You’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. I’m not trying to analyze you, I hardly know a thing about you. I’m saying it’s not unheard of for people to look down upon their own race. There are plenty of hispanic-Americans out there who don’t like hispanic immigrants. I count a few among my friends and family. Racism is not logical, as jayjay seemed to be implying it is.
That’s silly. No matter how good your grasp of the road rules, the signage etc…, if you don’t understand the *question *you’re being asked about them, nor what the various possible answers given to you mean, you simply can’t answer it right. An English test (of any kind, mind you, not just driving) given to a non English speaker amounts to asking them to throw darts at the answer sheet.
ETA : If you don’t believe me, feel free to take this French road code test. Do tell us how well you fare.
I hate to say it (because it (the action we’re talking about, not your argument) is stupid), but you’re right. From my own minority group, we’ve seen plenty of evidence of the actual homosexuality of some pretty high-profile professional homophobes in the last few years.
Yes, but I’d distinguish that because the homophobes don’t acknowledge (at least to anyone else, and most likely not even to themselves) that they’re gay. This is not a case of, “Hey, I’m gay, and I hate those queens!” It’s a case of, “I hate those queens, as all of us straight people should!”
I propose that the governing bodies of evangelical churches should require their highly compensated officials to post pictures of their pool boys. The congregations can make up their own minds.
Guys, seriously. Arguing over whether Bricker is reverse bigot is a hijack at best. He doesn’t strike me as one, just a Dedicated Republican™. While that might earn him this title:
infected cunt scab It doesn’t earn him the title bigot.
Besides most of the people in this thread including Bricker, I reckon have blue passports and in the words of green passport friend of mine “if you have a blue passport you’re automatically white”. Let’s even go ahead and add in soon to be ancestors of Americans as white.
So let’s look at it from that perspective. I like that perspective. It takes race right out of the equation, and crystallizes right on this issue. What we have is a white guy in Alabama saying other white dudes and dudettes in Alabama shouldn’t be able to drive because they’re not fluent in English.
This can be demonstrated to be bad for named reasons including:
English fluency isn’t necessary for driving. I mean big ol’ red hexagon that’s the same color as a stoplight. No one could ever crack that! This requirement is therefore retarded as making knowledge of bovine dentistry necessary for being a taxi driver.
It’s gonna cost Arizona money, hurting the people of the state in name of some vendetta against a certain group of white people. Federal funds lost will be more then the money saved.
It’s going to make the roads more dangerous. You’ll have unlicensed drivers out of economic necessity.
Which brings us to another point. People say driving is a privileged, but if you took away most people’s licenses they’d be screwed. So while you can define it as a privilege if you like it’s in the common good to extend that privilege to as many safe drivers as possible. So they can, you know, get to work and stuff.
So to some it up this idea is terrible because it screws Alabama financially, hurts it economically, makes the roads unsafer, and limits the freedom of travel of some folks unnecessarily.
Why the fuck would Republican Candidate Tim James think this to be a good idea? Therefore whether or not he is a bigot, he has selfish or stupid motives that don’t have Alabama’s best interests at heart, and should go piss a cactus.
I had a key adjective in my post. “Well-designed”. If non-English speakers truly have no idea what to do, it is not well-designed. It should be confusing to the same degree that real-world driving would be.
James’ attack on his opponent’s evolution stance makes Huffington Post.
How would you design a written test in any language to be automagically comprehensible by non speakers, exactly ? Charades ?
Which benefits James.
Being denounced by the Huff/Post is a credential, in Alabama.
Based on Byrne’s response, I’m not exactly filled with sympathy:
::Shudders::
How is this even legal, especially in light of Kitzmiller v. Dover, et al?
They don’t cotton to those activist liberal judges.
That is hellacool! I want to find the guy who did that and buy him lunch at a Mexican place.
I’m sorry, that would be at a New South Texarzonian place. Get with the program.
He would lose money by having the driver’s licensing exams only in English? I did not know that. But to a certain kind of rightie, that’s not a drawback, it’s an added good. Keeping the state poor is seen as constructive somehow.
Octagon.
Carry on.
The great hope Alabama may have is Artur* Davis. He is an extremely intelligent Harvard graduate who has served as blue Congressman for a red district and majorly impressed me by not towing party lines always and not posturing: he was the only AL Congressman to vote against the flag burning bill a few years ago, for example, and while he voted against the healthcare bill it was not because of “Obamacare is eeeevil” but concerns over loopholes it allows.
Davis’s story mimics Obama’s to a degree- single hardworking mother who taught him the value of education, wound up at Harvard, graduated with honors, then Congress- hopefully he’ll have some of his success in getting elected as well. He’s also so honest that he’s one of the monetarily-poorest members of Congress; as of a few years ago he still had outstanding student loans and his net worth was in four figures.
Alabama’s about 25%-28% black and most blacks here vote Dem anyway, so if he’s nominated hopefully they’ll turn out as they did for Obama. (Davis would be the first black governor of AL.) Add in the hardcore white Dems (and yes, they’re a minority but they do exist) and maybe-just-maybe- we’ll have an intelligent well spoken governor who doesn’t mention Jesus or evolution in every other breath and actually has some frigging clue about national politics and real issues.
But, I wouldn’t sell insurance on it.
*Not a misprint- it’s not Arthur and it’s not Arturo; his middle name is Genestre.
They’re going to run into a lot of obstacles if they try introduce the English language in Alabama.