Nevada town passes English-only law

[oberliner]

PAHRUMP, Nev. - A town board in southern Nevada has adopted an ordinance declaring English the official language, restricting the display of foreign flags and denying town benefits to illegal immigrants.


A 3-2 Town Board vote drew a standing ovation and cheers late Tuesday from many of the 250 people at the meeting.

Town Manager David Richards called the ordinance a statement that "everyone should speak English, and if you are going to move here then you ought to respect the American flag and fly it in prominence."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061115/ap_on_re_us/english_only

[sweetheart]

1. Will they ship the americans to england then?

Is the invitation to all the English? They're in for a shock! :-)

[Chipper Chat]

2. Will folks be arrested for using Spanish town names?

What if someone wants to buy a bus ticket to Sacramento?
Will they have to say "Give me a one-way ticket to Very Bloody please?

[lapfog_1]

5. Why go so far as Sacramento.

Las Vegas, just down the highway, means The Fertile Valleys... Colorado (a river not too far from there) means "colorful red" and so on. I think even Nevada is either Spanish or Native American, but can't find a translation for it so I won't swear that it is.

I'm guessing that half the town's street names are Spanish (or more).

Sigh.

I've lived near the Mexican Border in AZ... my family still lives there, I understand some of the frustration behind this anti-illegal immigrant crap that's going on. But much of it has morphed into not being about immigration status so much as being anti-Mexican and anti-Latin Americans (legal or not). And the motivation is not about finding a solution to some real problems but about racism and hatred and fear.

[Sapphocrat]

3. Oh, ferpetessake...

I don't have to read the article to know: Pahrump is home to the Chicken Ranch, most famous brothel in Nevada.

Not that I have a problem with prostitution (frankly, I think it should be legalized and regulated everywhere as it is in NV), but the irony... What is this, some sort of all-American "morals" issue to these idiots?

[fasttense]

4. So what are they going to do if you are caught speaking in a foreign

language? What if I spoke French at them? Would I be arrested? Would they tar and feather me? Ridiculous laws for a ridiculous legislature.

[rug]

6. Then, the name of Nevada itself must change.

[Chulanowa]

7. Idiotistan!

Seriously, they restrict the display of foreign flags? That's pretty damn ballsy. I'm tempted to fill my tank and drive out there with the Choctaw glag on my antenna, just to see what faced htey make.

Putzes.

[hobbit709]

8. Then we all should go there

and speak the English spoken by Chaucer. Real English-before it was corrtupted by all those French and Latin words brought by the Normans.

[QC]

9. Chaucer came after the Norman Conquest.

You're thinking of Anglo-Saxon:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,

monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra

ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!
ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned,
geong in geardum, þone god sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat

þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea,
wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf;
Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang),
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.

[9119495]

10. This shant last but a fortnight, I dare say. n/t

[Maiden England]

11. I do hope they'll be changing all their signs to correct English

You know, tyre, instead of tire, colour, instead of color, gas stations should hereforth be known as petrol stations, car parks instead of parking lots and trousers instead of pants.

Because you know they were too stupid to write the law thinking English may have come from a little nation known as England did they, where they do things a tad differently.