I guess and that it irks me that you make logical choice and validate it through arbitrary prospective potential... And until I got halfway through college the known prospective potential for me by your general thoughts would have screwed me.
Justify as you will but if i had $6 to give they both would get three. Human suffering transcends worth/potential.
This nice document says so as well.
You make valid points and I understand your perspective but I am going to have to agree to disagree on this. I would invest in the child because the child has a greater chance to benefit from the money or time than the adult. They both have the same need and are in as bad a situation but the adult because he has reached more of his learning potential has more skills than the child at the point to be able to survive easier but his potential to learn more and provide more to society is less. The child having learned very little because of the lack of life experience has more potential to learn more because of how the brain functions and therefore I see more value in investing in the child because the child will benefit more and society will as well because there is a higher percentage that the child will provide more in the long run versus the short run. You gain nothing from investing in the child at the moment but the potential in the future is greater. I guess it is like deciding; if you had egg, would you rather eat now because you are hungry and get the current satisfaction or try to raise it and have the potential to be fed the rest your life. Of course their is the chance the egg dies(you can still eat it) and you do get something no matter what if you eat the egg but the payoff is little and only lasts in that moment. There is also something to be said when there is hope for something better than just being fed in the moment. This is my indivdual opinion and what I would do but the point you bring up with equality is good. The government should do something different from what I would do.
Now to address your other points and get back to the main point of this argument. Yes the declaration of independence says all men are created equal yet sadly not one single person is the United States is treated equal. When a persons who's parents are as well off is given a free ride to college is that a fair to the middle class American who has to pay for it on his own; all other things equal. In the bigger picture of the parents income and overall view of the separate people's families; it is fair, but it is not fair to the college student who now has a lot of debt. If all men are created equal then no favor should be given to anybody in any form. If you do something for someone you have to do something for everybody. If everybody is created equal there would be no specialized laws helping immigrants or granting any more money to them, because it is not equal. It is a double edged sword. Equality? That means no person gets anymore help then another.
Also how can you make a private company that is run by an individual change to the immigrants? Does that not violate their rights? You are only considering one party in this situation not the the whole. The government could change and do everything in multiple languages; like it does, but to expect private companies to do so would be violating the rights of the companies and the individuals that run them.
As you said the declaration of independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". It does not state that the government is directly responsible for providing these things. They are simply not to inhibit them. By saying English is the official language then yes it would inhibit this right and again I do not believe it should be the official language. There should be no official language. It is not up to the government to make everybody happy. That is the trade off for what the founding fathers wanted. The country was founded on the principal that with hard work and determination you could achieve anything and the government up to this point is not limiting these people by anyway. Could they go out and pay for someone to teach them the majority language of the country? Yes. Is it fair for them to ask for some help from the government? yes I think so but I don't think it is the governments sole responsibility to do this. It is as much up to the individual as it is the government.
The founding fathers when writing this document came from all backgrounds and collaborated to make the document. Something should be said about the fact that it was written in English. The supreme law of the land and the standard by which the country was founded is written in English and was not translated for the multiple languages being spoken back then. The great melting pot of America has always taken bits and pieces of each culture that has lived here to make it what it is today. Those that immigrated here in the 1800's learned English not because they where told they had to but because it is beneficial to learn the local language. You cannot move around the fact that English is the majority language of the United States and has been for a long time. Through the entire history of the United States there is thousands of examples of cultures migrating together and speaking their home language together but learning English. My family is an example of this. I am third generation immigrant. My grandparents came over here fleeing from the Nazi's because they apposed Hitler and though I do not speak German fluently it is still spoken often in my household. My grandparents, especially my grandmother who didn't know any English never once held it against anybody for that fact that she had to learn it. She came over here had 6 kids and got her doctrines degree in teaching at the same time.(FYI Her story was on discovery channel) Adaptation is a part of immigration and by creating individual laws that are specialized to each group of immigrants it is not encouraging assimilation, it is discouraging it. You are not asking them to become a part of our society you are saying you can just move here and keep everything the same, you are just in a new land.
That is not assimilation and that does not encourage the principal that we are all equal or Americans. That breads the principal that we are all different and not equal. My blood is German, my ancestors are all German but I am American. I do not count myself as a part of that culture because I am not and that is how it should be. Do I still retain parts of that culture? Yes, but I also bring in many parts of America's culture into my family. Assimilation is a part of immigration and the process will be even slower if you encourage people to keep everything they brought from their home. Encouraging immigrants to speak the majority language is better in the long run than limiting them by having to adapt to them. If Spanish becomes the majority language than I am going to expect to have learn Spanish, if Deutsch becomes the majority language I will have my family to teach me it, if any language is the majority language than it should be expected that people should adapt to it. What you are saying is more detrimental than helpful. You are not helping them by babying them and holding their hand through every step. Sometimes you just have to let someone learn from their hardships because they become stronger. Teaching immigrants English is the best solution to this and doing so does help society like you stated because it creates competition but it should also be up to the individual as well as the government to do this. Money and time should not be wasted on those who do not want to learn the majority language.
Another quote. "You give a man a fish, you feed him for the day; you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." So like I said, I agree with much of what your saying but disagree about how to get there. In any case, making any language official is a terrible idea. Giving special treatment to immigrants by posting many languages is also not a good idea. Teaching them English and encouraging them to feel like Americans and part of the country is most beneficial. Programs within schools should be encouraged to teach English plus many other languages and no program should get anymore funding than another. Those programs teaching English to non-speaking English should be getting as much funding as those teaching English speaking students any other language because again it creates competition which encourages growth. Also if there are free programs being sponsored by the government to teach non-English speaking people English, than there should be free programs for anybody who wants to learn another language because that is equality. No specialized treatment to anybody by the government. Individual companies and individuals on the other hand do not apply to this because it violates their rights given to them by the declaration of independence. You want equality than that is equality. Not one person will benefit more than the other unless of course they motivate them-self to do so. Some people are born into better situations and that is part of being in a capitalistic society. Work hard, become educated, earn money and your kids will be born into a better situation and if they do the same thing than their kids will be born into a better situation.
