How about Kirk reading the American Constitution in the TOS episode "The Omega Glory"?

Yes, Kirk's impassioned rendition of the preamble stirs my heart and soul the most. People should read it aloud and say it with meaning!

Great list! I love all of them but especially Jericho, Independence Day, Superman II, Red Dawn BSG and Babylon 5.... Happy Independence Day to all!

Our thanks to both Primogen and Marichele, who rightly pointed out a spectacular moment which we never should have overlooked. We've since added it to the list.

Last 5 minutes of West Wing season 2

also Bartlett's speech at the end of S4E1

Why 11?

Thank you SO MUCH scifi, thank you for actually sparing a thought about those of use that read what you call a news service from outside of the USA.
I am of course, being sarcastic.
Because if you actually had thought it through, you wouldn't have used hulu for a video.
I guess thats what happens when you stop giving a damn about your audience.

Awesome list - especially Jericho, Superman, Independance Day, & Red Dawn.

Good for you Omen - you tell him! I will be watching others blow things up and BBQing!!!

Don't forget about Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact giving a speech in front of the presently-being-rebuilt White House! Patriotism is brought to new heights with Morgan's amazing voice! "But the waters receded . . . " GOOD STUFF!

No biggie, but you wrote that Wonder Woman helped end "the Great War", but the Great War is another name for the First World War, not the Second. At least that's what I remember military historian John Keegan writing.

Jingoism is so much cooler with zap guns.

I have seen all the movies here and I have to say ID4 is the one and only. Oh and Maybe Dr. Zoidberg, Battlestar Galactica are to be mentioned as well.

In the words of George Orwell "Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally."

There's also the scene where the Milford family watches the occupying UN forces burn down their house in the 1987's TV miniseries "Amerika."

In "The Price of Liberty," a season three episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin goes up against a disgruntled scientist, Robert Meyer, who has been jobless since a cutback in the space program and who believes that the country has let him down.

His scheme is to ransom the Liberty Bell for five million dollars (and safe passage out of the United States). Steve locates the Bell, which has been wired with a highly sophisticated explosive device, requiring an expert to defuse it.

In a race against time, Steve is must call upon the expertise of an explosives specialist, Nils Lindstrom (Chuck Connors), who just happens to be serving time in state prison -- and who isn't particularly concerned about the Liberty Bell or what it represents.

I'm with Dave. Way to go, way to show your non-US readers how much you care. Still, happy 4th.

WEST WING? SCIFI? I think NOT!
Good list. Thank you.

Great list. Independence Day holds my top vote with The Omega Glory and Babylon 5 rounding out the top 3.

BTW - Sheridan's rank is Captain. The Commander rank was Ivoniva at the time of the episode.

Yeah, the Babylon 5 clip is the most in keeping with the spirit of the holiday. But I love the transition from the speech to the credits in Red Dawn. For some reason, that's my favorite part of the whole movie.

captain america anyone?

The final lines from Fort Apache (1948): ".....they'll keep on living as long as the regiment lives. The pay is thirteen dollars a month; their diet: beans and hay. Maybe horsemeat before this campaign is over. Fight over cards or rotgut whiskey, but share the last drop in their canteens. The faces may change... the names... but they're there: they're the regiment... the regular army... now and fifty years from now."

Maybe they re-edited, Mudflap, but WWII has been known as "The Good War" and folks were calling WWI "The Great War" well before George Keegan began professing anything.

I remember a particularly patriotic episode of the Gil Gerard starred Buck Rogers focusing on flashbacks that determined whether Buck was an American patriot (also acting in global human interest) or guilty of crimes against humanity. Anyone remember that one? I think it was toward the end of the season that took place on The Searcher.

Does anybody else find it mildly amusing to hear this Canadian so proudly speak the words of the Preamble? *Snicker*

The most stiring sci-fi patriotic speech I will ever remember is from the "Bablyon 5" follow-on movie (sorry, I cannot remember which one; where an old Emperor Lando is telling two children the story behind the "Battle of the Line" - and we get a lot of background moments to the series)... where, as the unstoppable Minbari forces are approaching Earth, the President of the Earth Alliance calls for the military to step forward "to hold the line ... one ... last ... time" where every extra minute would allow another shipload of human refugees to escape Earth to safety.

I loved John Crichton's "I am an American" speech to the Scarrans in S4 of Farscape. When he stands on that table and talks about truth and freedom...awesome. ;)

This is a silly article because it confuses a very narrow definition of patriotism with cheap nationalism. It wouldn't be okay if America's opponents advocated this kind of childish and dangerous fiction that mistakes advocating caring for the public with endorsing the actions of the state or government. This is what Cardassians did.

Ronald D. Moore and Ira Steven Behr are greater patriots in that they care about Americans and other people around the world in their fiction rather than the narrowly nationalistic examples presented above, especially "Red Dawn" which cheaply tried to express nationalism by scaring the public about the USSR, which was far less aggressive than presented in the film; this kind of fiction makes finding peace harder because it miseducates the public and seeks unity through fear and hatred of "the other". Battlestar Galactica was all about breaking down those myths. Adama's speech had a militaristic attitude but had nothing to do with patriotism/nationalism. The wonderful thing is how he came to appreciate the cylons over the racism of some in his own fleet.

"Independence Day" was a terrible movie that tried to appeal to Americans in such a cheap way and the line about making the "4th of July the world's independence day" was petty. Ditto the Star Trek episode with Kirk reading the constitution; freedom did not come from America. I assumed these examples of cheap nationalism were as embarrassing to intelligent Americans as it was to non-Americans.

"...USSR, which was far less aggressive than presented in the film..."

perhaps you should tell that to those who fell victim to democide under communist domination, and to those from the states that were conquered by the ussr. you make some valid points, but this comment is naïve…at best.

I realize this comment will be deleted by I hope you get to read it before then, Shaun. I'm not saying the USSR was noble and peaceful, but it would never have attacked the US for the same reasons the US wouldn't attack the USSR. Also, people like Gorbachev were just on their way in. He's seemed to want peace more than Reagan.

I totally agree about the savagery toward Eastern Europe, but I'd also argue that the US was utterly brutal in Latin America by training death squads in the school of the Americas to kill protesting natives because they didn't want their land taken or be forced into indentured servitude by white, rich landholders and US corporate interests; for example, Guatemala. For every Soviet intervention into Afghanistan, there's a US violation of Vietnam. I'm arguing for moral parity, here.

"To express oneself by doing a thing," he declares, "is the very essence of Freedom Day!"

Hmm,try burning an American flag on Independence Day and see how far that arguement gets you. Don't think 'patriot' would be the term people applied to you.
Which is the point,the show was illustrasting the difference between patriotism and love of an ideal-freedom.

Why is Red Dawn on this list? Great movie, don't get me wrong, but it's not sci-fi. Sure, it displays a past that didn't happen, so _if filmed now_ would be alternate history (which isn't sci-fi either, but gets shelved with it in bookstores) - but when it was filmed, it was a totally believable and unspeculative story of what could happen in a year or two.

"Moral parity" is a calculus your juking, Muldfeld, to maintain self-satisfaction with your own argument. If you piled up the bodies, your "justice" is lopsided.

All great choices, and I enjoyed all the films, was happy to see Babylon 5 on the list

"If you piled up the bodies, your "justice" is lopsided."

exactly! no personal liberties. very little in the way of protection for ownership of private property. no respect for acceptance of religious beliefs. the ussr serves as one of the preeminent examples of a totalitarian state.

@Marty B...That was indeed a second season episode of Buck Rogers. Also one of my favorites of that season.

@Muldfeld...I love how you just "know" The USSR wouldn't have attacked the US. THe scenario presented in Red Dawn was military game theory back in the 70's and considering we were closer to nuclear war than anyone really knew from the Kennedy admin til Bush Sr. I seriously doubt you just "knew". As well you seem to think their brutality was not portrayed truthfully. I suggest you talk ,no befriend someone that lived in Afghanistan during their occupation back in the 70's, you might have a less jaundiced view. I personally knew and schooled with a young Afghan girl who had family fighting the Russians while she and her sister were living safe in the US. You don't know the whole story until you have heard it from someone living in the situation, and I can assure you the Russians were capable of doing everything in that work of fiction if necessary to their survival. They did worse in Afghanistan and that was just them flexing their imperial oats. Adama's speech was coming from a destroyed civilization that didn't know if it would ever see land again so it made perfect sense for it not to have any national allegiance. They were depressed, depressing and destroyed. Unfortuately Moore tinkered with the original premise with Galactica to make it yet
another "frankenstine's monster" allegory but I don't attribute any higher morality to his actions other than that. As well that is not intelligent storytelling, that is basically chop-shop screewriting. Steal an idea and then modifiy it and call it your own. He did better with Virtuality though that had some shoplifting going on too. Lastly I find it offensively hysterical for a Canadian to be lecturing anyone about the meaning of freedom when there are municipalities in your very own land that have rigid cultural laws to enforce the obeicance of the population to observe a language and culture they may desire not to. That to me is more insidious than killing someone to keep your freedom or give others freedom. Lastly I agree Independance Day was a horrible film, I take it to task not because of the jingoism presented. It was a stupid popcorn flick vehicle for a poorly trained but popular actor done by a poorly trained but popular director.

Muldfeld needs to answer why Quebec is being fascist in its acceptance of French by english speaking individuals. A little totalitarianism in ones own backyard eh Muldfeld.

Actually, TackyOn, I was forced to attend French schools from age 10 to 14, and wasn't too happy with it. However, it helped me learn a second language.

I don't think that's fascistic, though there's lots of intolerance toward French speakers in English Canada. I'd even argue that the Liberal Party leader was unpopular because there's lots of racism in Canada.

This has to do with history. Long ago, when French speakers outnumbered English, the law was representation by population. However, the English didn't want the French to have more power, so they changed it so that English and French would have to be represented equally. Then, when the English began to outnumber the French, the English changed it to "rep by pop", to have more power. So, there's a long history of French people being discriminated against. Quebec has long argued that it needs to protect its culture, so it enacts laws requiring all immigrants to go to French school; I was allowed to go to an English school for the first few years, and then had to change. I won't pretend that I loved it, but it is Quebec's way of ensuring that its citizens maintain their French culture. And the fact is that Quebec is one of the few places in Canada with a strong sense of progressivism and a strong culture; the rest of Canada is very much watered down American culture. That's why I love American TV and movies so much -- because the pull of English from US culture is so strong. Quebec is trying to protect its culture.

You're right that it's coercion, but it's no different than America requiring its citizens to know English, right?

Isotek, right on, that was one of the best Buck episode arcs, period.

"You're right that it's coercion, but it's no different than America requiring its citizens to know English, right?"

Being socially expected to speak the language of a land (especially if you are raised there) is alot different than having a legislative protections to maintain that language and culture by force. It is taught and culturally encouraged but I think that is different from coercion, at least legislative coercion. There are many immigrants here who don't speak english, but have children or other family that do. This may not be ideal but two cultures get represented here without the need for heavy handed state interferance. As well American culture has changed to reflect the acceptance of foreign language by having many bilingual signs and instructions for public and private concerns. Many immigrants come here to become Americans mainly because of the freedoms. Something like this would be very controversial, in fact the few politicians that have even mentioned making English the offical legalized language of the US and forcing stringent english standardization have been called fascist and intollerant by many on the liberal-left.

MartyB....Thanks for bringing that up. To think about it now makes me kind of sad for Buck. To think that he was tried and nearly convicted some 400 years after he was just getting to understand and know the future culture he had been thrust into. It was kind of tragic. It was also sad that the future population of Earth didn't recognize or have a full historical record of how much the Earth struggled with freedom and politics and some of the same mistakes even the future citizens were struggling with even in the futuristic 25th century.
I saw Morgan Britney on tv a few days ago and I remembered her from another favorite episode where she was a EDD Courier that Buck was asked to chaperone on a mission. Her character was a 20th century history buff and was totally mixing up some of the facts and figures of the day when talking to Buck. I found it funny long ago, but now when I see how much history kids don't know, or have distorted versions of, it sends chills up my spine. Could this be the same type of society we are nurturing? Granted I know the history of Buck takes a sharp divergence because of WWIII but the computerized sterile society keeps the 25th century placidly passive in alot of aspects. I wonder if our tech will have the same effect without the need for a history changing nuclear war. I just hope Buck was able to talk to Heronimus Foxx often, I have a feeling he was going to need another 20th century soul to decompress with.

Marty B...BTW, to you and any fan of Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactic (original) and Universal Studios in general. You maybe interested to know that Kenneth Larson (a special effects artist) has put together a nifty site chronicling his days at Universal Hartland Visual Effects. Great shots of some of the classic scifi models that we all swooned over too. Check it out here....http://www.universalhartland.com/

Great list! I love them all, especially the clip from Jericho.

Muldfeld it's apparent you have some sort of bias against America and American culture. Your entitled to your opinions however this is not a a debate forum. You really should give it a rest.

As an addendum to my previous post, the Babylon 5 expansion movie tie-in I was trying to think of was "In the Beginning" with Emperor Londo telling the station's pre-story of the Earth-Minbari War to the 2 children. Sorry for the mental lapse.

Thanks, IsoTek, that is a neat tribute for the dying art of (physical not CGI) model making.

The independence speech in B5 is a great one, but G'kar's "The need for freedom" still the best. Sheridan's "For justice, for peace, for the future, we have come home" is also quite patriotic.

Thanks, Marty! I am glad you saw my message and I agree with your POV on models.

kev74, how can you say I have a bias when I've also implicitly criticized the USSR and Iran and outrightly called my country of Canada racist toward French Canadians?

TackyOn, Canada is far more of an example of bilingualism than American, I assure you. All governmental employees are required to know both languages. I don't think you understand the situation in Quebec. The language of the land is French, there, not English. People are allowed to go to English schools but only Canadian-born citizens; otherwise, every immigrant would go to English schools. America isn't in danger of losing English, but you can' tell me that English isn't a requirement for jobs. In Quebec, French is. There's lots of tolerance of French in Quebec. Signs can have English, but cannot be written in more prominent lettering. As I said, it's not easy to deal with, but Canada was founded on Quebec being granted equal status to English Canada. There is an element of coercion, but there's also coercion in everything governments do, including paying taxes. Wanting to ensure cultural protection isn't the same as totalitarianism; French Canada is older than even America, if I'm not mistaken.

IsoTek, are you really trying to talk about Afghan suffering now? I totally admit -- as I did earlier and which you and others seem blind to acknowledge -- that the USSR did terrible things. The Afghan invasion was a terrible thing, but it had to do with security; the USSR didn't want a US-friendly government taking over and piercing its sphere. I'm not saying that's moral, but the US did this over and over again in Latin America. It subverted democratically elected leaders like Arbenz in Guatemala and pushed for military rule because this secured the "rights" of US corporations to exploit.

Again, I'm not saying the USSR is more moral than the US, but you have to accept that the USSR's leaders weren't on a rampage the way your fiction pretends, especially in the mid-80s. Reagan could have never made peace with Gorbachev if enough Americans thought he was as evil as fiction like Red Dawn depicts. The basis on which I argued that the USSR wouldn't have invaded the US wasn't moral, so much as practical. Neither power would have taken such a risk because of the danger involved. Both powers, however, had no problem violating the sovereignty of either side's allies.

Why don't you ask all those kids born with birth defects in Vietnam and Laos and other bombed areas due to exposure to Agent Orange. How about the victims of Hiroshima? Again, I'm not denying Soviet brutality, but you have to accept American brutality. Your Afghan friend might live peacefully in America, but Afghans are constantly killed over there by both US and Canadian forces and are being forced to deal with a corrupt government installed by the US. Also, the USSR has never had such an invasive influence in the Middle East. To this day, thousands die at the hands of American-sold weapons to Israel and people are suppressed and tortured in very undemocratic regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Soviets wanted an oil concession from a fairly democratic Iran in the late '40s and early '50s, but the US and UK refused to accept that and the CIA overthrew a democratically elected leader (Mossadeq) and installed the brutal Shah; how about accepting that that happened?

Oh, if you're talking about witnesses to US power, my professor in Latin American politics was an Indios from Guatemala -- the people the US was suppressing in the name of capitalism for the rich and exploitation of the poor -- and he remembers helping to build a school, which the US or its US-supported allies in Guatemala destroyed under the pretense of fighting communism.

I know so much about America because I've studied it and often under American-born and educated professors.

The irony is that I was so pro-American most of my life. I hated it as a kid when my GI Joe vehicles came with Canadian flag stickers instead of American ones. I used to get shouted down and criticized by fellow Canadians in school for my love of America. I still love America, but what I've learned is that you have to separate fact from myth.

The US was fairly good to Europe because they respected the peoples there and wanted to fend off the appeal of Communism and that was a worthy goal, but, in the Third World, the US did not behave very well because security and resources trumped democratic ideals and human rights.

Castro had his problems, but he overthrew a brutal regime under Batista in Cuba that the US supported and which allowed the country to become a playground for rich Americans. Whatever terrible things Castro has done, he has ensured a more equal Cuba that looks after the darker skinned poor people, and he didn't let his people die in the wake of Katrina, as Bush did. The US was all of a sudden concerned about Castro, not out of concern for Cubans, but out of fear of being humiliated in the American sphere. Castro only got his missiles because the US tried over and over to assassinate him. The Soviets supplied them because the US had similar missiles pointed at the USSR from Turkey. Based on what I've read, Kennedy didn't rescue the world from Armageddon, as CNN claims, but kept pushing in macho fashion to avoid compromise. In the end, it was Khrushchev's willingness to lose face in exchange for a US promise to remove missiles from Turkey at a later date that prevented confrontation.

In summation, I'm pointing out why nationalism isn't a good thing for any country to be preaching in its fiction, including Russia, or Iran, or Canada (and we really go overboard over here on the anti-Americanism), or America. I hope you understand that. It's because I love the best parts of America that I'm obsessed with it.

Lastly, my pride in Moore and Behr's work isn't so much to do with fiction but in their very subtle understanding that conflict in our world does not come from an unavoidable conflict between good and evil, but from differing perspectives and interests. Their work has shown a keen understanding of the most pressing issues of our time, including societies' -- including America's -- tendencies toward dehumanization of "the other."

I meant that, "There's lots of tolerance for English in Quebec." Lots of folks are very bilingual in the great old city of Montreal and even if lots of folks don't speak English in parts of Quebec, even fewer speak French in the rest of Canada. The reaction of Quebec with its laws is due to English Canada not holding up its end of the bargain.

ewwww....SyFy is here...now that's un-american!!!

"America isn't in danger of losing English, but you can' tell me that English isn't a requirement for jobs."

Step into a hotel, a construction Site, a McDonalds or any other fast food resturant in any major metroplex in the US and you will see how false that assumption about jobs is.

"Again, I'm not saying the USSR is more moral than the US, but you have to accept that the USSR's leaders weren't on a rampage the way your fiction pretends, especially in the mid-80s. Reagan could have never made peace with Gorbachev if enough Americans thought he was as evil as fiction like Red Dawn depicts. The basis on which I argued that the USSR wouldn't have invaded the US wasn't moral, so much as practical. Neither power would have taken such a risk because of the danger involved. Both powers, however, had no problem violating the sovereignty of either side's allies."

That makes no sense, you are attributing propaganda atributes to a work of fiction. Red Dawn was not an indictment of Gorbachev. The premise for the film was written and years before he came to power, so any bad attributing to him would be unintentional/coincidental. It was more an indictment of the 60's Russian leaders and Russian military based on a fictional scenario borne of tacticians at US War College. John Milius, the director also stated that he was inspired by the invasion of Afghanistan and patterned the Wolverines after the mujahideen. Gorbachev wasn't even General Secretary when the film debuted. As for American perseptions of Gorbachev, that era was not the issue. The concerns were mostly before his time as General Secretary, with his predecessors. Gorbachev promoted openess and democratization in Russia that was unheard of at the time, as well he welcomed mutual nuclear arms reductions and in reference to Afghanistan, he was the instrument in getting the troops finally to withdraw. It was his partnership with Reagan that helped end the Cold War. But back to your assertion that Russia wasn't on a rampage. Perhaps not as fanciful as Red Dawn portrayed but that was the US, were you witness to the goings on in Afghanistan? I bet to those that saw, Red Dawn took on a ironic significance. Even rather isolated incidents like the downing of KAL 007 served to show the belicose attitude of Russia. The US became a boogeyman with Vietnam but no one was going to ignore the Russian actions abroad, the tension was too palpable. If anything Gorbachev was Russia's savior.

Points well taken, PhayTON, but the film is so dangerously simplistic that if enough people believed the USSR would invade the US so brazenly, then making peace with Gorbachev would have been harder. Khrushchev wouldn't have attempted such a thing, nor would have Stalin. Again, Vietnam witnessed massive American killing of innocents and people fighting for their freedom. Even the South Vietnamese populace didn't want the Americans, and the US had to keep installing leaders that were increasingly alienated from their countrymen.

So, both powers were brutal in invading and violating the sovereignty of non-super powers. The film does not recognize the atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam and other countries, only that "the other" is capable of these things. That's the problem.

Eatman, maybe you're right, but that refers to low-skilled jobs. Officially, things are different, right? The only reason certain areas of the US are bilingual are for commercial reasons. No one would give Spanish legal status as America's other official language or recognize Hispanics as a distinct society. I'm not saying this should be the case. Most Hispanics are immigrants.

However, to TackyOn's earlier point, Quebec's French Canadian populace predates the English one in North America. Most importantly, the legislation dictating that immigrants attend French schools or that French have greater or equal prominence in the culture is derived not from totalitarianism, but democracy. If the majority of Quebeckers felt differently, they could change it. There was a campaign to separate in 1995, and because enough people didn't want to, the province didn't, even though many who wanted separation also tend to support the prominence of French.

You've gotta admit, though, that as English speakers we have it good all over the world. I remember travelling to Austria to "learn German" one summer years ago. It was amazing how many people from all over the world -- Australia, America, and Canada, of course, but also Finland, Denmark, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, France, Israel, Peru -- used English as their common language to speak to one another. One poor Russian guy was really frustrated because he'd spent years learning his German and I hadn't. Here he was barely able to communicate in English and take part in the conversations with everybody, whom he hoped would all try to speak German, and here I was able to converse with everybody in English because it's such a dominant cultural force in movies and TV. I kinda felt bad for the guy, but, boy, was I happy English was my mother tongue. So, English-speakers never have that sense of being under siege and squashed out of existence or relevance the way so many other languages/cultures feel. That's kinda why Quebec does what it does.

"Points well taken, PhayTON, but the film is so dangerously simplistic that if enough people believed the USSR would invade the US so brazenly, then making peace with Gorbachev would have been harder. Khrushchev wouldn't have attempted such a thing, nor would have Stalin. Again, Vietnam witnessed massive American killing of innocents and people fighting for their freedom. Even the South Vietnamese populace didn't want the Americans, and the US had to keep installing leaders that were increasingly alienated from their countrymen.

So, both powers were brutal in invading and violating the sovereignty of non-super powers. The film does not recognize the atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam and other countries, only that the other" is capable of these things. That's the problem."

But that is a fiat sensibility you are promoting. Had this been a historical reinactment of a true event then I would see it your way. The fact that it paints Russia in a bad light in a fictitous war on a nation which was at odds in real life with many nations means nothing. Americans weren't hoping for a war with Russia after seeing Red Dawn. There was no outcry to not have a peaceful settlement with Russia by the populace at anytime during those years. In fact many were scared to death we would have a war, which is why I mentioned things like the downing of the Korean airliner. That wasn't just a simple international incident, America lost a good senator that day and chilled relations with Russia in ways that not even Gorbachev could thaw.

This is the problem with the world today and quite frankly what is messing up Europe where I am formerly from. That there has to be a "relativization" of behaviors and actions. That before you do one thing you must always morally weigh it with another situation. This is why we have the ACLU, the onetime defender of American rights now representing child molesters, protecting their behaviors because of privacy issues. I don't agree with that. We have had many films in the US that were critical of Vietnam in many ways. We have had movie stars, politicians and all manner of peoples publicly weigh in on Vietnam. I think you are making too much of a film that most saw as pure
entertainment. That's all it was, it wasn't some McCarthyesque propaganda film that was shopped out by the government. And even if people believed that Russia was going to invade the US how would that stop the peace process from happening the way it did? I don't know if Reagan saw the film but I can tell you he had a anti-commie POV long before Red Dawn came along.

Eatman, maybe you're right, but that refers to low-skilled jobs. Officially, things are different, right? The only reason certain areas of the US are bilingual are for commercial reasons. No one would give Spanish legal status as America's other official language or recognize Hispanics as a distinct society. I'm not saying this should be the case. Most Hispanics are immigrants.

Jobs are jobs are they not? There are english speaking natives that work there too. Officially it is not standard policy to hire workers that don't have a grasp of the language spoken by the majority, no. But I don't know if that is wrote or assumed. It is true that bilingual signage is commercially positive but that is my point. We adjusted our society without having to legally bind the solution to society. If I want to speak any other language than English, I have the right to or not to do so. The only area I can say where its forced is in school. Most schools require some foriegn language studies, but usually it is optional as to which language the student wants. I get that Canadians voted to have the laws the way they are but to the outsider it seems stringent, and forced. And we also know that just because something is democraticly voted for, it doesn't necessrily mean it's beneficial in the long run. But, I digress. The interesting thing that I am surprised you didn't mention is the immigrant nature of English as germane to the US. English was brought from another place as well...Britain. So basically we Amercians are speaking another nation's language (when you strip it of all regional adjustments) anyway.

I-e, plegliani, nectum flagum, to pep, like for stand...

Now that get the heart stirring! Unless, of course, you have no heart.