Update (6:08 p.m.): I just realized this post is very similar to the second half of Roger Clegg’s article, which I read only 10 minutes ago. I admit to reading only the first half before I published this post, so the similarities are coincidental, in a way. Since conservatives tend to see through special interest props and racial group entitlements like Section 203, we tend to hold the same opinions about them and express those opinions in a similar way.
Update II (7/1): I can’t wait to read this series. 
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I have a feeling the average person doesn’t really care about maintaining a cohesive nation. By that I mean borders, language, and culture, a refrain uttered often by Michael Savage, one of my favorite radio talk show hosts. (I was on his show a couple of years ago.)
Come election time, the average American will vote for the party that closely matches his beliefs and interests. The rest of the time he couldn’t care less that his country is becoming a balkanized, socialistic, and indebted mess, or that his fundamental rights as an American citizen are rapidly diminishing, as long as his TiVo is working.
He probably doesn’t care that some liberal columnist misrepresents the intent of the Voting Rights Act and compares its nonrenewal — because of a bilingual ballots provision— to southern Democrats making up requirements to keep blacks from voting.
It seems like only yesterday when I was agreeing with Earl Ofari Hutchinson, left-leaning journalist. His column about blacks holding themselves to higher standards reminded me of the old-school “working twice as hard” axiom that blacks in my generation and older heard growing up. Now he’s back on the usual liberal warpath, accusing Republicans of pandering to white voters by delaying a vote to renew the Voter Rights Act of 1965.
As Hutchinson very well knows, there’s a big difference between requiring literacy tests and poll taxes, as the South once did, to prevent illiterate and poorly educated and economically poor blacks from voting and requiring non-native English speakers in America to use English-language ballots to vote for American politicians. Maintaining one official language and requiring would-be Americans to speak that language is in the interest of all Americans, not a ploy to race-bait white people.
I’m surprised Hutchinson didn’t imply that blacks are in jeopardy of losing the right to vote, as some ignorant people believe, or that common sense ID requirements are as “racist” as literacy tests and poll taxes of the pre-Civil Rights era.
While taking a broad walk down memory lane, Hutchinson writes very little about the bilingual ballots provision. So I will. The Voting Rights Act isn’t and was never intended to be a mechanism for catering to the demands of special interest groups. The Act was put in place to prevent states from keeping blacks or any other race from the ballot box on account of race.
Non-English speaking immigrants who want to become American citizens usually learn the language, as required to become an American. Over the past two decades, however, an influx of illegal aliens jumping the southern border has changed the dynamic. These “immigrants” aren’t here to become citizens, don’t want to become citizens or accept the responsibilities being citizens entail. They want the freedom to remain in the U.S. and enjoy its benefits. Period. They seek residency, not citizenship. Foreigners who want to become Americans learn to speak the language of Americans.
Voting ballots are printed in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and a few languages, but why stop with those? Why not print ballots in all known languages? That’s ridiculous, right? In my opinion, it’s equally ridiculous that ballots for American elections are available in languages other than English.
The veil of doubletalk and deceit is lifted. In order to vote, you must be an American citizen. If you are a naturalized citizen, knowing English was a requirement for your citizenship. So who, exactly, is going to the polls to vote and can’t speak English? If you’re a rocket surgeon, good for you, but the least educated and honest among us can answer the question correctly.
Hispanic special interest groups, like most ethnicity-based interest groups, want as much power for their group as it can get. That’s instinctual, part of human nature. One way to obtain power is through voting. Hispanic “rights” groups are well aware that George Bush and his executive branch will not enforce immigration law and that millions of illegal aliens will not be deported. Looking out for they’re best interests, these groups want to register as many Spanish-speaking illegal aliens as possible.
Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, lays out four reasons why the foreign language provision of the Voting Rights Act is bad law. From National Review Online:
- The federal government should be encouraging assimilation, not discouraging it.
- The proliferation of foreign-language ballots facilitates voter fraud.
- Because few citizens need foreign-language ballots, the requirement that, nonetheless, such materials be printed is a waste of taxpayers’ money.
- Section 203 is unconstitutional.
Emphasis added. To get the facts, read Clegg’s column. (Also see this post on the diff. between black liberals/conservatives.) To learn how to appeal to the Civil Rights struggle in order to vilify Republicans who oppose voter ballots in languages other than English, read Hutchinson’s column. For what it’s worth, here’s a government-created FAQ on the Voting Rights Act and a report called Minority Language Citizens (PDF). Also see Star Parker’s Voting Rights Act is no panacea.
I know America’s founders couldn’t foresee and probably didn’t intend for my black self to vote or even be a citizen of this great country, but I am. A nation preaching freedom and individual rights had little moral or legal choice but to give black Americans their due. The same doesn’t apply to people who don’t speak the language of the country. The founders also never imagined that Americans, naturalized or native, would have the option — the right — to vote in languages other than English.
People who don’t give a rat’s behind about what’s going on in the country might be on to something, living life with little regard for politics and pedantic discussions about “liberty” “equality under the law,” “states rights,” and “common culture.” I wish I shared your apathy. Life would a lot easier.
Blogger Ed Morrissey wrote a great post about common culture.
Frequent commenter Shade writes:
I don’t think that it is so much that people don’t care. Many people simply don’t know what else to do. To most people, the vote is all they feel they have. Packing up and patrolling the border with a group of others is an extreme measure that most people won’t or simply can’t do. People all around the country express their feelings all over the net and participate in polls given by CNN and others. They write their congressmen. When all of these things meet deaf ears what else is there for the ordinary citizen to do? The average American citizen is accustomed to societal stability and is not very motivated to participate in civil unrest.
Commenter and blogger Glamchild writes:
I’ve finally figured it out. I get it. It took me awhile…What Michael Savage and Ann Coulter both do….is stir up passion.
Nobody is passionate about anything anymore. Nothing moves anybody, so we have Michael Savage and Ann Coulter to try to get your attention. And, whether they are getting positive, or negative attention really doesn’t matter…The point is, it’s nice to know Americans can be stirred, and moved by something.
I can’t speak for Savage or Coulter, but stirring up passions is one of the reasons I write. I’m passionate about certain ideas, and I want to reach readers who are just as passionate.
