[Sethomas]

I had a flatmate from Sweden, and when I told her about how I had considered learning Swedish for the possibility of eventually moving there she laughed at me for a number of reasons. Most relevant is the fact that her friend's father moved to Sweden almost 20 years ago and still can't hold up a conversation in the national language. He does fine going in and speaking English whereever he goes. I said that I didn't want to be an asshole like that, and she insisted that it's never construed that way. Furthermore, she revealed that Sweden has a wonderful program wherein anyone of foreign birth may receive free education in the Swedish language in exchange for being or becoming tax-paying citizens, and few people take them up on the offer because everyone in Sweden is a polyglot anyways.

The problem is, America is far too ethnocentric to ever standardize a multi-lingual society. It's not a question of idealogy or racism, it's a question of practicality. The lesson to be learned is that if Spanish-speaking immigrants are paying INTO the system, they should get more out of it than sub-standard housing. Tax fraud with immigrants and migrants does happen and it does happen a lot, but from what I've heard it's more than balanced out by the fact that they file non-existent SSNs that pump into social security more than they'll ever be able to take out. So, stop spending money on wars having nothing to do with terrorism and start spending it on public education, namely language instruction for those who desperately need it and sometimes even want it.