all of this over someone wanting someone else to share with them their sources for such information.

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And it's official: I Start school in Lewiston, ID - 15 Oct 08

WOW, WeatherLady.......somehow I missed his thinly veiled insult. Maybe he hasn't realized that most truckdrivers are far more educated than a 23 year old College Student anyway.

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There is a difference between wanting some information and insulting others by implying that "truckdrivers" aren't as smart as 23 year old college students with little or no other real world experience.

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whoa whoa whoa! college student? i've already graduated ... thanks (this is intended to be funny). and where did i imply that you weren't as smart as me? for that matter, why the #### would i insult people in a profession that i WANTED to become a part of? you need to get some thicker ####### skin ... all of you if you found that to be offensive. believe me, if i'd known that all of this trouble would've come from asking someone a question, i'd have kept my mouth shut ... but that would defeat the purpose of a FORUM now wouldn't it.

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And it's official: I Start school in Lewiston, ID - 15 Oct 08

If you go back and read your own words, sir, you were being rather insulting and patronizing. If you want to ask questions, feel free, however leave the condescention elsewhere.

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Some people want you to prove your point even if they cant prove theirs.

So I've noticed...

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Interesting topic.

When I was younger, I went to Europe with my family to learn about where my ancestors came from. I remember being surprised at how many people in Spain, Germany, Poland and Italy spoke English. They also spoke many of each other's languages. Looking back it really makes perfect sense. European countries have to do a lot of business with one another that requires bi-lingual, tri-lingual, etc. linguistic skills.

I live in California now. The reality is that there is a very large Hispanic population here and it's growing. We don't do business with Mexico, the Caribbean or Central America per say, but I do a lot of business with people from these places. As a matter of fact, you'd be hard pressed to find someone in the state who doesn't do business or is friends with someone from a Latin country. If the US wants to be taken seriously in a global marketplace, we can't simply ignore the fact that there isn't one international language. Knowing some Spanish means that my services are more marketable. Each company I work for knows that my conversational Spanish will help the company.

So what would a national language look like? All of the people I work with who speak broken English or Spanglish would essentially be forced to learn. It would make immigration from non-English speaking countries, legal or illegal, much more difficult. If the number of guest workers in the Southwest dropped off in any real way (which would be a serious possibility if there were a national language), our economy would likely suffer in major ways. The shortage of pickers and processors in the farming industry would streak production and thus distribution to a halt and truckers would be out of work across the country. I can't agree with that. I'm sure that he truckers of this community would have a problem with that, too.

I disagree. We have a huge surplus of Mexicans here. We could send them anywhere. I heard on the radio today that Hispanics are breeding at a 30x rate than whites and asians together. We are already out numbered. There are many places that only speak Spanish around here. I think we will end up having two languages like Canada. I do not like it and feel sorry for my kids and their kids.

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Prisoner Of The Highway, currently lending my hands to another line of work, but my heart is still behind the wheel. For another 2 months

What do you mean by "we" in "we are already outnumbered"? You couldn't possibly mean white people, could you? 74% of the US was white as of 2006. (1) And let's be honest; we have a lot more than two languages. In my circle of friends alone there's Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, and more. Why don't I worry for my children? Because I'm just fine. Learning "Hindi ako nagasalita nong tagalog." (I don't speak tagalog) didn't make my head explode. I didn't turn into a Fillipino. I didn't even start hating my country. I learned a little and it helped me discover a rich cultural heritage.

What would the specific harm be in people speaking more than one language?

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