Ed Brayton nails it, so I’ll just steal his stuff:
What’s Spanish for Hypocrisy?
Posted on: June 18, 2010 12:09 PM, by Ed Brayton
ThinkProgress highlights an amusing bit of hypocrisy from the Texas GOP, which put in their platform planks calling for the adoption of Arizona-style immigration legislation and for “American English” to be declared the official language of both Texas and the United States — if it’s good enough for Jesus, remember, it’s good enough for us — and then put out a video to attract Latinos to the GOP. In Spanish.
Reminds me of the luncheon for Republican candidates in Michigan a few months ago. When asked if we could make English the official language of the state, one of them began his reply by saying, “Clearly English is the lingua franca of America.”
What are the odds that the people in the ad are real Republicans and not hired actors? If they are real Republican, Texas voters, what are the odds they don’t stand out in a Republican crowd? (See an English version of a similar production here.)
Brayton gets a lot more traffic than I do — so the comments will be more numerous over there.
Texas Democrats convene this coming week, in Corpus Christi. At the Demo convention, it’s a real advantage to be able to speak Spanish. The Demo convention will be a gathering of many races, colors and creeds. The veterans honored will be, mostly, Democratic veterans. The Spanish-speaking people will be delegates and candidates. We’ll have fewer Obama-organized people this year than in 2008, but there will be a few thousand relatively newly-active delegates brought in by the Obama organization, which only increases Democratic diversity.
If there is a proposal to the platform committee to make English the official language of Texas, it will be voted down by, among others, Spanish-speaking delegates whose ancestors stood with Travis at the Alamo, and fought with Houston at San Jacinto, as grandchildren and great grandchildren of the original Spanish land grant recipients and descendants of the displaced-but-still-resident Aztecs.
The Democrats will look on people who speak Spanish as having an advantage in education over those of us who don’t speak it fluently, in the American tradition of education for advancement. Being able to speak Spanish is a mark of education, proof of the gathering of knowledge. Laws to prevent Spanish from being spoken are regressive anti-development, anti-commerce, racist, and anti-American.
Education and knowledge are good things. Being able to speak more than one language is a mark of an educated person. What in the world happened to the Republican Party in Texas?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
So, Lysander, you can knock off your fallacy of straw man argument.
You can sit there and pretend that english is so easy to learn that a person can do it quickly or you can deal with reality that no it isn’t but that you want to pretend it is because english is the language you speak.
Tell me..do you know enough about the Spanish language to know what makes it different then English? Have you tried learning a foreign language?
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You made a logical statement, Lysander? When?
Because your claim that hispanics were being treated as innocent victims by those opposing an “English only” thing sure wasn’t logical.
Because if it was logical you would acknowledge that you don’t learn a second language overnight and that until those people who can’t speak english learn english you have to communicate with them in some manner.
It wasn’t us who are treating the people who don’t speak english as victims..you were. In fact you were doing worse then that. You’re the one treating them as if they either don’t exist or simply don’t matter.
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I make logical statements and in response, I get political commentary
smattered with the usual fallacies. Actually, I’m a bit surprised as I
thought that this really might be a site that was more substance than
pretense, but alas, I was wrong. On with my search …
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If the Republicans were so concerned about the non English speaking immigrants learning English they’d support the programs necessary for them to learn English. But no they don’t. That’s “wasteful spending.”
And as for your contention your contention is silly. The only party that fears people having increased knowledge is the Republicans. We Democrats aren’t the ones opposing education, we aren’t the ones attacking education..we’re not the ones pretending that a religious belief should be taught as science.
Wow…hello strawman argument. Noone has said that they’re helpless victims or that they can’t learn english. But learning a different language takes time, lysander, and english is actually one of the hardest languages to learn especially when you’re an adult. So while they don’t know english and until they learn you and your fellow “english only” people have disenfranchised them.
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If a robber sticks up a guy and only takes $5.00, it’s easy to make the victim whole. That doesn’t justify the robbery.
In the same manner, however easy it is to counter an attempt to disenfranchise voters does not make that attempt legal, nor moral.
Perhaps the stones would cry out. But perhaps they’d cry out in Spanish, and so the Anglos would miss the good news.
Perhaps we should make Spanish the language of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. If it was good enough for the founders of the area, it’s good enough now, right?
Ironically, one of the grievances of the Texians in 1836 was the ordered imposition of an official language. Don’t look now, but Santayana’s ghost is laughing mightily.
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Excuse me for believing in logic and avoiding fallacies as a good foundation for civil debate. I assumed this site would be populated with like-minded people.
By the way, if I was a Spanish-only speaker living in Texas, I’d be insulted by the notion that I was a helpless victim with no recourse if the official language was declared to be English. It doesn’t require scholarly dedication to learn a second language, so if the goal is indeed to disenfranchise voters, It would be easy to counter. It’s my theory … no, my CONTENTION that both major political parties see increased knowledge of any kind as a threat.
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Oh forgot one thing, Lysander.
George W Bush got 40% of the hispanic vote in the 2004 election.
Hispanics now or will within the next 10-15 years be the largest ethnic group and then the majority in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California and the rest of the Southwest.
Considering what the Republicans keep on supporting..principally that white supremacist’s bills in Arizona..do you really think the Hispanics are going to vote republican this time?
The Republican party is becoming the party of the scared angry white redneck. It isn’t reaching out to Hispanics or any other minority. Sooner rather then later that pandering to the scared white vote, Lysander, is going to destroy the Republican party.
This whole anti-illegal immigrant thing is really just a front for a bunch of racist white people to cover their fear at suddenly not being the majority.
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No, the Texas GOP is not encouraging anyone to learn a second language. This is the tried and true path of voter disenfranchisement, and that is the chief thing the Texas GOP is working to do — stop Hispanics from voting.
While working so hard to disenfranchise Hispanic voters, especially by trying to get ballots and government documents in English only, how is it not hypocritical to do an ad in Spanish claiming to be the friend of Hispanics who speak Spanish? It’s a lie by commission, cynical, and it skirts violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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Lysander, having listened to more then my share of Texans of caucasian descent…I would more say its them who can’t speak English.
Anyways you say: “As an aside, the declaration of English as an “official language” is only applicable to official government transactions, especially documentation. Government agencies may employ bilingual speakers or even furnish translators.”
Which knowing Texas means that no government documents, records or such, will be printed in anything other then English. Yeah . . . its going to do so much acclimation of the nonenglish speaking community in Texas to remove from them any ability to know what the state government of Texas is saying or removing their ability to interact with said government. Because I’m quite sure that Governor Hairpiece is going to go on a spending binge to hire enough translators….
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I think it’s important NOT to make “knee-jerk” reactions to any position, simply because it comes from someone usually in opposition. The logic used by the Texas G.O.P. is actually correct.
1) The GOP advocates English as the “official” language
2) Bilingual skill is advantageous, especially in Texas.
3) Many in Texas do not speak English, and …
4) The Texas G.O.P. encourages them to learn English.
further …
5) Because the Texas G.O.P. knows that many Texas residents speak no English, it’s necessary to explain their position in Spanish.
How can this possibly be a case of “hypocrisy”?
As an aside, the declaration of English as an “official language” is only applicable to official government transactions, especially documentation. Government agencies may employ bilingual speakers or even furnish
translators. Any such law forces no one to speak English. It forces no one to REQUIRE anyone to speak English. Businesses and other private organizations could still retain whatever requirements they now have for private transactions.
I don’t support such declarations, but I also don’t support subsidies for those who choose to be mono-linguistic. Each individual should be free to decide whether it’s advantageous to speak more than one language and that choice shouldn’t be influenced by government action of any kind.
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Meanwhile, out here on the temporarily non-oily coast, Meg Whitman, retired executive who when working was too busy to vote, has finished the game of Race to the Bottom with one Steve Poizner, former insurance commissioner. She won, and will now be the candidate for governor, so it’s time for her to stop hating the immigrants and start buying campaign ads in Spanish. With the full history of California Republican Latino-bashing of the Republicans behind her. But, you know, those Mexicans ain’t too bright. Oddly enough, a Democrat is talking like a Democrat:
“Whitman is mistaken if she believes a Spanish-language advertising buy is going to gloss over the fact that together with her mentor, Pete Wilson, and her rival, Steve Poizner, she engaged in the greatest Republican Party anti-immigrant hate-fest this side of the California-Arizona border,” said Tenoch Flores, communications director for the California Democratic Party.
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I see that President Barack Obama wants everyone to learn a foreign language, but which one should it be? The British learn French, the Australians study Japanese, and the Americans prefer Spanish.
Yet this leaves Mandarin Chinese and Hindi out of the equation. As a native English speaker, I would prefer Esperanto :)
Detail can be seen at http://www.lernu.net . Alternatively see http://eurotalk.com/en/store/learn/esperanto
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Yes – Spanish and Chinese are the languages to learn now. It’ll suck for the Republicans if they get a loan payment bill all in Chinese someday with the direction our economies are heading :)
On the other hand, it’s funny/scary how the Republicans don’t seem like they want to be upstaged. In the modified words of Jon Stewart:
“NOBODY’S allowed to be crazy with Texas around!”
When I see legislation like this, I’m glad to be moving abroad. Less idiocy!
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If you look at the foreign language course offerings lately, Spanish has become the new French.
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