Is Chat Speak Destroying English?

If "chat speak" is a threat to the English language as we know it than we should quickly eradicate Shakespeare and poets such as e.e. Cummings from the classroom. These writers took far too many liberties with the English language to be considered role models for aspiring writers! In truth, these writers have such a vast understanding of language that they are able to play with its rules in order to create something else. I completely agree with Greg Monfil when he says
"And a teenager experimenting with a
sprinkling of profanities in her conversation
with peers will not suddenly
forget how to converse properly with
her grandmother."
In order to be successful people we have to develop the ability to communicate differently with different people. This includes vernacular, volume and vocabulary.

If we never experimented with language how would we have gone from fire being a point and a groan, to someone creating the word "fire" to someone taking those sounds and putting them on the page. And here students are, playing with the sounds and physical representation of sound. Our students are thinking abstractly and creatively and instead of embracing it we are going to exclude them?