Great toon.Seriously, ballots should only be in English.You can speak 8 languages if you want(very impressive), but if you’re going to live in America, English better be one of them!People that can’t read English should not be deciding our future.Learn English and join America in the 21st century. Then you can understand what you’re voting for.
The trouble with trying to tie in residents or naturalised citizens to a national identity that appeals to patriotism and nationalism is that it can alienate and be counter-productive. I have a couple of nationalities, neither of which match the country I work in or reside in. It doesn’t stop me from forming an “allegiance” with my host country. One’s allegiance should not be to a country solely on national identity but also what it stands for. If what it stands for is at odds with me, I will not owe it allegiance, be it the country of my birth, my ancestral home or the country of my current residence.My daughter has 4 nationalities but I suspect she’ll grow up having one identity, with the other 3 nationalities complementing her worldview. I sincerely hope she will not blindly accept that country’s decisions, offer her allegiance purely on national or language ties. If fewer people were nationalist, there’d be fewer wars as fewer people would feel the urge to follow their crazed leaders’ notions of allegiance.
A dialect is a regional variation of a language. Perhaps local ballot issues could be printed in the local dialect but finding an accepted dictionary for each locality is an impossible task. Notwithstanding Jeff Foxworthy’s remarkable effort. :-)
“Legalese” has nothing to do with either English, or dialects. It’s obfuscation to make sure the voter reading the ballot measure will have absolutely no clue what those measures will actually do, especially after legislatures “clear them up” as actual law and/or implimented regulations.
After years of reading such “legalese” for work, I still have trouble keeping some measures straight on what the impacts will be, or for that matter, even what they’re proposing in some highly convoluted cases.
Make ALL MEASURES in PLAIN ENGLISH, just as Congress is supposed to, but doesn’t, present all draft laws as PLAIN ENGLISH. Shakespeare was kinda’ right, we don’t need to kill all the lawyers, but castrating a few who get too “cutesy” in preparing law and ballot measures to trick the public, might slow them down?
^Masterskrain does get the point, and the other issue is that those “plain English” texts that DO follow the legalize, - often get it WRONG as well regarding the real impact of those measures!! Those are typically approve by state Attorney Generals before the summaries are written, so who’s messing with the voter on THAT? Also a three paragraph statement in the voter brochure and ballot, do NOT usually match, or fully explain, the 16 to 600 PAGES of text in those measures!
Another over all problem, regardless of just what plain language were to be used in most balot measures, is that the consequences of voting one way or another on complicated (not all) ballot issues sometimes do not become clear until the issue has been voted on for sometime. However, as a voter I still like to at least be able to study and then have some say in how such matters turn out, don’t the others on here? After all, we do bother to use our computers to communicate on the issues here, do we not?
As a long time resident of Britain I’ll have to chime in and say many British living north of Watford don’t either. Nor in east London, or Suff Lundun…And no-one but the Queen speaks the queen’s English. Except Charles and who really listens to him?. When did you last hear RP on the BBC? Brian Sewell…?
manteo16nc over 9 years ago
Tell me about it. No, I mean tell me about it. In non-lawyerspeak.
ConserveGov over 9 years ago
Great toon.Seriously, ballots should only be in English.You can speak 8 languages if you want(very impressive), but if you’re going to live in America, English better be one of them!People that can’t read English should not be deciding our future.Learn English and join America in the 21st century. Then you can understand what you’re voting for.
OmqR-IV.0 over 9 years ago
No kidding. :-| Even though the 1st poster correctly read the cartoon.
OmqR-IV.0 over 9 years ago
The trouble with trying to tie in residents or naturalised citizens to a national identity that appeals to patriotism and nationalism is that it can alienate and be counter-productive. I have a couple of nationalities, neither of which match the country I work in or reside in. It doesn’t stop me from forming an “allegiance” with my host country. One’s allegiance should not be to a country solely on national identity but also what it stands for. If what it stands for is at odds with me, I will not owe it allegiance, be it the country of my birth, my ancestral home or the country of my current residence.My daughter has 4 nationalities but I suspect she’ll grow up having one identity, with the other 3 nationalities complementing her worldview. I sincerely hope she will not blindly accept that country’s decisions, offer her allegiance purely on national or language ties. If fewer people were nationalist, there’d be fewer wars as fewer people would feel the urge to follow their crazed leaders’ notions of allegiance.
dzw3030 over 9 years ago
A dialect is a regional variation of a language. Perhaps local ballot issues could be printed in the local dialect but finding an accepted dictionary for each locality is an impossible task. Notwithstanding Jeff Foxworthy’s remarkable effort. :-)
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
“Legalese” has nothing to do with either English, or dialects. It’s obfuscation to make sure the voter reading the ballot measure will have absolutely no clue what those measures will actually do, especially after legislatures “clear them up” as actual law and/or implimented regulations.
After years of reading such “legalese” for work, I still have trouble keeping some measures straight on what the impacts will be, or for that matter, even what they’re proposing in some highly convoluted cases.
Make ALL MEASURES in PLAIN ENGLISH, just as Congress is supposed to, but doesn’t, present all draft laws as PLAIN ENGLISH. Shakespeare was kinda’ right, we don’t need to kill all the lawyers, but castrating a few who get too “cutesy” in preparing law and ballot measures to trick the public, might slow them down?
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
^Masterskrain does get the point, and the other issue is that those “plain English” texts that DO follow the legalize, - often get it WRONG as well regarding the real impact of those measures!! Those are typically approve by state Attorney Generals before the summaries are written, so who’s messing with the voter on THAT? Also a three paragraph statement in the voter brochure and ballot, do NOT usually match, or fully explain, the 16 to 600 PAGES of text in those measures!
frodo1008 over 9 years ago
Another over all problem, regardless of just what plain language were to be used in most balot measures, is that the consequences of voting one way or another on complicated (not all) ballot issues sometimes do not become clear until the issue has been voted on for sometime. However, as a voter I still like to at least be able to study and then have some say in how such matters turn out, don’t the others on here? After all, we do bother to use our computers to communicate on the issues here, do we not?
OmqR-IV.0 over 9 years ago
As a long time resident of Britain I’ll have to chime in and say many British living north of Watford don’t either. Nor in east London, or Suff Lundun…And no-one but the Queen speaks the queen’s English. Except Charles and who really listens to him?. When did you last hear RP on the BBC? Brian Sewell…?