English is NOT our only language.

One of the reasons English is such a great expressive language is that it is adoptive and has been influenced from languages around the world. Every year new words come into use and old ones die. It evolves. It's got a million nuances and flavors and I'm thankful that I have some fluency in it and I can challenge myself to speak and write and communicate the thoughts that swim around in my brain. But English like all languages has limitations. I often have thoughts that come from the Chinese part of my brain. And although I can translate those into a rough English translation, it still shows English is not the end all of language.

But none of that has anything to do with what's happening today. Today the Senate is voting to make English the national language. They believe doing so will promote national unity. Like the subtly intertwined immigration reform issue, this is pure diversionary bunk. This is Junior and Rove looking for something, anything to talk about but the endless failures in Iraq. This is about playing on white America’s racist fears of hordes of Asians and Mexicans invading and changing the character of this country. This is about protecting his base in the midterm elections this November.

Certainly, there are advantages to speaking and writing English. And maybe immigrants need a basic proficiency for their own sake and ours. I’ll even concede that having one language used across this vast country would have its advantages. But we’ve had a free country for a couple hundred years now, and a Constitution with some sort of guarantee about free speech. It looks like that speech is a lot freer if its in English.