Por favor, Alcalde Bloomberg, no mas. Your Spanish-language ad may have signaled your effort to reach out to the Hispanic community, but you would have been more successful had the ad been dubbed. Maybe you believe that this effort to communicate in the Spanish language will persuade Hispanics to vote for you, but it makes me wonder, how dumb do you think we are? The only people you’re likely to impress are those who can’t vote because they’re not citizens.

Of course, there are members of the City Council who would like to change that. Last year, one council member, Bill Perkins of Manhattan, proposed legislation that would make noncitizens eligible to vote. Now another, Eric Gioia of Queens, is taking this multicultural nonsense a step further by requiring the translation of all content on the city’s Web site, www.nyc.gov, into at least six languages: Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, and Spanish.

At least the council’s minority leader, James Oddo of Staten Island, has labeled the translation proposal correctly: silly legislation. In a press release issued May 27, Mr. Oddo asked the important question: “Where does it all end?”

My grandmother never did learn to speak much English. Her four children, however, became fluent. Her son, my father, may have sounded like Ricky Ricardo, but he was fluent and her grandchildren all speak English flawlessly. Of course, we grew up in a New York before bilingualism was foisted on the public school system, which has produced mangled linguists in both languages.

Is it well-intentioned ignorance that motivates these politicians, or is it a Machiavellian plot to keep Hispanics out of the mainstream by dismissing the importance of English proficiency? We live in America, and the primary language spoken here is English. How likely is it that Americans emigrating to, say, France will find that country bending over backward to adapt to their language comfort level?

I congratulate Council Member Oddo for recognizing the danger of over-accommodating immigrants. In his press release, he wrote:

“I have never been a strong believer in the ‘slippery slope’ argument, however, my colleagues are quickly making me a believer. The various translation schemes that they are proposing on what seems like a weekly basis would cost the City countless of millions of dollars. Being a New Yorker is a wonderful thing and I understand that many different people from around the world wish to live here, however, being a resident also carries certain responsibilities. When living in society you must make certain efforts and not expect government to hold your hand and do everything for you. One of those is learning the language. I wholeheartedly disagree with this legislation as we continue to head down that slippery slope and I urge my colleagues to oppose it as well.”

That’s very well said, Mr. Oddo, but I don’t think your colleagues will cease pandering to special interests in pursuit of votes. Perhaps Council Member Gioia and the others need to take a good look at what’s occurring in the Netherlands, where the tolerant Dutch went to extremes for years to welcome Islamic immigrants.

They built mosques with government funds, made all kinds of societal language concessions, and now the Dutch are inundated with militant jihadists who brutally killed two well-known citizens, including Vincent van Gogh’s great-grand-nephew, filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

The maverick right-wing Dutch member of parliament who visited New York last year, Geert Wilders, has been under heavy security because of death threats issued by these groups. They are angered by his call for a moratorium on immigration by non-Europeans. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph in London, he said:

“I am not a xenophobe at all but I want to preserve our culture. Islam and democracy will never be compatible in the next thousand years. We should forget about a moderate Islam and instead invest in Muslim people and integrate them into our democracy. We have been too tolerant of intolerance.”

We do not yet have to deal with a militant Islamic population, as do the Dutch, but we do need to start thinking about preserving the American culture, which ideally is classless, color-blind, and democratic. Multiculturalists in the United States speak often of preserving immigrant cultures, but it should not be at the expense of our own. What ever happened to the great American melting pot? This nation has become great because of the immigrants who come here from all over the world seeking a better life for their families. They did so by adapting to the language and culture of this free society.

It is poor policy to enable those who are unwilling to make that effort.