Barack Obama addressed the issue of official languages yesterday by endorsing one: Spanish. Instead of worrying about immigrants learning English, he told an audience, America should be teaching its children Spanish...
Also, Obama’s argument here makes no sense. He’s complaining that Americans don’t speak the native language when we visit Europe, but that we don’t speak the immigrant language when people move to the United States. With that argument, shouldn’t we expect Europeans to speak English when we travel there?
I agree that everyone should learn a foreign language... However, to argue that Americans should learn Spanish as a higher priority than insisting that immigrants learn English is nonsense, and Obama’s argument for it is a giant non-sequitur. It carries a strong whiff of America-bashing, too...
If I emigrated to a country where English was not the language, I would not demand that the government produce signs and panphlets in English; I’d learn the language. My children would learn it as well if I expected them to succeed in their new land.
(Source: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air)
