English Is The Key To Full Participation

Few People...have Had Much Training In Listening. The Training Of Most Oververbalized Professional Intellectuals Is In The Opposite Direction. Living In A Competitive Culture, Most Of Us Are Most Of The Time Chiefly Concerned With Getting Our Own Views Across, And We Tend To Find Other People's Speeches A Tedious Interruption Of The Flow Of Our Own Ideas.

The United States, A Land Of Immigrants From Every Corner Of The World, Has Been Strengthened And Unified Because Its Newcomers Have Historically Chosen Ultimately To Forgo Their Native Language For The English Language. We Have All Benefited From The Sharing Of Ideas, Of Cultures And Beliefs, Made Possible By A Common Language. We Have All Enriched Each Other.

The Language We Share Is At The Core Of Our Identity As Citizens, And Our Ticket To Full Participation In American Political Life. We Can Speak Any Language We Want At The Dinner Table, But English Is The Language Of Public Discourse, Or The Marketplace And Of The Voting Booth.

America Is An Open Society, More Open Than Any Other In The World. People Of Every Race, Of Every Color, Of Every Culture Are Welcomed Here To Create A New Life For Themselves And Their Families. And What Do These People Who Enter Into The American Mainstream Have In Common? English, Our Shared Common Language.

Notice The Difference Between What Happens When A Man Says To Himself, I Have Failed Three Times, And What Happens When He Says, I Am A Failure.