Fuel for the debate

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."   -Theodore Roosevelt

      For the most part I share these sentiments. I am not opposed to learning second languages, like Spanish, but I am a firm believer that we should possess one common civic language.  Other languages are learned with two goals in mind, communicating with those who speak a different language (NO DUH!) and assimilating those who do into the United States with a better understanding of English.  If second language issues were not challenge enough, the use of Internet verbiage is polluting the language as well. We all naively hoped that the increased use of keyboards would make us better typists.  LOL! It has opened new doors to laziness and expediency which is a strange pairing in Internet useage.