A jokester jokes:
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Hans says to Frans: Do you know what you call someone who speaks two languages?
Frans: Oh I know. Bilingual !
Hans: Do you know what you call someone who speaks THREE languages?
Frans: That’s easy. Trilingual.
Hans: And do you know what you call someone who speaks only 1 language?
Frans: Actually, I’m not sure. What is it?
Hans: American !!!!
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Hardy. Har. Har. Har!
That was told by someone from a second-rate has-been country whose native language is not coveted by 8/9ths of the world.
But you know what, Hans had a point.
It’s true.
Americans don’t speak many languages.
And why?
Because we don’t have to you retard.
So quit telling your miserable feel-bad joke.
There is no reason for an American to feel bad.
I was born into the world language. I am a native speaker of THE international language. And on top of that a writer in the global language.
American English is the lingua franca. Other languages, including French, simply are not.
You aren’t going to make me feel bad.
Nor should any English speaker reading this feel bad.
(Yes, I know, it’s time for my readers abroad to start sending hate email now in response to my chauvinistic email).
Before you badmouth me, keep in mind that I speak several languages and have translated a Nobel Prize nominated poet into English, and fully believe that knowing another language gives you an entirely new perspective on the world that is impossible to know any other way.
Knowing foreign languages is a good thing, a very good thing, and there is still no reason for a monolingual American to feel bad.
Sorry, not sorry.
Even more than not feeling bad....The truth is there is never a time like this to be an American.
We are at the pinnacle of American influence and power on the planet.
Though, some people have been convinced that the time has come for America to be done. That’s what some people have been convinced — even some Americans have been convinced of this.
And they are probably right if we can’t get back to first principles.
Because we are very distracted. Over the past four years, the extent of that distraction has become so clear to me. I knew it was getting bad, but I didn’t know how bad.
So with the realization that things were getting bad, I started with the one place I knew I could make America a little better: myself
I dug even deeper into first principles. I doubled down on writing even more pieces for websites like LewRockwell.com and Mises.org — places where first principles abound.
Those pieces may have encouraged others, but more than anything they were written to call myself to account.
I also started paying a lot more attention to God.
Yes, I know. Some of you are rolling your eyes at that.
“Not again,” you are huffing.
“This email started out so well!”
Maybe you are even rushing to hit the unsubscribe button.
If that is your reaction, you don’t get it.
Race didn’t make Europe great. Colonialism didn’t make Europe great. Resources didn’t make Europe great. Geography didn’t make Europe great. Thousands of years of slavery certainly didn’t make Europe great. And nor did any of those things make America great.
It is the personal liberty that had such an impact.
And that springs from one place and one place only, the Bible, and the Christian understanding of God. Those are the most basic first principles for anything that even remotely can be called decent American values.
It all comes back to God.
How did Europe get to where it is?
It had God.
How did American get to where it is?
It had God.
The first time I read the Bible cover to cover I wanted to know God better and believed it would help me. But I had an agenda. I wanted my country back. I wanted the depredation to stop. I wanted to figure out where we had gone wrong. And I knew it was somewhere between the Bible and 2020 that we went wrong.
I just didn’t know where.
Last year I read a half dozen first principles type books with the readers of this email list. We had some pretty intense discussions. And I expect we will have even more readings and discussions like that in the year ahead.
But, even if you aren’t a religious person, if you want your country back, if you want your community back, if you want your family back, if you want your home back, you need to get back to first principles.
There is no foundation for that like the Bible — yes, even if you are not a believer. And yes, also if you are a believer. Many people gloss over what a powerful foundation it is.
The Bible and Shakespeare used to be the foundation of American learning, most of which used to take place in the home.
I ask you to join me in the year ahead in reading the Bible cover to cover.
Now is the time.
Do not let another year pass without doing this.
And why?
Because I know the potential that reading the Bible has in shaping not just the year you read it, but in shaping many years ahead. The sooner you start reading it, the more stable a foundation everything from that point forward can have. Getting back to first principles means a great deal. And what a mess we are in if we can’t get back there.
I don’t know that I can get Grabby Hands Cuomo, Dementia Hitler, or Pocahontas to take the Bible seriously. But I know I probably can get you to. And that’s who I really want to see interested in that, because that’s who I want to see rebuilding the future of America.
The others can take a hike.
They are the ones set on ruining the place.
Not me.
I love the people who inhabit this land too much.
I’m not giving up.
Which means either we get back to first principles or we are wasting our time.
Tap here to join me: 55hours.org
-Allan Stevo
English has long been the most popular second language in the world.
You made me LOL "Because we don’t have to you retard."