I'm getting more than a little ticked off at people who come to this country and don't learn the language.  I realize that this viewpoint will raise hackles, but I'll stick with it.  One of the dumbest ideas to take hold in a long time is that having a strong opinion on any subject makes one antisocial, insensitive, unpatriotic, discriminatory, insubordinate, arrogant, sacrilegious, immoral, or all of the above.  When did we start this poppycock about not expressing our views because we might offend a particular group of people?  When did we all become so paranoid and thin-skinned that any opinion regarding any group (a gender, a race or nationality, a profession, you name it) is construed as prejudicial, no matter how well-founded it may be?

Anyway, to get on with it:  I happen to believe rather strongly that people who live in America should have a command of the English language.  While I do everything I can to help non-native speakers in my English classes, I hold them to the same standards that I hold native speakers.  I am also outspoken in my view that fluency in English (or any language) is possible only by using the language regularly.  I have remarked, with great annoyance, that whenever I go to the local Wal-Mart, I hear not a word of English:  hyphenated Americans of all sorts talk to each other and their children in their native language.  Is it any wonder that their children have trouble in school, where instruction is done in English?

Worse yet, when I express this view, I am immediately labeled as bigoted against foreigners.  I am not.  I have spent countless hours online and in private conferences with non-native speakers, trying to help them learn the language.  I know how hard it is; I also know that many of them don't want to take the trouble.  They expect to be enabled, in the name of "diversity," to function in an English-speaking society via special allowances for "cultural differences."  Good grief!  When I was on jury duty, I had to call in for jury instructions, and the recording that gave the instructions was in both Spanish and English.  That's absurd.  If a person is incapable of understanding English well enough to follow simple instructions, that person should not serve on a jury for a trial in which the proceedings are conducted in English.

I am even taken to task for observing that the local Wal-Mart seems to be "a mecca for foreigners" (even though the ubiquity of other languages spoken in the store makes this a fact and not an opinion).  When I was visiting in Phoenix, Arizona, I remarked to our daughter that their Wal-Mart was a lot like ours.  I suppose my tone was not altogether approving, for I was immediately cautioned to be careful what I said, as if expressing an opinion in the marketplace might result in my being attacked by a horde of outraged Spanish-speaking customers.

I'll take the chance, thank you.  I will continue to criticize actions of the government with which I disagree at the risk of being called unpatriotic.  I will continue to comment on the lousy job our secondary schools are doing, even though I know I'll get hate mail from teachers who suddenly find themselves on the defensive.  If I were not retired and still on the job, I would continue to criticize stupid calls by management, no matter how many times I got told I was not a "team player."  I will continue to remark about the self-righteous hypocrisy of certain religionists, even though I know that I will be branded as a heretic.  And if I happen to believe, as I do, that people who come to live in an essentially English-speaking country should at least try to become reasonably fluent in it, I will continue to speak out - even if doing so is not "politically correct."  I will have my say about matters ironic and moronic, including the crowning irony that, in an age that has all but discarded common courtesy, expressing an honest opinion is socially unacceptable.