Why Bilingualism is incredibly overrated and in some cases should be actively discouraged

It has been some time since I’ve read such an outlandish opinion piece on the outcome of the US elections, and it’s published by the Times Online no less, But then again, it’s written by a Frenchman who has absolutely no feel or sense of America or it’s democracy in action.

I admit he lost me at the over the top rhetoric:

“In short, everything will be decided according to local squabbles. Yet these are the only elections of truly global importance in the world. This is the only electoral battle that we know of on which, in a strict sense, the fate of the planet hangs.”

And that is from only the second paragraph, but the context is even worse:

“A victory of pro-choice partisans in South Dakota or adversaries of unregulated gun sales in Ohio will oblige the White House — without losing too much face or explicitly agreeing with the arguments of the former future president, Al Gore — to reconsider its irresponsible positions over the Kyoto Protocol and the US contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions”

Newsflash; long before Bush removed the US signature on the Kyoto Protocol it had crashed and burned in United States Congress. It is not just a dead issue for the Americans - it’s been well and truly deep sixed. I suspect that no matter the outcome of today’s election Mr. Levy’s expectations will lead him to do a slow burn:

The two victories of the “moral values” maniacs in 2000 and 2004 were never a movement but a battle of the rearguard. The sustained direction of the past 40 years of American history — toward the victories of civil rights, the democratisation of the South, the loosening of moral strictures — demonstrates that the Bush phenomenon is above all a last stand, the ultimate and terrible outburst of a beast that knows it is wounded and is gambling it all. The reasons to hope largely overtake the grounds for worry.

If I was given the choice between bunkering down with immoral or moral maniacs - moral ones wins every time with me. Furthermore, Mr. Levy prose shows more than a little tendency towards histrionic but his grasp of American history is shaky too.

It has been Republican presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr) who have absolutely dominated the White House in the last 40 years while the few Democratic Presidents (Johnson, Carter, Clinton) just don’t have the good sense to fade away into the obscurity they so aptly deserve. Though, I am personally waiting to read why what Mr. Levy writes about those moral values maniacs the day after his car gets torched in the Islamic Vichy Republic.