Click illustration for larger image. Emil Nagengast is associate professor of politics at Juniata College (nagengast@juniata.edu). He recently spent the summer teaching in The Gambia, Africa.

The Bush administration brags about its efforts to protect the country from dangerous foreign threats, but the president could learn an important lesson about homeland security from Pennsylvania lawmakers.

I was out of the country for three months this summer and returned to learn that our state House, struggling with issues of immigration, had passed legislation to make English the official language of Pennsylvania. This legislation is now in the hands of our state senators, and if they approve, the commonwealth will send a strong message to the whole world: "We speak English here, and we have a law to prove it."

The bill has the support of 85 percent of Pennsylvanians, but it is far too weak to provide the necessary level of language security. We live in a dangerous world and freedom isn't free. If lawmakers in Harrisburg want to prove true devotion to our language, they will support my five point plan:

1) Let us require "Accent-free English" and forbid anyone with an accent from having contact with children in primary school. Children of this age are extremely impressionable and quick to pick up dangerous habits. Having an accent should make someone a potential target for deportation.

2) We must devote significant resources to strategic language initiatives that help the rest of the world speak properly. The CIA could save billions, and would be far more efficient in finding the bad guys, if members of al-Qaida spoke English all the time.

We are blessed to live in a world dominated by English, but there are pockets of resistance out there. If we can put a man on the Moon, surely we can teach everyone to speak English. As a model for the rest of our country, Pennsylvanians should devote 10 percent of our commonwealth budget to the creation of a "language liberation brigade" that can be air-dropped into linguistically troublesome regions.

3) We must push our allies in the United Nations to adopt a resolution making English the "Official Language of the Earth and Moon." There might be some opposition, but the Bush administration has a strong record of building multilateral support for American initiatives. It shouldn't be difficult to marginalize the French on this issue.

4) It is time that we forced the Amish to speak English all the time. What could be more offensive to our commonwealth than to have so many German speakers among us? They teach their children German, too, even though they have lived here for more than 200 years. They call us "English" -- as though we were foreigners in our own commonwealth!

5) We must apply the doctrine of pre-emptive war to the realm of language security. Why is our language under attack here in the beautiful valleys of Pennsylvania? Because some countries are determined to invade us with people who speak bad languages while seeking our jobs. We must strike at the heart of the problem.

The first target should be Mexico. The Pennsylvania National Guard should be sent to retake the Halls of Montezuma and liberate the Mexicans from the language that has oppressed them for centuries. If we force Mexico to adopt English as its official language, the people pouring across the border soon would be English speakers. The only problem with this plan is that it would make it harder for us to spot the illegal immigrants living in our midst.

I have traveled to many countries, and it is satisfying to know that as long as I still know how to speak English I won't have a problem getting a good burger. Most of the people I encounter in other countries have the decency to speak my language.

But how long will I know how to speak English? I can envision a day in the near future when our commonwealth will be drowning in Spanish, Greek, Italian and other languages, and there will be no more room in my brain for English. I won't be able to speak to my kids or find a good burger in other parts of the world.

I urge our lawmakers to adopt my five-point plan. It may be our last line of defense.