Correspondence

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 30, 1999

Contemporary Liberals Differ From Liberals of Yesteryear

I have a copy of a creed that was written by Dean Alfange, a founder of the Liberal Party of New York, and first published in This Week magazine in December 1951.

The text: "I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon -- if I can. I seek opportunity -- not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

"I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm.

"I will not trade freedom for beneficence or my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done.

"All this is what it means to be an American."

This sure is a different kind of liberal than we see today.

Corrine Michaels Birchwood, Wis.

The Media's Unabashed Manipulation of the Language

Those who live by the use of words in the media are fun to watch. It's not gun control, it's gun safety. No one is a liberal; there only are conservatives and moderates. And there is the constant use of the physically impossible image of right-wingers (usually extreme) with no left-ringers in the picture. Also, one is pro-choice (as if the choices are between six and a half-dozen) rather than being in favor of abortion.

When taxes collected exceed what is needed, a correction is a tax break -- usually only for the rich. If a plan calls for raising school-lunch and Medicare expenses 5 percent and someone says the raise only need be 4 percent, that is a tax cut. Deciding who controls the content of the media before an election is campaign-finance reform. The patients' bill of rights means someone other than a patient or his or her doctor determines permissible medical care. Reducing federal income by, say, $1 million threatens Social Security, but spending $1 million of federal income by firing a Tomahawk missile or guarding a Balkan crossroad has no effect on Social Security.

Yet when a Republican plays the same game effectively and says he is a compassionate conservative, the media wordsmiths have a cow.

P.H. Mayer. Oak Brook, Ill.

Bilingual Education Loses Out to Total English Immersion

"Ban on Bilingual Classes Earns A Grades" [see Education, Aug. 9], discusses the compelling anecdotal indications from California schools that English immersion is working where bilingual education has fared poorly for so many years. Now districts which hustled to undergo a rapid and thorough implementation of Proposition 227 are beginning to show results from their first full year of teaching English.

In June, Joe Farley, an elementary-school principal from Oceanside Unified School District in California, testified before Congress. Seventy-five minutes from the Mexican border, the district, with a 51 percent limited English-proficient population had relied heavily on bilingual education. But Farley's testimony told a story of stunning success in teaching children English faster and more effectively than anyone could have imagined.

Now Arizona voters are preparing to decide the fate of their own "English for the Children" initiative, and policymakers around the country are taking significant steps to make similar changes in their own schools. Bilingual-education reform is becoming one of the fastest-growing public-policy movements in the nation, and in time the winners will be millions of English learners in all 50 states.

Don Soifer Executive Vice President Lexington Institute Arlington, Va.