Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Metro Nashville should quit playing games with EnglishFirst referendum set for November

Metro Nashville officials should stop playing games in trying to derail a charter referendum with legal technicalities that proposes to make English the official language of government business here.

Referendum supporters have gained the needed signatures of more than 10,000 Metro citizens. That's impressive. They've also followed the rules to get their cause before all voters in November. The ability of people to redress their government with grievances is sacred. Never fool around with it.

While I don't like the referendum because it is so unnecessary, I am alarmed when government tries to undermine the ability of people to be heard. I felt the same when I was writing during the state income tax push by House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and then Gov. Don Sundquist.

While I have always supported an income tax and still do, I was dead set against officials elected by the people to try and circumvent the will of those they are supposed to serve. Naifeh and Sundquist, with a big assist from the news media, were trying to stall, speed up and cover up legislation to get an income tax into law. The people were left on the outside looking in with their own government. That's a bad precedent. And I wrote as much in my then-column in The Tennessean.

Again, I don't like EnglishFirst. But it is the right of the people -- as law is interpreted now -- to have their will expressed in their community's statutes. Yes, this law may ultimately be determined to be unconstitutional and will cost Metro some big legal dollars to defend it. Yes, it is wrong for a city with more than 1,000 places of worship to enact a law that is an affront to the strangers among us. Scripture calls on us to do exactly the opposite.

Yet, even steps backward are part of the pluses and minuses in a republic form of government.

There's an old saying in the opinion-writing business: While I may disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it.

That's the way it should be with any referendum. Make your cases against it and for it. Try and educate people on what it the truth. Then trust them to make the right decision.

Don't play games with our way of making laws and removing them, such as the Metro Election Commission did today in voting against putting the referendum on the November ballot. A republic is too precious for such shameful shenanigans.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tim says that the people wish to make English the official language. The reason people want to make English the official language is because they do NOT want illegal Mexicans pouring into our state and country.

Yes the people in government are ignoring the wishes of the people and they are indeed engaged in shenanigans. If they were not so engaged then there would be no need for such a referendum in the first place because illegals would not be here.

Our Republic is a precious thing. Benjamin Franklin warned us that it would be a hard thing to keep it and Thomas Jefferson warned us that corporations would take it away from us if given the chance.

It is because of corporations and their money that buys our elected officials that creates the need for a referendum on the English language.

Corporations need cheap labor. They don't want to pay Americans a livable wage so they bring in Illegal Aliens to take our jobs.

These illegals don't care about America they care only for themselves. They just come here for what they can take so why should they show us any respect or bother to learn the language of the United States which is English.

Our leaders are selling us out both at the state and federal levels. Shenanigans is not enough to describe what they are doing to us.

Then on top of that we must deal with the Hispanics who already have a foothold in America who do nothing but shill for the illegals against the American people.

Someone who practices shenanigans should know when others are doing it because it takes one to know one doesn't it Tim.

Anonymous said...

Easy explaination in the form of questions. What is the official language of Mexico? What is the official language of China? What is the official language of France? What is the official language of Germany? What is the official language of India/

See, this question could be applied to almost every country in the world, yet some how the idea of making English the official language for the U.S. is considered taboo. No other nation in the world bends over backwards to the demands of foreigners more than the U.S. does. It is wrong for non-Americans to dictate what the laws of the U.S. should be or not be. We, as a soveriegn nation need to return power back to the majority vote of it's citizens and screw everyone else. This is America, speak English or return to the backwards nation you came from and are understood in.

Anonymous said...

I love the argument that the United States should be like every other country, including of all places China, when it comes to language.

As Americans, we hold ourselves and this nation above others for a reason -- freedom. And our diversity of peoples. In the just completed Olympics, the surname of athletes from America were as wide as this world. That's because America has always been a welcoming place for people from across the world.

We didn't need to proclaim English the official language when their people first came here. So why the hang up now?

It is that point that uncovers the EnglishFirst people for who they are and what they are really after.

Their liberal use of the word "illegals" is so they do not have to acknowledge these immigrants as human beings.

Words don't matter, however. Actions do. And the actions of the EnglishFirsters with the referendum uncover their true feelings toward people who look like me.

And it is that kind of thinking that will truly make America like China, and we all will suffer for it.

Tim Chavez

Anonymous said...

Tim, I was referring to language, not politics or human rights. Every country has a national language and the U.S. should be no different. When in other countries, the citizens are not obligated to understand English, it is the foreign visitor that needs to understand/speak the language native to that country. If a foreign person intends to live in the U.S., they need to assimilate which includes speaking our language, English. English is the accepted language of commerce and business around the world, yet we can not have it declared our national language. By getting rid of multiple language government forms (mostly EngSpan) could save millions of dollars in paper and ink alone. So, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Anonymous said...

Everybody knows that illegals are human Tim. We also know that they are illegal aliens.

You talk about freedom Tim. Isn't it an American freedom to be self governing. Therefore is it not up to the American people to decide who we want to allow into our country. We have said NO to Mexicans. NO.

That is our freedom Tim. A freedom which you and people like you are taking away from us.

Don't talk about freedom in America because you don't know what it is nor do you respect it.

China has lasted for thousands of years. Unless the Jews move there because it is a rising economy it will probably be there for thousands of years longer after diversity has torn America apart.

English is the language of the world. That's because we Americans distinguished ourselves as the greatest people in the history of the world. We earned it and citizen ship in our country is a priceless gift that is ours to give or keep as we please. Others have no right to move in here and take what they never earned and what they don't deserve and what we don't wish them to have.

Our forefathers never intended for this nation to be anything other than Anglo Saxon Protestant. They owned slaves at the very time they were writing all of our important historic founding documents.

It was the Jews, Tim, the Jews who sought to make America diverse so that they could seek their own interests at the expense of the general welfare.

That is what diversity is about. Diversity has taken away our great freedoms and weakened us so don't lecture us about how multi culturalism has made us great. It has weakened us to the point that people from the south can walk right into our country and remain right under our eyes and we can do nothing about it. We can be invaded and destroyed without a shot being fired.

When John Kennedy sought to be POTUS there was a huge controversy because he was Catholic. There is no way a Jew could have gotten into the White House. So the Jews, Jacob Javits in particular, changed our immigration laws in the 60s so that we get immigrants from places other than Western Europe. He called our senators racist if they didn't want to change immigration laws, a tactic now used by ILLEGAL HUMAN aliens.

Javits didn't do this because it was good for America and the American people - he did it because it was good for Jews - they could dilute white power and take it away from us and give it to others who hadn't earned it thru political correctness. As a result the Jews could control our government and media to the extent that they do today. They were the ones behind the civil rights movement, but they don't like blacks any more than they like Muslims and Christians - its always about whats in it for them. By making America more divided by race they could move in and take over and take away power from white people.

As a matter of fact the Jewish neocons' philospher is Leo Strauss and he told Jews exactly how they could remove the old ruling class WASPs and take their places.

http://www.nhinet.org/ryn18-1.htm


Now our country is a country of various groups with each seeking their own interests at the expense of the general welfare. America is in decline.

No Tim, diversity is not a good thing and it is not anything that we Americans wanted but it was forced upon us by those who who were self interested and those who take their money and sell us out just as they are selling us out today to Mexicans.

Diversity is a good thing for YOU and people like you. But you are absolutely opposed to Americans like me whose family has been in this country since the 1700s and you support those who would just move in and take everything that my people have created.

If we don't hand it over then you call us racists. At the very moment you sweat blood to help those in your own ethnic group you call me racist for wanting to protect what my people gave to me.

Because white people must give political correctness and compensate in every way for minorities that shows that you cannot live in a nation created by us. You will change it and alter it until it is no more fit to live in then the places you come from.

Gobalization will destroy us completely but we could have defended ourselves against it if we were not too diverse to come together in order to do so.

When you destroy us you also destroy the paradise you found. Your children will inherit the wind.

I would say that we have a lot vested in saving ourselves and our country. We are the ones who stand to lose the most. We don't need to be lectured by people like you.