First Amendment, people...it's important. (And if your first amendment rights are threatened, exercise your 2nd amendment rights!)

I think that the civil liberty that is coming under the greatest threat currently is that of free speech, particularly speech broadcasted over the radio. Currently the liberal majority is threatening conservative talk radio with censorship because of how much weight conservative talk radio hosts have with those that listen and how much encouragement they give to people, specifically Republicans, to get involved in the fight for political offices to insure that the conservatives regain the majority. There are many liberal politicians that are outspoken about re-instating the Fairness Doctrine that was established in 1949 but repealed in 1987 by President Reagan. It requires radio programs related to public affairs to feature all points of view about issues, or they’d lose their broadcasting license. Basically what happened back then was that producers avoided controversial programming altogether, because if even one person complained about them not being completely “fair” in allowing equal airtime to persons from differing viewpoints, they’d lose their license, pay fines, etc. Now, since it was repealed, there was an explosion of radio stations because people no longer feared the government’s “punishing” radio stations that spoke out in support of one side. The problem is that, now that the liberals are once again in majority, they want to try and either reinstate the Fairness Doctrine (which is totally unconsitutional) or in some back-door kind of way, to have another bill that censors radio. The reason is that liberal talk radio shows have never garnered good ratings or much support at all. They just don’t do well, so, naturally, the liberals feel threatened because of how well conservative talk radio gets their platform across to the people. I think that, despite the popular liberal leaning toward this kind of censorship, the government should take active steps toward an understanding that freedom of speech guarantees that freedom over the radio waves too, and that the government should actively support a bill that would make it impossible to censor radio broadcast, save in the occasion of a “clear and present danger” situation or if someone is intentionally slandering another “on the air.” After all, no-one is forcing anyone to listen to conservative talk radio. There are plenty of music, weather and sports stations for the “sensitive” listener.

Speech #1

I am the only person in my family whose first language was English. Everyone else grew up primarily speaking a dialect of German. They attended schools taught in the formal type of German called “High German” and their church conducted services only in High German as well. Outside of our small community, however, English was predominant, and so my family had to adapt, especially when we immigrated to the United States. It has been found that non-English-speaking immigrants who refuse to learn English cheat themselves of many opportunities for success.
First of all, many immigrants stubbornly refuse to learn English for fear of becoming too integrated in society and losing their cultural distinctiveness. While all multi-cultural ventures result in a small amount of adaptation and syncretism, it is possible to actively maintain the distinctive cultural aspects simply by continuing to speak the native language in the home and by observing family traditions. It is purely a matter of willingness to put forth the effort of learning English and still preserve ethnic roots. Believe me, the effort is far outweighed by the benefits.
Some immigrants claim that learning English is too hard, especially on their own. I agree, learning English solo is not an easy task. However, this excuse still doesn’t hold water. There are literally millions of opportunities for immigrants to learn English at little or no cost whatsoever. In a simple Google search for “learning English free,” there were 240 million results. I sorted through a large amount and refined my search further to “learning English free, U.S. Government programs.” I got another 38 million results. I came across “welcometousa.gov,” the official government website for new immigrants, offers links to opportunities for immigrants to learn English, both online and in free classes- both for adults and children, while “free.ed.gov” is another government site that has many resources available for learning at no cost, including actual classroom setting-classes for adults as well as many online learning opportunities. Yet another resource for online learning is “eslinusa.com”.
There are many benefits to learning the English language that can change the life of countless immigrants, should they choose to take the opportunity. Very important is the opportunity to become a U.S. Citizen. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, the ability to “read, speak, write and understand English” is necessary for naturalization. Many argue that because the United States doesn’t have a declared official language, they should not be required to learn English. According to strictlyspanish.com, however, twenty-seven states HAVE declared English to be their official language. Simply refusing to adapt to the status quo and thus keeping yourself out of a decent-paying job and barring the door to further education is not worth “making a point” or “having pride in your home country.” What it DOES do is keep considerable intellect and skills out of the marketplace and puts all immigrants under unnecessary negative stereotyping and keep the standard of living in the United States from staying the best in the world. The U.S. is a land of immigrants, yes, and there are hundreds of languages spoken here, but a “trade language” is necessary in order to keep the country functioning as it was intended from its formation, which was by immigrants.
Another issue of importance is the opportunity for further education, like a technical or college degree. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on average over 30% of people born outside of the US, aged 25 or older, that have immigrated here have less than a high school education whether they’ve been here less than 10 years or more than 20. This totals almost 22 and a half million people, and that was just back in 2001. Of that almost 22 million, over 40% are not citizens, and 1 in 5 have less than a 5th grade education. This lack of education restricts the kinds of jobs that immigrants can have, since entry-level jobs are for low pay and very few benefits, as opposed to the higher paying jobs that usually include full benefits that are available to those with college degrees.
The U.S. Census Bureau research also shows that, among immigrant men, the unemployment rate was about equal to native men, because they fill the service, fabrication, operation, and manual labor positions. For immigrant women, however, there is a 20% difference between the labor force participation rates with those who are naturalized citizens. Almost 80% of citizens participate in the work force as opposed to just over half of those with less than 10 years of residence and no citizenship. Across the board, immigrants that have become citizens have similar occupational opportunities to natives. The differential across the pay-scale for citizens and non-citizens is drastic as well. The large majority of non-citizen immigrants, both men and women, make around $20,000 a year, while citizens average between $30 and 40 thousand and the very large majority make more than $25,000.
By no means does this mean that only English is useful in the American workforce. Indeed, speaking two or more languages well is almost a guarantee of higher pay. My sister applied for a job and, because she speaks German as well as English, got her starting pay rate raised by several dollars which, in the present economy, is a HUGE help. Being multi-lingual can actually get a naturalized immigrant chosen for employment over a native who speaks only English.
While the English language is not an easy one to learn, since it is a “trade language” made up of a bunch of different languages that have been syncretized and consequently butchered into complete irrationality, learning it is, as I have shown, an immensely important thing for immigrants if they want to have a higher standard of living with plenty of diverse opportunities for their various skills and talents, and there are plenty of resources available to assist those willing to learn.

Another English paper...this one was actually kinda fascinating to write.

Response 2

The Puritans and Pilgrims were religious groups that traveled to the New World to establish utopian societies based on their interpretation of Scripture, a large part of which included dwelling on the characteristics of God. One particular characteristic of God that was prominent in Puritan and Pilgrim literature is that God is a strict disciplinarian; that is, He punishes those that profane His name, persecute His followers, and those of the believers that stray from righteous living.
William Bradford, the man who coined the term “Pilgrim” in application to those who came across from England to the New World on the Mayflower in order to escape religious persecution, was self-educated and deeply religious. He governed the Pilgrims in Massachusetts until the last five years of his life. During his time as governor, he wrote a history of the journey to the Americas and of the development of the colony. Within this history were accounts of affliction given by God, according to Bradford, as punishment, one of which occurred on the journey across the sea and was specifically a punishment for persecuting the Pilgrims and cursing God’s people and, through that, cursing God.
“And I may not omit here a special work of God’s providence. There was a proud and very profane young man...and he would always be contemning the poor people in their sickness, and cursing them daily with grievous execrations...and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner...and it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him.” (pg 59)

Later on, as the colony grew in prosperity and numbers, they shrank in unity and began displacing themselves from the general populace, striking out on their own in a kind of pompous independence that prompted Bradford to say “And this, I fear, will be the ruin of New England, at least of the churches of God there, and will provoke the Lord’s displeasure against them.” (pg 75) Bradford figured that their pride would lead God to discipline the Pilgrims in order to bring them either back to the fellowship or to destroy them completely.
Very little is known about Anne Bradstreet’s early life except that she came from a Puritan family and got married young to a Puritan man who took her with him to the Americas only a year after they were married. Anne was very much of the mindset common to Puritans about the character of God as a disciplinarian when it came to His followers: punishment in order to save and restore. Late in life, Anne wrote a short testimony to her children of God’s dealings with her throughout her life, and mentioned several times that God had to bring her out of her sin into righteous living through trials. Before she was married, “About 16, the Lord laid His hand sore upon me and smote me with the smallpox. When I was in my affliction, I besought the Lord and confessed my pride and vanity, and He was entreated of me and again restored me.” (pg 111) A while after Anne and her husband had moved to the Massachusetts Bay colony, she again came under God’s discipline. “After some time I fell into a lingering sickness like a consumption together with a lameness, which correction I saw the Lord sent to humble and try me and do me good...” (pg 111) Near the end of her life, she finally came to this conclusion:
“Among all my experiences of God’s gracious dealings with me, I have constantly observed this, that He hath never suffered me long to sit loose from Him, but by one affliction or other hath made me look home, and search what was amiss; so usually thus it hath been with me that I have no sooner felt my heart out of order, but I have expected correction for it, which most commonly hath been upon my own person in sickness, weakness, pains, sometimes on my soul, in doubts and fears of God’s displeasure and my sincerity towards Him; sometimes He hath smote a child with a sickness, sometimes chastened by losses in estate...If at any time you are chastened of God, take it as thankfully and joyful as in greatest mercies, for it ye be His, ye shall reap the greatest benefit by it.” (pg 112)

A slightly younger contemporary of Anne Bradstreet’s was a Puritan minister’s wife named Mary Rowlandson. At the age of 40, her town was attacked by Native Americans and she was captured and subsequently held hostage for eleven weeks, enduring many hardships and outright cruelties at the hands of the Indians. She, like Anne Bradstreet, also believed that any trial in a believer’s life were meant to show them where they were going astray, to chastise them, and then return them to fellowship with God. Early in her account of her captivity, she quotes Psalm 46:8, specifically giving God the credit for the hardships. “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he has made in the earth.” (120) She recounts what her thoughts were at the time;
“I then remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time; how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight; which lay so close unto my spirit, that it was easy for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life and cast me out of His presence forever. Yet the Lord still showed mercy to me, and upheld me; and as He wounded me with one hand, so he healed me with the other.” (pg 122)

At one point in her captivity, Mary becomes hopeless and depressed, but one of the Indians, back from a raid on some colonial town, finds a Bible within his loot and offers it to Mary in a rare gesture of kindness. In her account of the captivity, she recalls how the Bible helped her remember that the trial was from God as punishment but also was given to her in order to purify her and redeem her, and that she would yet be brought back and the trial would cease.
“...There was no mercy for me, that the blessings were gone, and the curses come in their room, and that I had lost my opportunity. But the Lord helped me still to go on reading till I came to Chap. 30, the seven first verses, where I found, there was mercy promised again, if we would return to Him by repentance; and though we were scattered from one end of the earth to the other, yet the Lord would gather us together, and turn all those curse upon our enemies.” (pg 124)

Rowlandson even went so far as to believe that God had not wiped out the Indians yet because He was preserving them to use as a tool to inflict trials on the Puritans in order to keep the Puritans in the way of righteous living. “But now our perverse and evil carriages in the sight of the Lord, have so offended Him, that instead of turning His hand against them [the Indians], the Lord feeds and nourishes them up to be a scourge to the whole land.” (pg 130)
Puritan and Pilgrim literature expressed many different characteristics of God, but one of the chiefest was the discipline that He would exact upon His disciples and unbelievers alike; upon the disciples to return them to a life of righteousness should they chance to stray, and upon unbelievers in order to show them His power and protect His children. Near the end of her account, Rowlandson quotes Hebrews 12:6, a verse that very effectively sums up the Puritan view of God’s purpose as a disciplinarian: “For whom the Lord lovth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth.” (p 134)

Works Cited

The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 7th ed. Vol. 1. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. Print.

Everyone knows I'm a nerd...but I figured I'd prove it anyway...

This is a response to a reading I had to do for my Early American Lit. class about the history of early American development and interactions between the ethnic groups. We just had to name three things that we didn't know or that specifically interested us.

I was extremely surprised to learn that "the Natives at first found the scale of European warfare appalling. (2)" I knew that the way Native Americans are often exhibited as complete savages was probably a very narrow, biased opinion, but I knew nothing that could back up an opinion depicting the invading Europeans as "savage." I was also unfamiliar with the idea that the Natives were part of large organizations of multiple tribes that interacted on a highly official level with the European appointed government members in the colonies. (3) I loved seeing an allusion to a theory I've always had about the English language on page 11. I lived in the third world country of Papua New Guinea for awhile and learned their trade language, called "Tok Pisin," which is pronounced like "talk pidgeon." This language is a conglomerate of the hundreds, even thousands, of tribal languages, or "Tok Plece" that are prominent, along with many words taken from the various languages of countries they've interacted with, such as Japan, who occupied P.N.G. during W.W.II, Holland, another occupying country, the United States, who does some business there, and various bits of Australian and British slang all mixed in and distorted into an entirely new language. I view English as a version of "Tok Pisin." It can not truly claim to be a romantic language descended from Latin, like Spanish, French, and Italian, nor is it entirely Germanic, or any number of the other languages that have influenced it. Some words are distortions of words that were made up in the not-too-distant past when English was even more highly restrictive than it currently is, by none other than William Shakespeare. His plays required a larger variety of word choice for the sake of keeping an audience's attention. English is a language still in its developmental stages, as is the nature of trade languages: to adapt over time to the societies that adopt it in order to interact with a larger number of people, most importantly within the economic circles. Some English words today, if the etymology were to be traced, would find their roots in Native American words that the settlers adopted and probably massacred, and various foreign words from other settlers as they sought to communicate in order to survive the harsh reality of life in an underdeveloped country.