English Only Quote of the Week

Bedne is spot on about how Nashvillians who think they're winning stand ultimately to lose with English Only:

Now [English Only opponents] are being insulted for fighting this, but later, when the lawsuits pile up, and the consequences of this bubble up, nobody will apologize, they will just say "I didn't realize" [the consequences of popularly approving the English Only amendment to the Metro Charter].

I've insisted for some time that if English Only ever reaches the referendum stage, then Eric Crafton wins, because as blue as Davidson County may look after Barack Obama's November win, we are still only among the bluest counties in a deep red state. We still field conservative Democrats to represent us and this county is nowhere close to moving past the knee-jerk stage to a growing immigrant community. Our media rarely bothers to cover local partisan attacks on immigrants and it puts on blinders to the fact that immigrants already know that learning English is imperative while giving demagogues free megaphones and pamphlets to play on cultural prejudices.

English Only opponents are probably going to lose when polls close next week, but not nearly as much as Nashville will.


UPDATE: Aunt B. states a fundamental reason for voting against English Only tout sweet:

“First it was ‘Whites Only.’ Now it’s ‘English Only.’ Stop the hate.”
“Why am I against ‘English Only’? Because I’m not a bigot.”