Celebrate our diversity rather than complain

To the editor:

I was intrigued to read in Monday's letters to the editor that John Noble was "very offended" that health warnings about alcohol must be posted in both Spanish and English (although more than 400,000 Southern Nevadans do not speak English at home). To justify his indignation, he cites that the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in English.

Interestingly, Mr. Noble failed to voice his disgust that the Constitution only counted slaves as three-fifths of a person; or that women did not have the right to vote. Or would he just as soon have left that wording as is? Even though it was "set in stone" in the document, we were finally smart enough as a country to rectify the original travesties. Point is, things should change as we learn.

Because he tells non-English speakers to go back to their native countries, I wonder what great things Mr. Noble and other fear-mongerers are regularly doing to improve the quality of life for others here in the United States? Because promoting hate and intolerance does not seem to complement the American values I grew up with.

So why is language such an emotional issue for people? Are we to believe that our national values will somehow suffer with more of us speaking other languages? That we'll become less caring, less value-driven, less motivated? Whether I'm speaking English, Chinese or Spanish, I'm still going to have the same principles -- but I will have an expanded worldview.

I think you've got to be pretty insecure and have little faith in America to feel that our country will be anything but strengthened through a diversity of cultures and languages. History gives us more examples of the benefits of blending cultures than the challenges. Why don't we understand and enjoy our differences rather than complain about them?

John Mierzwa

LAS VEGAS

Legal immigrant

To the editor:

I totally agree with John Noble's Monday letter regarding the Applebee's restaurant being cited for posting an alcohol health warning only in English.

I immigrated to this country legally. I asked to come, hence I don't impose my language on Americans who did not ask me to come here in the first place.

We spend too much tax money catering to non-English speakers. They should read, write and speak English.

Rogelio P. Viado

LAS VEGAS

Proud Democrat

To the editor:

Congratulations to Publisher Sherman Frederick. You are now a Republican (Sunday column). You have finally caught up with your entire editorial section and put a label on the beliefs you espouse every week in the Review-Journal.

You should have done it a long time ago. Now everything makes sense.

I am a proud Democrat. Been one for 36 years, since I first voted. Never doubted it for a second. I am a member of the party of Obama and Reid and proud to admit it.

I am very proud and excited to have Barack Obama as my president and, for the first time in many years, I have a real feeling of renewal, promise and hope.

We have a brilliant and engaged president surrounded by many brilliant and engaged people. Finally. No guessing. No fingers crossed.

After eight years of neglect, lying, fear and manipulation, I feel that something may actually be accomplished, and that there are new and exciting things to look forward to.

We don't have to be at war with the rest of the world, we don't have to shovel billions of dollars into the military while neglecting everything else.

Congratulations, sir.

Mark Bradshaw

HENDERSON

Loves the apologies

To the editor:

You've got to give credit to those Republicans who fly under the conservative banner of Rush and Patrick Buchanan. ("Apologies ... " June 19). They are relentless in their criticism of a president who is perhaps a truly rare breed of politician who exhibits a measure of sensitivity, smarts and the courage to say and do what is unpopular, but which most people know is true.

To fault the president for acknowledging the past injustices uncharacteristic of the United States -- to wit, the support of Saddam when we knew he was gassing the Kurds, cooperation with an assortment of right-wing butchers, Somoza, Pinochet, Batista and other two-bit Latin dictators because they kept a lid on communism -- is not folly, as Mr. Buchanan suggests, but rather an intellectual willingness to reach out to other nations in our constantly shrinking world in order to reaffirm those values everyone knows in their heart of hearts our nation stands for.

Is not President Obama also the only modern U.S. president who has risked the Jewish vote in America by putting the Israelis on notice that settlements in the West Bank have to be discontinued? This is a "college kid" ashamed of what his elders have done?

Finally, if the "tyrannical" dictator Fidel Castro, 90 miles off the coast of the most powerful nation in the world, is as vile as Mr. Buchanan suggests, how is it that aside from the Bay of Pigs failure and other, countless efforts by U.S. presidents and the CIA to subvert the Cuban government (for which apologies should be in order), Castro still presides over the island nation at the age of 81?

John Esperian

LAS VEGAS