Once again, Leonard Pitts Jr. just gets it. In case you haven’t noticed, I rarely if ever disagree with this man.
It’s liberty, not language, that unites a nation
By Leonard Pitts Jr.
For its next trick, maybe the Senate will pass a law regulating the flight patterns of houseflies.
That would be about as effective as something senators passed on Thursday. The measure, an amendment to the immigration reform bill currently under debate, designates English the ”national language” of these United States. Of course, that and $6.50 will get you into a matinée showing of The Da Vinci Code.
. . .
So what does unite nations? For some, it’s common blood. For us, it’s common values and truths held self-evident, like liberty and justice for all. That’s it. That’s the only tie that binds. Yet that slender tie and the idealism it bespeaks must still carry some cachet, else we would not have so many people around the world aching and aspiring to be us.
From where I sit, the nativist impulse to defend English is silly: does anyone really think the language is going away? Worse, there is something in it that feels desperate and fearful and, frankly, troubling, especially to the degree that it compromises the aforementioned tie that binds.
That tie is worthy of a spirited defense. The language, I think, can take care of itself.
And the tie that binds this nation is very much under continual assault. We must remain vigilant, or we will lose what really matters.
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