Happy
Friday! I am Lance Pisowicz and this is “What’s
Wrong With Washington. It is my first
day of summer and I am looking forward to a lot of great things coming in the
next few months. This evening we are
going to take a look at the results of our voting polls and analyze that issue
a bit. I will also fill you in on all
the details in regards to the Ultimate Patriot competition and sweepstakes and
hopefully answer any questions you might have about the event. Before we begin I
have just a couple of reminders before we begin. Please do check out my website, Lance
Pisowicz Online (www.wix.com/lancejp/online).
Also become a subscriber of my Youtube Channel (www.youtube.com/user/lancejponline), like my Facebook (www.facebook.com/lancepisowicz),
or follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/lancejponline).
You can also subscribe to my blogs on
blogger (www.wrongwithwashington.blogspot.com and www.lancesweeklywalk.blogspot.com). Be sure to join me in all of
these locations. They truly are great
locations to connect with other Americans who love their country.
To begin this
evening’s show I will share the results in last week’s poll. Our topic was whether or not English should
be declared the national language of the United States. This past week we had our best turnout in
quite a while. We had more than twice the
number of voters as last week. Keep it
up you guys! Over 90% of you supported
the proposal to declare English the national language. A little over 6% of you said no to the
national language idea and about 3% of you are still undecided. Once again, I thank you for all of the
responses this week! I hope you plan on
voting in the Ultimate Patriot competition and sweepstakes, not only to have
your voice heard but also to have a chance to win a $25 Restaurants.com E-Gift
Certificate. I’ll have more on that in a
few minutes. For now, let’s take a
deeper look at our results from this week.
Obviously many of us think alike when it comes to this
issue. For those of you who voted no, I
appreciate your responses as well. I
would also encourage you all, regardless of what you voted to share future
weekly polls with your friends. The more
people we have voting, the better we are representing the entire population.
As far as the issue on whether or not English should be
declared the national language, I have three brief points to make. Next week I want to take an in depth look at
some more heated issues, since finals this week kept me from preparing a normal
length blog.
One of the greatest reasons, I advocate that English be made
the national language is the fact that twenty-eight of the states as well as
five American territories have English as either the sole or one of the primary
languages.1 English is the
sole primary language in twenty-seven states and shares the honor with Hawaiian
in the state of Hawaii.
It seems like a shame if an American territory shows more
patriotism than a state, but that’s just me.
Twenty-three states apparently disagree with me for one reason or
another. Surprisingly only two states in
the south and southwestern United States do not have English as their official
language. Nearly all of the states
without English as their official language are in the Northeastern United
States. In fact, of the thirteen original
colonies, just four (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia)
have given English such a distinction. So
why is there such a lack of patriotism among some of our eldest states?
One can argue that ethnic diversity in states such as New
York play a role, but even California and Florida, very ethnically diverse
states themselves, have made English their official language.
By making English the official language we are not outlawing
other languages. We are simply honoring
our history and preserving an element of American culture that has been around
for hundreds of years.
In response to a question I was recently asked about why we
wouldn’t make a Native American language the national language, I have several
things to say. Who founded the United
States of America? Obviously, the simple
answer is the English. But why didn’t
they honor Native American culture and learn their language when they came to
the New World? Well the answer to that
is quite simple. The Native American
culture was a very diverse and complicated one to understand. In addition to that element, there is the
aspect that many Native American cultures did not hold the same values that our
nation was founded on.
The settlers who left Europe and other parts of the world
did something revolutionary. They set
out to establish a nation founded on the principles of equality, freedom, and justice
for all. Since then, people from all
nations have come to America under that contract: to receive all of the benefits of this great
land, but at the same time assimilate into its cultural pool. That is what has created the great melting
pot of a nation we are today. In 2007,
only about 4.5 million people in the United States could not speak English at
all. By making English the official
language, a source of encouragement would be provided to all people living in
America, to learn her language. Just
like when you visit someone’s house or even move in with them, you don’t come
in and make the rules yourself. You
follow their rules. Theodore Roosevelt
did not take very kindly to people living in America who refused to learn
English and show full loyalty to the United States in this quote:
"Every immigrant who comes here should be required
within five years to learn English or leave the country."
States with other rich and widespread cultural traditions,
such as Hawaii should be able to make other languages official as well, but if
a state is a part of the union, it should honor its established and most common
language: English.
To conclude with tonight, I promised I would share all the
info I have on the Ultimate Patriot competition and sweepstakes for this
summer. For those of you wondering what
I am talking about, almost a month ago I asked you all on Twitter who you
thought the “ultimate patriot” was. I
got a great mix of responses, and included quite a few of them in the list of
sixty-four nominees I established. Now,
since today is June 1st I am revealing the event to you all in full. From now through July 27th you
will have the opportunity to make your voice heard by voting in various surveys
on who the ultimate patriot is. It’s
really simple to do. To begin, just
visit the official headquarters of the Ultimate Patriot event at www.wix.com/lancejp/patriot or
click on the logo that will appear in the photo show on Lance Pisowicz Online (www.wix.com/lancejp/online). I will also be posting the links to vote in each
of the surveys on Twitter and Facebook.
Once you are on the Ultimate Patriot headquarters webpage, just click on
the white circle with the yellow word “vote” on it to be taken to the current
survey. You can vote once per computer
in each survey of the event.
The event itself is broken into different rounds and
groups. A round is just like an March
Madness NCAA Tournament round. The round
of 64 nominees will have 32 “match-ups” where you will pick who the greater
patriot is in each “match-up.” The next
round, the round of 32 will have 16 “match-ups” and so on. The larger rounds are broken into what I call
groups, where you will vote on different sections of the bracket in each
group. To fully understand what I mean
by the event setup, I would advise you to download either the PDF or Microsoft
Excel document that says “Updated Bracket” from www.wix.com/lancejp/patriot. You can also find out how your favorite patriot
might win the entire event.
If all of this seems like a lot, I understand. That is why I am suspending the weekly polls
until this event concludes at the end of July.
But to make this event a little sweeter for you all, I am overseeing a
sweepstakes event that runs in conjunction with the Ultimate Patriot competition. For every survey you complete you receive one
chance in a random drawing to receive a $25 Restaurants.com E-Gift
Certificate. It’s a nice gesture and a
way for me to say thank you for all of the support you all have shown me these
past few months.
If you have any questions about the event, I tried to cover
everything at www.wix.com/lancejp/patriot
but I am available to answer any more questions you may have via Twitter or my
email, lpisowicz@usa.com.
That’s all the
time we have for tonight. Thank you for
joining me on “What’s Wrong With Washington”.
I will see you on Sunday with “Lance’s Weekly Walk.”
I hope you
have enjoyed our broadcast tonight, as much as I have. Thanks again, and God bless you all. See you Sunday!
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