Voting Early

I went and cast my ballot today. Figured I'd beat the rush on the 4th. I gotta say, first of all, to those of you who have voted and to those who will...Thank you. Seriously. Actually I should correct that. It should read legally voted. One American, one vote. To you assholes out there who vote 3 or 4 times, or to those who should not vote because you're not an American citizen. Fuck. You. I hope every last one of you motherfuckers die in a most horrible manner, suffering for hours before you finally expire.

But to my fellow Americans to whom voting is a most sacred right, Thank You. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc. I may think some of you are misguided for voting straight ticket, mainly because that may not be what's best for the whole of the country. As the Democrats skew farther and farther into the left (the red zone, if you will), I believe they are definitely not the ones who should have the conn. Republicans seem to have more (but not all) of the best interests of the country at heart, however, even some of McCain's ideas didn't sit well with me due to the fact that they seemed rather socialist as well. For those of you wondering, I'm not registered with any political party.

One thing happened, though, that didn't sit well with me. One gentleman, after exercising his right, came walking out as I was standing in line. He passed a small TV that was playing a recorded message in Vietnamese, explaining the voting process (I guess). He said, "It should all be in English. It's in the Bill of Rights." The lady in front of me gave me a look as if to say, "WTF?" I just just kind of smiled and shook my head.

I'm going to go about this backwards. Let's look at the second part of that sentence. It is NOT in the Bill of Rights, bubba. The first ten amendments are commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights. Let's do a quick review:

Amendment I. - Freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, freedom to peaceably assemble, freedom to petition the government.
Amendment II. - Right to keep and bear arms.
Amendment III. - No quartering of soldiers, in times of peace or war, without consent of the homeowner.
Amendment IV. - Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
Amendment V. - Freedom from self-incrimination and double jeopardy. Right to due process. Eminent domain.
Amendment VI. - Trial by jury and rights of the accused.
Amendment VII. - Civil trial by jury.
Amendment VIII. - No excessive bail/fines; no cruel and unusual punishments.
Amendment IX. - Protection of rights not enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Amendment X. - Powers of states and people.

Maybe I can't read all that good, cuz I was raised and schooled in Smalltown, IL, but I didn't see anything in there at all about voting being strictly in English. Which brings me back to the first part.

I think there should be. Yup, I said it. English should be made the official language of the United States. Especially voting. Think about it. If you've made it this far and are a naturalized citizen, having taken an oath in English to "support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic", then your proficiency in the language should be good enough that you can vote in English. Same thing with the driver's tests. Jeezus Criminy, our fucking road signs aren't in any other language...hello?

Before some assclown calls me a racist, let me say that we are a multicultural society. The Great Melting Pot. And that should be celebrated. And I'm not saying that you should abandon your native language. Because then I would be a hypocrite. My wife and I speak Spanish at home most of the time. However, she doesn't expect to be pandered to just because English is not her first language. Conversely, I don't expect people to pander to me when I'm in Colombia, simply because my first language isn't Spanish. I'd be pretty much assed out if I did. And to those assholes who only print signs in English and Spanish, let me ask you this: What about those who speak Chinese, Farsi, Afrikaans, Portuguese, French, Swedish? Should they suffer because you're insensitive pricks, or are you going to print signs with these languages also and stop discriminating against these people and those who speak other languages? I think you'll find it very costly to do so, so think about the amount of taxpayer dollars spent that could be saved had our government not had to print the same document in 100 different languages.