Why should anyone in America have to “Press one for English?” We can thank Ronald Reagan for opening the floodgates to the invading hoards of Mexicans, and the GOP lost because they just don’t get it. And Democrats are going to lose if they don’t get it. We the People are fed up with politicians pandering for votes, appealing to minorities and perverts while ignoring the majority, when not insulting us, just to get elected all the while refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor to benefit politicians and their corporate bosses.

The whole world knows America has been betrayed and sold out for profits; that our politicians are easily bought and sold to the highest bidder, that they serve the god Mammon and there is no truth in them. And because of this long line of liars and panderers America is no longer a unified nation with a national identity. As I look at the picture of George Washington on the wall here where I write I have cause to wonder how many homes in America now display his picture. I don’t expect to find his picture in the homes of Mexicans legal or illegal, but how many homes in America still know anything about our history as a nation, or for that matter the teachers in our schools? I have no doubt if the ACLU has its way pictures of George Washington will be banned from the schools as happened with the Bible, the Decalogue and prayer.

Among the many disasters threatening America is the decline into barbarism witnessed by the increasing use of vulgar and profane language, the lack of civilized proprieties throughout America. However, like my picture of George Washington there was a time within my memory when children were instructed in the use of proper language and civilized manners. But with the encouragement of the universities and an ACLU dominated Supreme Court any rules enforcing proper dress and proper language in the schools of America were halted. Such rules were further discouraged by the use of trash books filled with profanity and perversion posing as “literature.” In no time at all such trash was passed on to the actual speech and behavior of children aided by teachers, the products of the universities, TV and Hollywood, the result being the sinking into barbarism where no standards of decent dress or language, no standards of discipline were allowed.

Despite all the scholarly tomes filled with theories no one knows exactly how Homo sapiens became separated by language. That this has resulted in so much evil makes me rethink the story of Babel in Genesis. Perhaps the gods mentioned were Satan and his group? But whatever the reason there is no discounting the evil resulting from the lack of a common language among humankind, though the crowning glory of language was to be English.

In “My Fair Lady” Professor Higgins had an excellent grasp of the vital importance of the English language and the ability to speak it properly. He knew language separates the classes, and the better classes were distinguished by proper speech more than any other factor, enabling even a flower girl to be treated as a duchess. Were it not for his personal life Bill Cosby might enjoy more success trying to get this message across to Negroes. But at that, proper dress and speech must begin in the home, and reinforced by the schools.

The Greeks had a word for it. The expression comes from the marvelous precision and facility of the Greek language beyond any other of the time leading to the "Golden Age" of philosophical speculation, among other things. I came to appreciate this in my own studies of Greek (and Hebrew) under the tutelage of my friend and mentor Dr. Charles Lee Feinberg, Th. D., Ph. D. the Dean of Talbot Seminary in La Mirada, California. Uncle Charles, as I was privileged to call him, was a master of Semitic Languages as well as Greek and was appointed by the Lockman Foundation to undertake the task of heading the group of scholars translating the manuscripts for the New American Standard Bible. My autographed copy of the Pilot Edition of this work is among my most prized possessions.

Though the German and French languages would eventually excel that of the Greeks, it would be English as exemplified by Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible that would prove to be the epitome of language achievement in the civilized world.

For real students of language, not only are vocabulary, grammar and syntax essential to such study, but also the philological and morphological characteristics of language are of great importance. If I appear to place undue emphasis upon the need for those claiming a command of English to have the essential credentials for their claims, it is largely because I witness far too many making such claims while their writing proclaims their ignorance.

It was not that long past that knowledge of Greek was a characteristic of good breeding and manners, one of the requirements for the status of "Gentleman" among the better classes. But we are now past that requirement, and while knowledge of Greek and studies of Greek writers and philosophers still have an essential place among scholars, it continues to be no more than a pretentious affectation by those who make a show of their self-assumed knowledge of philosophy, for example, by quotations from the Greeks while knowing nothing themselves of the Greek language.

Even worse, such pretenders will quote from Socrates and Plato all the while ignoring those like Goethe and Emerson, even Thoreau (who was not entirely innocent of some affectation respecting oriental writers and philosophers), men who greatly improved upon the ideas of the Greek philosophers. In a further display of ignorance, pretenders to knowledge quoting the Greeks will sometimes take from Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic writings in a further display of ignorance by ignoring Western writers and philosophers that had a far greater command of the "Great Conversation" than any of these others. We have read some of their writings; those that want to make a display of their knowledge of Aristotle, Zen, Vedic hymns, the Rubaiyat, the Koran, etc., all the while displaying their own ignorance of the fact that Bacon, Emerson, or Sam Clemens said it far better.

Now I know some of these pretenders to knowledge wish to avoid appearing provincial, they want others to believe they are well read and knowledgeable of foreign mystics and philosophers, and the books proliferate singing the praises of such things. However, at least pundits and writers like Buckley and Will, when quoting some arcane philosophical work, are well enough educated to provide the proper context for such quotations.

It is not that Zoroaster and Confucius were without genius; what gives the lie to any kind of claimed superiority by those who make claims of superiority for Oriental writers and philosophers, for example, is the very fact of the obvious superiority of Western Civilization over all others. Would those who make claims of the superiority of Buddhist, Hindu, or Islamic writers wish to live in such societies and the cultures resulting from these as opposed to the truly civilized nations of Western Civilization? I think not.

Though detractors abound defending the “right” to be obscene, profane and vulgar, to speak and dress as barbarians it is the English language, as Professor Higgins so well pointed out, that distinguishes between a flower girl and a duchess, and continues to distinguish true ladies and gentlemen. To point out the obvious, needed because of barbarians defending their “right” to contradict the obvious, character is not defined by language. But genuine character of virtue and integrity seeks improvement, not the destruction of those things beautiful such as proper dress and speech.