Katy's Conservative Corner

Dole calls for strengthening immigration law, repealing costly non-English services requirement

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole today spoke on the Senate floor about her recently introduced immigration bills – one eliminating the costly requirement of providing government services in languages other than English and one aimed at strengthening immigration law with regard to drunk driving convictions.

Audio of Dole’s remarks is available at http://dole.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Audio.Home

Her entire speech is posted below and is worth the read. 

Katy's Conservative Corner likes the term "criminal aliens" used below, by Mrs. Dole in reference to those who come here illegally and then commit crimes.   KCC believes that lack of knowledge of our laws is no excuse for violating them.  In fact, our nation prides itself on the principle of self-reliance whenever possible. 

When people come here from foreign lands, whether legally or illegally, they are responsible for learning our language and our laws. 

Your blogger lived in Guadalajara, Mexico for one year after graduating from Meredith College.  There, she was expected to speak the language of the people, Spanish, and know the laws, even the informal ones.  She studied these things for months before she entered Mexico at the Guadalajara airport.

Our immigrants of old did this, too. They came here and kept their "old country traditions", but worked hard to assimilate into American society.  Katy's Conservative Corner applauds Senator Dole for her actions.  Please read her statement below or click on the link above to listen.

Making Thanksgiving Meaningful Again by Newt Gingrich

Editior's Note: Your blogger is a huge fan of American history and wishes she could have been taught by Professor (and former US House Speaker) Newt Gingrich.  Please enjoy Thanksgiving post for 2007.

Thanksgiving: The First Uniquely American Holiday

The history of Thanksgiving goes all the way back to the second decade of English-speaking people in North America. Thanksgiving was the first uniquely American holiday.

Yesterday, President Bush visited the site in Virginia -- Berkeley Plantation -- where the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1619 -- 12 years after the founding of the Virginia colony at Jamestown.

The first Thanksgiving was a religious celebration -- an occasion to thank God -- that featured only a modest meal. It wasn't until two years later, in 1621, that Thanksgiving was expanded to include a banquet by the pilgrims in Massachusetts.

President Washington Makes Thanksgiving a Day for a Free People to Acknowledge Their Debt to God

During his first year in office, President George Washington issued a proclamation calling for a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer." Washington had been a general who had spent eight years on the field of battle winning our freedom from Great Britain. Then he spent another six years creating the Constitution and the government that we still have 218 years later (the longest continuing constitutional government in the world).

So Washington understood well the nature of a free society and its obligation to both thank God and seek His guidance. In his Thanksgiving proclamation, Washington wrote: "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favor."

Continue to Lincoln Builds on Washington's Tradition below.

Why English Should Be the Official Language by Assad Meymandi, MD

I was not born an American.  I chose to be an American.  I entered the US in 1955 knowing ten English words. 

In order to go to college and prepare for a medical education, I knew that I had to learn English rather quickly.  In three months, I memorized the 285,000 words of the 1955 edition of the Oxford Dictionary.  Later, I expanded this knowledge and learned the etymology of practically every one of those words. 
Three years were spent in college pre-medical education with majors in English and Chemistry.  I entered medical school in 1968. In 1972, exactly seven years after coming to the US, I had earned Doctor of Medicine (MD) and PhD in science.

My intense experience with the English language brought me close to much older and wiser linguists and University Professors.  Among them was the late Samuel Hayakawa, the then Chancellor of San Francisco State University, who in 1977 became A US Senator from California.

I wrote a letter to Hayakawa and to our own Senator,Jesse Helms, who also knew something about my love of the English language, suggesting that they sponsor a bill to make English the official language of America.  I even sent some money to facilitate expenses associated with the authorship of the bill, etc…

I believe it was 1979 when they invited me to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the House's Foreign Affairs Committee.  The bill never passed. 

In my testimonies, instead of concentrating on the importance of the subject matter, the solons enjoyed my ability to close my eyes and recite page after page of the Oxford Dictionary, "Octopus, octogenarian…"

With all my emotional and intellectual resources, I believe making English the official language of America is the most important issue in today's political discourse. 

It is an abomination and travesty that fools can come to America, live for as many as 30 years, and know not who Abraham Lincoln was, or the first thing about our flag, or the Founding Fathers of our Constitution.  I believe that to be an American, one must know the English language, know the bare essential of our Constitution, our Republic, our Bill of Rights and the story of the birth of this nation and our Founding Fathers.   

Please feel free to call on me and use me as a reference to further this, what I consider to be a Holy cause.

God Bless America!

Assad Meymandi, MD, PhD, DFLAPA
Via BlackBerry/at&t