Where a Redneck Jew, a Hispanic Catholic, and a Computer Geek write about Gun Rights, Self Defense and whatever else we can think about.
I did and it is related to the Gabby Franco video I just posted.
Since when Gun Safety is a political matter? What kind of retarded and convoluted mind comes with the thought that Gun Safety is only to be applied if you speak English?
Are we gun owners, no longer a Polite Society?
Stop behaving like the Opposition.
Semi-retired like Vito Corleone before the heart attack. Consiglieri to J.Kb and AWA. I lived in a Gun Control Paradise: It sucked and got people killed. I do believe that Freedom scares the political elites.
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If’n English was good enuff fer Jesus Christ, then it’s good enuff fer me!
OK, that is funny right there
Mostly trolls anyway.
“If you only speak Spanish you’re not even a citizen.” Apparently this idiot never heard of Puerto Rico.
Not to mention, the Bill of Rights applies to all “persons” in the United States, and the Second Amendment applies to lawful permanent resident aliens.
Old – what about most of Miami – and probably a bunch of other places I could name if I think about it 😉
Gomez,
I used Puerto Rico because its official language is Spanish, and all its official documents, including birth certificates and driver’s licenses, are printed in Spanish. But yes, there are parts of the U.S. where native-born U.S. citizens don’t speak English.
American Samoa, Fiji, Guam, Tonga, and the Northern Mariana Islands all have majority populations that speak English as a second language… Not only are they all American citizens, but they also have a massively disproportionate number of people who enlist in the armed services.
Pacific Islander Americans make up less than 0.5% of the U.S. population and they were 249% over-represented in the military in 2003 (the most recent year I can find data for). Give or take a few percentage points, that number doesn’t actually change year to year.
They’re also disproportionately likely to become Navy SEALs or members of other special forces units. About 1% of active SEALs is a Pacific Islander…
Go ahead, “darkmountain23,” tell a Navy SEAL that he’s not a real American. I’ll get popcorn.
As educated men of their era, wether formally educated or self-taught, almost all of our founding fathers had a decent grounding in Latin and/or Greek. Probably not good enough to hold a casual conversation, but good enough to read the classics and drop important quotes from Cincinnatus or Aristotle into daily conversation.
On the other hand, some of them went above and beyond:
Thomas Jefferson was fluent in French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish. He could also read, but apparently not speak, both contemporary and classical Greek. He also had a decent grasp of Arabic.
Benjamin Franklin was fluent in French, Latin, and Italian, with a passable smattering of Spanish. (And knowing Franklin, probably capable of ordering a beer and/or prostitute in every other European language.)
John Adams and James Monroe both spoke fluent French and Latin.
James Madison spoke fluent Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
John Hancock, the wealthiest of our founders, endowed a professorship of Oriential Languages and a professorship of Hebrew Language at Harvard.
John Quincy Adams spoke fluent French, Dutch (he went to school in the Netherlands) and German (he was ambassador to Prussia). He also had a decent grasp of Italian, Greek, Spanish, and Russian. Apparently one of his hobbies throughout his life was to translate official reports, newspapers, or whatever book he was reading from one language into another.
Martin Van Buren is (to date) our only president for whom English was a second language. Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, NY, a Dutch community and didn’t learn English until later in life. His family continued to speak Dutch at home his entire life.
I keep wondering just how many of the Founding Fathers knew Dutch. You mentioned one, but I would suspect there were a fair number more than that. The main reason for this suspicion is the number of times that the health (or lack of it) of the Dutch Republic came up in the Constitutional Convention.
There is also the surprising similarity (in content, though definitely not style) between the Declaration of Independence and the Dutch counterpart of two centuries earlier. It’s been said that there is no specific evidence that the earlier one directly influenced the other, but if you put them side by side it sure is striking. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/before-1600/plakkaat-van-verlatinghe-1581-july-26.php
From the sources I can find, 1780 about 27% of the population of New York, 14% of New Jersey, and 10% of Pennsylvania were descendants of Dutch settlers. Backing that up to the 1770s, we’re probably looking at roughly the same population figures… But I’m unable to find anything that says how many of them still spoke Dutch either has their native- or a second-language.
The Netherlands’ colonization of North America peaked about a century before the Declaration of Independence (“Even old New York was once New Amsterdam…”) but Dutch immigrants continued to move into southwest New York / northeast Pennsylvania until the 1830’s. The Netherlands also remained a major player in the Caribbean until late in the 19th Century. (Heck… Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius are still technically part of the Netherlands.)
I’d imagine that most of the Founding Fathers from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and anyone from the maritime trading cities of the South would have known a few words and phrases in the language, much in the same way that modern folks living in Florida or Texas will pick up a bit of Spanish.
Van Buren and John Quincy Adams are the only early American leaders whom I can say with certainty spoke Dutch. But I wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest to learn that others did too. (Especially Franklin. You know that man stuck his finger in a few dykes.)
I also left out non-presidents like Thomas Paine, the Marquis de Lafayette, Tadeusz Kościuszko, Paul Revere, John Jay, and Thomas Fitzsimons in my list.
Bottom line is that the Founding Fathers and the later Framers of the Constitution were almost all multilingual men, many of whom learned English as a second language. They very well could have made fluency in English a requirement for citizenship, had they wished it, but they didn’t include it… Based on the transcripts of the constitutional convention, the Federalist Papers, their correspondence, and their private journals, they never even considered it. They probably never even considered considering it.
Since anything to do with firearms has become political, I say, great idea! We need more Spanish-speaking Americans to support the 2A and vote for pro-American elected representatives–as opposed the the anti-American representatives who undermine Spanish-speaking American’s 2A rights.
If you really want to troll “darkmountainman23,” make a gun-safety video in Arabic. Bonus points if you specifically target the LGBT Arab-American demographic.
Awesome idea. I wonder if Erin Palette might want to help with that.