USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by diogeron

Did you actually listen to the clip or just cut and paste? Nowhere does Obama say anything about opposing English as an official language. If you can find it, quote it here and post it here. We'll all await the post where Obama says what you said he said or, better yet, people can listen themselves and make up their own minds. Of course, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, "who you gonna believe, me or your lying ears."
As the late Senator Pat Monyihan used to say, "You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts." Any fair minded person who listens to what Obama actually says rather than buy the "spin" from the Right Wing web site either doesn't understand English themselves all that well or doesn't really care about what he said. I suspect the latter is in play, the same way all those people who just pass along viral e-mails without reading or vetting them do.

Uh...I was posting it because I thought it was the perfect example of Steve's point about fear mongering and xenophobia.

[SunKneeMarie]

Around here, in order to graduate from a public high school, kids take spanish in elementary school and are required to take a minimum of 2 years of a foreign language in high school. 3 years in our district if they want to earn the Distinguished Program degree. Not sure how fluent that makes them, as like any other subject, retention is up to the course taker... but the requirement to learn a language is already there... before Obama ever got to their kids....

Maybe I'm missing the "fear" parents have about their kids learning a language...??

[diogeron]

Obama makes a great point. You can pass a law making English the official language all you want, but anyone with a cursory understanding of how language works, knows that isn't the point. Immigrants need to learn English, as Obama says in the clip. The flip side is that it advantages Americans to learn other languages to help us compete in the 21st century.

For the record, Obama doesn't say he opposes making English a second language, rather he says, correctly, that it's irrelevant (an ineffective) except to appease the Lou Dobbs xenophobics and anti-immigrant crowd that has always been part and parcel of our history, as anyone remotely familiar with American history can attest.[
My wife, an attorney, tells me that the laws that established the state of Indiana, where we live, were written in both German and English because of the number of German immigrants in Indiana. My aunt, now in her 80s, tells me that the German Catholic Church, St. Mary's, had sermons in German well into the 1930s. Since most of the Germans in Indiana arrived in the 1850s and subsequent decades, they had been here long enough to "learn English." So much for the fast assimilations of all other immigrant groups, except the Spanish speaking population.
quote=Los Sigmanes;1150481]Accusations of being 'Out of touch' or a 'Flip-flopper' are well-worn by both parties. If you want to see the importance of knowing Spanish, come to Houston. It matters not what the 'official' language is when you need to be understood. Some find this fact disturbing, believing that all Americans must speak English. The fact remains that the population in this city is becoming more Hispanic, and not only because of immigration, but the simple difference in birth rate also.[/quote]

[ryberg]

There are actually some ways in which it might be relevant. Linguist Geoffrey Pullum point out in a well known (in linguistic circles, at least) set of essays that making English the official language of whatever states or the nation is about the last thing that those who want to ensure and protect the status orthe language should push for, since it then sets a precedent for a majority establishing an official language, and tlwhen the demographics change, the majority can change, and they can then make something other than English the new official language. (His point was specifically in reference to CA and the demographic trends involvng Spanish speakers there but the point is generalizable.)

Think this has ever occurred to people pushing for such legislation?

Steve

[SunKneeMarie]

Originally Posted by melliedee

Uh...I was posting it because I thought it was the perfect example of Steve's point about fear mongering and xenophobia.

I got that you were posting it as an article that quoted someone else as saying Obama was opposing english as a 2nd language... as an example of someone misquoting him and twisting it....

[ryberg]

The up sides of Obama's tack to the center (sorry -- centre!) from The Economist:

New and improved
The only problem with Barack Obama’s move to the centre is that he’s not moving far enough

This [hand wringing] is all overstated. Mr Obama was always clear that he was running for the presidency of the United States, not the chairmanship of MoveOn.org. He has repeatedly presented himself as a post-partisan problem-solver who wants to work with Republicans as well as Democrats. His enthusiasm for “faith-based” social services is long held. Even on the issue that first endeared him to the left—the Iraq war—he made it abundantly clear that he was opposed to that particular war, not to the exercise of American power...

Mr Obama’s flip-flop on public finance is certainly cynical (and his willingness to justify it as an act of high principle even more so). But polls suggest that Americans are happy with a certain amount of flip-flopping: Mr Bush has all but destroyed the market in stubborn consistency. And Mr Obama’s hard-edged cynicism also helps to quell one of the biggest doubts about his candidacy—that he is too naive and soft-minded to hold the most powerful job in the world.

Mr Obama is capitalising not only on his huge fund-raising advantage over Mr McCain but also on his rival’s problems with his base. He is occupying the middle ground in order to reassure white voters that he shares their values. This is no airy-fairy liberal who is going to allow himself to be pushed around by Middle Eastern despots. This is a shrewd opportunist at work.

The vital question is not whether Mr Obama is changing his positions but whether he is changing them for better or worse. Here the picture is largely positive. His new-found enthusiasm for NAFTA and free trade could help to avert a prosperity-destroying drift to protectionism. Indeed, his chief economics adviser, Jason Furman, sounds like the very model of good sense. Mr Obama’s willingness to support wiretapping in certain circumstances suggests that he is trying to strike a balance between security and privacy in what he calls a “dangerous world”: the policy challenge is not to pursue vendettas against the Bush administration but to find a reasonable set of rules to govern surveillance. His repositioning on the Iraq war represents a recognition that the situation on the ground in Iraq has changed dramatically.

If there is a problem with all this repositioning, it is that it is not going far enough for most American moderates...

See, me, I like all that bolded stuff, there, actually... And as they point out, from the word go, Obama has focused on the need for bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle and real respect and dialogue and compromise.

So when I say people seem to have been reading into him whatever they wanted to see in him, well MoveOn types might be first in line, you know. I mean, it's not like he made a secret of that bipartisanship drive he has -- it has always been in fact a core principle of his entire approach. Did the folks who are complaining now about feeling betrayed just not pay attention, or did they think he was just joking around on that stuff all that time, or what? And if they did think he was just saying such stuff for political gain, well then why did they decide to support him in the first place? Did they ignore what he was saying and instead just swallow hook, line & sinker that hokey conservative Kool-Aid that claims that he's the most liberal guy in the Senate?

Steve

[sctx]

Originally Posted by SunKneeMarie

Around here, in order to graduate from a public high school, kids take spanish in elementary school and are required to take a minimum of 2 years of a foreign language in high school. 3 years in our district if they want to earn the Distinguished Program degree. Not sure how fluent that makes them, as like any other subject, retention is up to the course taker... but the requirement to learn a language is already there... before Obama ever got to their kids....

Maybe I'm missing the "fear" parents have about their kids learning a language...??

yep, learned how to count to one hundred and knew most of the fruit/vegetables and other basic words in second grade..... Spanish, German, or French was required in 2nd grade and there weren't alot of Germans or Frenchies around so Spanish class was a no brainer for me...... then we moved to Oklahoma and I had to learn how to speak Okie......so I was almost tri-lingual by the time I was 9 ....... second language classes were not required at all in Oklahoma or Kansas

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by SunKneeMarie

Maybe I'm missing the "fear" parents have about their kids learning a language...??

You're not seeing that they even have such a fear? Because if that's what you mean, I'd give you the same suggestion I gave Melliedee and say just go out there on the Internet and look at some of the responses.

But if you mean you're not seeing why they'd have such a fear, well, I'm with ya...

Steve

[ryberg]

Heh, heh: clumsy Bush and hapless McCain, it seems...

"The respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported this week that a member of the Bush delegation approached [German Chancellor] Merkel's foreign policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen, at the G-8 summit in Japan to discuss misgivings about Obama's planned speech [at the Brandenburg Gate later this month]." [source]

For being such a tough guy, McCain can't fight his own election battles?

And is the Bush administration giving him backdoor help elsewhere, overseas?

Steve

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by beerbreath

Horizon,I will steal and adjust a line from Ronald Reagan,and I think you will be hearing it one of the upcoming debates.

Are you better off today,than you were 8 years ago?
If you are you may want to go with McCain,if not maybe you should go for Obama.

Originally Posted by ryberg

Not at all. I'm remarking that your philosophy there would seem to rule out the acceptability of a candidate making valid criticisms of some of his opponent's even more outrageous claims. That does not seem like a good idea, to me.

Steve

BB...personally, yes I am better off...but that's because of my own hard work. Is the nation better off? In some senses yes...for the most part no. I am not a fan of the Bush administration...but am less of a fan of Al Gore.

Steve,
The acceptability of making a valid criticism? C'mon...he was taking a sound bite and turning it into the results of some sort of think tank session between McCain and Gramm where there plan is to tell the public it's all in their heads! THAT is the disingenuous crap I'm talking about. The same as if McCain said "Obama wants all your kids to speak spanish to combat the immigration problem". It just isn't necessary! How about they come out and say something like..."My opponent has positioned himself behind the idea that all of our children should learn a second language in school. I agree/disagree because..." Not "Well isn't he the brilliant one..Let's everyone speak spanish and then illegals will understand our issues!"

BTW, I agree that McCain thinking he can balance the budget in 4 yrs is a pipe dream. I've stated before that I think he is a political windmill that turns with whatever the buzzword is for a given timeframe.
I don't think either of them will balance the budget in their terms..be it 4 or 8 years.
I also don't see how Obama realistically plans to pay for all of his ideas...save the get rid of the Bush tax cut speech please.

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by ryberg

The up sides of Obama's tack to the center (sorry -- centre!) from The Economist:

See, me, I like all that bolded stuff, there, actually... And as they point out, from the word go, Obama has focused on the need for bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle and real respect and dialogue and compromise.

Steve

What about the unbolded parts of the article? Namely, NAFTA, wiretapping and campaign finance.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by horizon200

BB...personally, yes I am better off...but that's because of my own hard work. Is the nation better off? In some senses yes...for the most part no. I am not a fan of the Bush administration...but am less of a fan of Al Gore.
..................

Perhaps you are just trying to be politically correct....

I gotta tell ya, horizon...I have never seen the administration and leadership of our country mucked up this badly in my entire life...

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by horizon200

Steve,
The acceptability of making a valid criticism? C'mon...he was taking a sound bite and turning it into the results of some sort of think tank session between McCain and Gramm...

Wasn't talking about that. My reference to a valid criticism was to say that McCain wouldn't be able to live up to his promise to balance the budget. As you said you wanted candidates to leave off criticism of each other and only talk about their own plans, and I thought that would leave you in a position of not accepting any such criticism.

Steve

[SunKneeMarie]

Originally Posted by ryberg

You're not seeing that they even have such a fear? Because if that's what you mean, I'd give you the same suggestion I gave Melliedee and say just go out there on the Internet and look at some of the responses.

But if you mean you're not seeing why they'd have such a fear, well, I'm with ya...

Steve

yeah, the second one...

[StewartG]

Originally Posted by Jacko

Perhaps you are just trying to be politically correct....

I gotta tell ya, horizon...I have never seen the administration and leadership of our country mucked up this badly in my entire life...

Yeah, I've become a bit of a lurker on this thread, but I was thinking the same thing...

Horizon - do you mind clarifying those areas where you feel the nation is doing BETTER? I'm honestly curious, I promise I won't argue too much. (I don't have time!)