A Memorial Day Laugh and History Lesson

May 30, 2016

Whenever I point out the evils of the military, I always get at least one e-mail from someone who claims that without the military we would all be speaking German or Japanese. I was not disappointed after the publication of my article today.

First, the laugh:

you are 75.4 percent an uninformed jerk as to who to blame for military misuse by the USA… Blame goes to government hacks. without veterens we would be speaking German or Japanese or the King’s English. In any case you would not be allowed to write what you do.. Have a nice Memorial day with your misplaced anger..

Second, the history lesson. When Germany occupied France during WWII, the French people were not forced to speak German. It was our great ally in WWII, the USSR, that conquered countries and forced people to learn Russian.

Update: A reader tells me that “after the United States conquered the Philippine Islands in 1898, one of the first orders of business there was to make English the official language of government, even though very few Filipinos spoke English.”