engrish so good.

Give me your tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

You can get this post in Spanish, German, and French as well, because we love all you people who don't speak like a proper American.

Update: see satire.

* Lighten up. It's a contrast to the clear racism in Ms. Malkin's column. Yes, I know she's of Filipino descent, but I couldn't think up a readily identifiable slur for them.

** While the abacus has a history not just found in the East, I once again decided to take the low road and mock Ms. Malkin's heritage (or near to it as I could come) as payback for her idiotic column.