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Slipping the constitutional leash
By George F. Will, E-mail the writer
In May 1918, with America embroiled in the First World War, Iowa Gov. William Lloyd Harding dealt a blow against Germany. His Babel Proclamation — that was its title; you cannot make this stuff up — decreed: “Conversation in public places, on trains and over the telephone should be in the English language.” The proscription included church services, funerals and pretty much everything else.

Iowa’s immigrant communities that spoke Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and French objected to this censorship of languages of America’s wartime allies. Harding, however, said speaking any foreign language was an “opportunity [for] the enemy to scatter propaganda.” Conversations on street corners and over telephone party lines — Iowa telephone operators did the metadata-gathering that today’s National Security Agency does — resulted in arrests. Harding was ridiculed but Germany lost the war, so there.

The war validated Randolph Bourne’s axiom that “war is the health of the state,” but it killed Bourne, who died in December 1918 from the influenza epidemic it unleashed. Today, as another war is enlarging government’s intrusiveness and energizing debate about intrusiveness, it is timely to remember that war is not the only, or even primary, cause of this.

Or, more precisely, actual war is not the only cause. Ersatz “wars” — domestic wars on various real or imagined vices — also wound the defense of limited government. So argue David B. Kopel and Trevor Burrus in their essay “Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Gambling and Guns: The Synergistic Constitutional Effects.”

Grizalltheway wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:

Are those Brazilians?

Grizalltheway wrote:It's Portuguese, man. They speak Portuguese in Brazil. I know they're similar, but c'mon.

JohnStOnge wrote:I had to stop because the language is so ugly. What I mean by that is that Spanish as it is spoken in Mexico, Central, and South America is such an ugly sounding language. I know, I know, I'm horrible. But it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

If I HAVE to listen to a foreign language being spoken, give me French. A sexy French chick talking in French is GREAT. What she's saying doesn't matter at all. It's a smooth, sexy language.

Spanish as it's spoken in South America is rough. Awful. Ugly language. Sounds crude. You have a sexy chick then she opens her mouth speaking that crude sounding language and it just ruins it.

kalm wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:I had to stop because the language is so ugly. What I mean by that is that Spanish as it is spoken in Mexico, Central, and South America is such an ugly sounding language. I know, I know, I'm horrible. But it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

If I HAVE to listen to a foreign language being spoken, give me French. A sexy French chick talking in French is GREAT. What she's saying doesn't matter at all. It's a smooth, sexy language.

Spanish as it's spoken in South America is rough. Awful. Ugly language. Sounds crude. You have a sexy chick then she opens her mouth speaking that crude sounding language and it just ruins it.

I think chicks with british accents are hot.

CAA Flagship wrote:

kalm wrote:
I think chicks with british accents are hot.

kalm wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:

Asian "Grannies" too.

JohnStOnge wrote:I had to stop because the language is so ugly. What I mean by that is that Spanish as it is spoken in Mexico, Central, and South America is such an ugly sounding language. I know, I know, I'm horrible. But it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

If I HAVE to listen to a foreign language being spoken, give me French. A sexy French chick talking in French is GREAT. What she's saying doesn't matter at all. It's a smooth, sexy language.

Spanish as it's spoken in South America is rough. Awful. Ugly language. Sounds crude. You have a sexy chick then she opens her mouth speaking that crude sounding language and it just ruins it.

Grizalltheway wrote:

houndawg wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:

A friend of mine from Peru tells me that in all of Latin America you are considered not to have fvcked until you have fvcked in Brasil.

mrklean wrote:

houndawg wrote:
A friend of mine from Peru tells me that in all of Latin America you are considered not to have fvcked until you have fvcked in Brasil.

HELL YES!!! this is 1000% correct
Been there done that in 1996