# Idiosyncratic Political Views **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 4, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242 "2010-03-04T04:00:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/61 "2010-03-16T19:34:46Z")
I am pretty much a down the line religous right conservative but I think the military should be much smaller, and think carbon taxes could be a good idea if implemented correctly. ---
**Author:** ![DeafAngelboy23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@DeafAngelboy23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeafAngelboy23)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/62 "2010-03-16T21:11:16Z")
> [@Haunted\_Pasta](#): > > Moderate liberal American here, but: > > I think English should be formally declared the national language. I am liberal but this could be slippery slope considering American Sign Language is my primary communication usage. It is considered foreign language although many deaf people in United States using ASL as their language including me. I think it would be fine for Engish as the official written language but I dont want it to apply for verba part. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/63 "2010-03-17T01:45:24Z")
> [@aerie](#): > > We get it. Gay marriage is an affront to your moral superiority. You’re very adamant about it. I’m not sure why other than a religious reason. There is no other reason to be against it. > > You sound very conservative to me, no ‘something something’ about it. So Hillary Clinton and President Obama (both of whom are opposed to gay marriage) is conservative? > [@DeafAngelboy23](#): > > I am liberal but this could be slippery slope considering American Sign Language is my primary communication usage. It is considered foreign language although many deaf people in United States using ASL as their language including me. I think it would be fine for Engish as the official written language but I dont want it to apply for verba part. ASL isn’t a foreign language-it’s a modified version of English for the deaf so it wouldn’t apply to you anymore than written English would apply for the blind. ---
**Author:** ![DeafAngelboy23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@DeafAngelboy23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeafAngelboy23)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/64 "2010-03-17T03:37:07Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > ASL isn’t a foreign language-it’s a modified version of English for the deaf so it wouldn’t apply to you anymore than written English would apply for the blind. From the wikipedia on American Sign Language: early influence of the sign language of France upon the school, the vocabularies of ASL and modern French Sign Language are approximately 60% shared, whereas ASL and British Sign Language, for example, are almost completely dissimilar. In the 19th Century, The oralists won many battles and for a long time the use of sign was suppressed, socially and pedagogically. Many considered sign to not even be a language at all. This situation was changed by William Stokoe, a professor of English hired at Gallaudet University in 1955. He immediately became fascinated by ASL and began serious study of it. Eventually, through publication in linguistics journals of articles containing detailed linguistic analysis of ASL, he was able to convince the scientific mainstream that ASL was indeed a natural language on a par with any other. Basically, ASL is the language and it is not modifed English. If you refer to a modified English, then it is Signed Exact English (SEE), it is to copy every words in the sentence with the signs. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/65 "2010-03-17T04:23:18Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > So Hillary Clinton and President Obama (both of whom are opposed to gay marriage) is conservative? > > ASL isn’t a foreign language-it’s a modified version of English for the deaf so it wouldn’t apply to you anymore than written English would apply for the blind. As **DeafAngel** explained, ASL is definitely not a modified version of English. Sign languages all over the world are distinct languages. I remember one cool study from my linguistics class in which a school for the deaf in Latin America documented the spontaneous creation of a signed language by its students. They all naturally started communicating with their hands, and those in the hearing world had no idea what they were saying to one another at first. Deaf babies ‘‘babble’’ in sign language. It’s as innate and unique as any other language. So apparently the ability to hear is not a requirement for the brain’s language mechanism to function. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/66 "2010-03-17T04:27:37Z")
Here’s the example I was looking for – [Nicaraguan sign language.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language) > [@](#): > > However, while the children remained linguistically disconnected from their teachers, the schoolyard, the street, and the bus to and from school provided fertile ground for them to communicate with each other, and by combining gestures and elements of their home-sign systems, a pidgin-like form, and then a creole-like language rapidly emerged. They were creating their own language. This “first-stage” pidgin has been called Lenguaje de Signos Nicaragüense (LSN), and is still used by many of those who attended the school at this time. > > Staff at the school, unaware of the development of this new language, saw the children’s gesturing as mime, and as a failure to acquire Spanish. Unable to understand what the children were saying to each other, they asked for outside help, and in June 1986, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education contacted Judy Kegl, an American Sign Language linguist from MIT. As Kegl and other researchers began to analyze the language, they noticed that the young children had taken the pidgin-like form of the older children to a higher level of complexity, with verb agreement and other conventions of grammar. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242/67 "2010-03-17T10:58:49Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > Call me a Poplarist Clarksonite. As in Jeremy? Me, I’m a Dutch leftie with the usual matching beliefs if quite a bit more liberal than most. However, I think I lean fairly far to the right on environmental issues: - I believe very strongly in nuclear power. - I feel that, although we should not hurt or mistreat animals unnecessarily, they certainly do not have rights and we can and should experiment on them (and eat them if we like). - Most importantly, I feel environmental worries are given far too much priority. I am not even sure where I stand on climate change, but even if it is happening I think we are much better of addressing immediate problems (poverty, hunger, insufficient healthcare in huge parts of the world) rather than throwing money at possible future disasters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiosyncratic-political-views/531242.md?page=3)