Don’t impose English on Puerto Ricans

Have Republicans have lost faith in the proposition that free markets provide the ultimate gauge of useful behavior? How else can we interpret the current bandwagon building among Republican presidential candidates for imposing on Puerto Rico a condition precedent to statehood that it adopt in its laws a declaration that English is its official language?

If ever there were an issue in which the free market seems a natural test for what makes economic sense, the question of what language the people of this self-contained political island should speak or label as “official,” seems to me to be it. If there is economic advantage to speaking English, my understanding of Republican dogma is that the free market will reward this behavior, eliminating the need for any kind of government intrusion to force otherwise free Puerto Rican people to make their choice based on anything other than their own perceived self interest.

My own view is that in this issue, as in many others lately, we see a demonstration that Republican devotion to free market theory places second to the Republican urge to boss people around in areas that should be matters of personal choice.

Alfred Y. Kirkland Jr.

Elgin