{"id":707,"date":"2008-07-03T09:37:38","date_gmt":"2008-07-03T13:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=707"},"modified":"2008-07-03T09:37:38","modified_gmt":"2008-07-03T13:37:38","slug":"argumentum-ad-linguam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=707","title":{"rendered":"Argumentum ad linguam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/07\/02\/AR2008070202352.html\">David Broder<\/a> reviews a conservative think tanks&#39; &quot;admirably well written and well researched&quot; pamphlet about whether &quot;whether America&#39;s national identity is eroding under the pressure of <strong>population diversity<\/strong> and <strong>educational slackness<\/strong>.&quot;&nbsp; Broder, in his oddly positive review of this pamphlet, fails to see the irony in the following two claims.<\/p>\n<p>First,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>And so, the Bradley scholars say, &quot;knowing what America stands for is not a genetic inheritance. It <strong>must be learned<\/strong>, both by the next generation and by those who come to this country. In this way, a nation founded on an idea is inherently fragile.&quot;&nbsp;  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>When it comes to the treatment of immigrants, the Bradley team sees a real threat in such things as <strong>multilingual ballots and bilingual classes<\/strong>. Such accommodations to the growing diversity of the population could lead to &quot;many Americas, or even no America at all,&quot; they maintain. &quot;Historical ignorance, civic neglect and social fragmentation might achieve what a foreign invader could not.&quot;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Seems to me the authors are disturbed by the mechanisms of greater civic knowledge and participation.&nbsp; Besides, if I remember my history rightly, both of the belligerents in American Civil War spoke English. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Broder reviews a conservative think tanks&#39; &quot;admirably well written and well researched&quot; pamphlet about whether &quot;whether America&#39;s national identity is eroding under the pressure of population diversity and educational slackness.&quot;&nbsp; Broder, in his oddly positive review of this pamphlet, fails to see the irony in the following two claims. First, And so, the Bradley &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=707\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Argumentum ad linguam<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[1987],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-broder","category-lack-of-evidence","tag-david-broder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}