I have ranted about this before, but it keeps happening. I will receive a perfectly good email from one of my “Christian” friends and it ends with this.
How ALL phones SHOULD be answered!
GOOD MORNING,
WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
...........
Please Press '1' for English.
Press '2' to disconnect
until you learn to speak English
And remember only two defining forces
have ever offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ
And the American Soldier
One died for your soul,
The other for your freedom.
If you agree........Keep it going
Last I checked, Jesus did not speak English, so I guess my "Christian" friends would hang up on him. As to the Americans who gave their lives for our freedom, during the Civil War many of them spoke only German. Many Americans who served in the Pacific in World War II owe their lives to the fact that some of their fellow soldiers spoke Navajo.
What is the relationship between English, Jesus and Soldiers?
Is Spanish anti Christian and un-American?
We know that "good Christians" are more likely to support torture. Is xenophobia also a Christian virtue?
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Comments: 29
Are there no Christians outside of the US? Maybe they need to travel more. The whole concept of tolerance seems to be remiss with your "Christian" friends.
That e-mail didn't originate from somewhere in Montana, did it??.....
I shall return and make further comment if some of the xenophobes start calling you names,
Berf it does sound like what stems for intelligence in places like Montana.
This is crazy!!! It's scary that these people see nothing wrong with this...
"Jesus is on the main line
Tell him what you want,
Jesus is on the main line
Tell him what you want,
Jesus is on the main line
Tell him what you want,
Call him up, and tell him what you want"
If you're speaking English that is, if you're not, you're on your own.
.
The Navajo also spoke English. Many of the Germans in the Civil War also learned English. The Immigrants of the Early 1900's worked very hard to learn English, and mandated that their children do so. The Immigrants of today mostly do the same, except for the Latino community. It is also a proven statistic, Immigrants who learn English earn almost twice as much as immigrants who do not.
Most immigrants come to America to become Americans. Many will drop what I call the prefix-American. (i.e. Mexican-American, etc.) The Latinos do not. If you come to America, you should learn the language and what it means to be American. If I move to France, Germany, Italy or any other non-english speaking country, I must learn the language before I can function as part of that society. And if I demand that business be done in MY language, I would get laughed at.
Lastly, what makes spanish speakers so special? Where is the outcry from the Russian Speakers, the Koreans, the Chinese, etc. There isn't any, because they came here to work and understand that doing so effectivly, requires them to learn English.
Wow, it is soooo nice of you to assume that all Latinos are exactly the same.... NOT. My fiance's co-worker is married to a woman who came to this country from Uraguay 6 months ago and she already knows how to speak English as well as you or I. This is actually an amazing feat for an adult, because as someone who has had to study child development I can tell you that it is much easier for ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN to learn a new language. The brain of a five year old is more receptive to learning a new language than an adult because the language patterns have not permanently set in a still-developing mind. My fiance's co-worker is from the same country and he speaks English too. I live in the Miami area and I can tell you that every Hispanic or Latino person I have met knows English.
Oh and the Navajo may have spoken English, but it was the NAVAJO LANGUAGE that was used as a code that the Germans could not break.
A 2007 study from the Pew Research Center found
Report at
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/644/english-language-usage-hispanics
I am 100 percent American and am proud to speak both English,Spanish and even learning Italian in honor of my maternal Grandmother. Speaking English doesn't make a good or decent American. If that were true, then Timothy McVeigh, should be up there with the likes of Lincoln and Washington.
Fwds like this do bother me, and I am Christian. I support our soldiers. I am a follower of Christ. I think it is easier if we have one language, but I think it is rude to expect first generation immigrants to instantly learn the language, or to keep them from passing their native language or heritage on to future generations. We have lost too much of the ability to speak multiple languages in America. There are examples of countries with more than one language that do fine. Switzerland has 4 languages, and they still learn English in time to study Romeo and Juliet in the 7th grade.
And for the record, many of our soldiers are not Christian at all. We have soldiers of all beliefs, including atheism in the military, so that means they are not mutually inclusive are they. Good Article.
AMEN!
Boy, what a white looking Jesus - that's the Viking Jesus !!!
That's a pretty white looking receptionist too. I wonder if they mean that only white people should answer the phone for white Jesus?
If Jesus had really looked like that the neighbors would have thought strange things about Mary. Her child would have been the only kid in the village with brown hair.
I love it when churches have a blue eyed Jesus.
I teach two English courses per week to speakers of other languages. It is a great way to make a living. The fact is that industry will not stop speaking Spanish to their customers. They would lose money if they did. There are companies that speak Polish and Chinese, as well. There are other organizations that speak as many as ten languages. We are a country of immigrants. Usually, the first generation doesn't learn to use English in a functional way. But, their children all speak English. It is simply xenophobic to claim that anything else is true. If a person wants to be successful in this country, he/she must speak, read, and write English. There are always waiting lists for English classes. In fact, during these hard economic times, teaching English is one area where there is plenty of work. Only liars make up stories about immigrants to satisfy their ideology which seems to assume that our problems have something to do with them. The real problem that I see in this country is the sense of "entitlement" that permeates our culture. I witnessed an American yell at a man in Rome to "speak English." I suppose, he never heard the phrase, "When in Rome...."
Christianity is a fine religion, I'm sure. There are many bigots amongst their membership and they deserve to be denounced. There are Christians who do good things that help society, however. I think that one of the problems that we see today is that the Christian leadership expresses such mean-spirited ideas about our culture. Those leaders are just plain wrong. There aren't any Christians speaking out against the likes of James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, for example. So, we are left with the impression that they represent Christians.
And, Militant, is absolutely correct. Jesus did not likely have blue eyes, considering that he was Jewish and of the semitic people. He probably had darker skin than what Americans have come to believe is normal, as well. Of course, our African Americans are just as American as our white Americans. So, that belief is equally as stupid.
AMEN.. damn there are some smart people on here!
The irony of the article and the added flagging.
I think I soiled myself laughing so hard.
I am happy to live in the UK, the 'home' of the English language. We also speak Lallans, Gaelic and Doric.
I'll keep the lecture to a brief reminder that the infrastructure of this nation, railroads, skyscrapers, etc., we're largely built by people who didn't speak english.
Also this nation wasn't built on religious principles as a "Christian nation."
Re: the specific email: Answering your phone in a way that assumes the caller doesn't know he/she's calling someone in the US, sets the tone for the demonstration of ignorance and bigotry that follows.
Assuming you believe the Jesus scenario, where exactly do you get the idea that he "offered" to die for you?
While some soldiers in our history may have died for our freedom, no US soldiers in our lifetime (aside from anyone over 80) have died for our freedom. Since WWII, we've been involved in more than 20 military actions, and none of them were against adversaries that represented a threat to our freedom.
This is an excellent phone message between people living in fantasy.
There are biggots in every religion and non-religion and in every political group. Each has their own agenda in IMHO.
Nothing wrong with having English as our official language.
Excellent Article! It is important to point out that not a single soldier has "died" for our "freedom" since World War II! A whole bunch HAVE died for Oval Office wars of opportunity that did nothing but benefit obscene war profiteers.
Spartan,
You are such a breath of fresh air. I remember marching against Vietnam in the late 1960s. There were so many older people who had served during WWII who seemed stuck on the notion that any call to duty was a noble one. By 1970, even they could see the folly of the Vietnam conflict. People were so much smarter in those days.
I seriously wonder why there isn't more outrage over the conflict in Iraq. It has been quite destructive of our reputation around the world.
I protested it also, then went and fought in it. People come up to me today and "thank me for my service". I quickly point out to them that I didn't do a damn thing for THEM!
My nephew is in Iraq right now. He feels the same way about those who "thank him for his service." He often says that he doesn't understand how a complete stranger thinks it is acceptable to speak to him just because he is uniform. I always remind him that there are many people who appreciate our military. He always responds," Then they should come with me and serve."
I think I would like your nephew! FAR too many people think they are patriotic when they haven't done a damn thing for this country except "shop"! God, I wish they would bring back a draft! THAT would be wake up call for a WHOLE lot of Douche Bags!