‘Illegal’ dehumanizes

The Washington Times ^ | September 24, 2012 | REP. MIKE HONDA California Democrat Vice chairman, Democratic National Committee

[mdittmar]

Writer Catherine Poe is correct in saying GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney used fighting words when he recently called DREAMers “illegal aliens” (DREAM Act: Mitt Romney still calls DREAMers ‘illegal aliens’ at Univision’s Latino Forum,” Web, Thursday). More importantly, Mr. Romney’s words are dangerous and illustrate how out of touch he is with the immigrant community. How can someone claim to advocate for a “permanent solution” to fix our broken immigration system when he dehumanizes immigrants within the same breath?

Mr. Romney must drop the I-word. Why? The I-word, short for “illegal alien,” “illegal immigrant” and like harmful terms, is a racially charged slur used to strip immigrants of their humanity.

[yellowhammer]

The New York Times still uses "illegal immigrant":

The New York Times explains why it still uses ‘illegal immigrant’

[Nifster]

Mike Honduuuuh BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. If you want the rest of the US to look like California then vote O

[GeronL]

This should have a bucket warning

[Calliecat]

Hear hear!

[Pollster1]

Perhaps illegals could go home and apply to enter our country legally if they find being criminals dehumanizing. Problem solved.

[El Cid]

These bleeding heart Journalists are so full of shiite.

The problem is that this garbage was written by a sitting Congressman (one who represents the district just south of the one where I live), who is supposed to represent the citizens of the United States and has sworn to uphold the Constitution.
Therein lies the problem. We not only have a subversive Media, we also have subversive 'leaders' in Washington D.C. ...
I believe Mr. Honda crawled out of the public teacher's union swamp, and was able to garner sympathy, and win his first election, by pitching the 'woe is me - my U.S. citizen parents were absconded into internment camps' (complain to FDR ya commie - sez I)...

[ImNotLying]

So Mr Honda, What would you call an illegal immigrant, carrying an illegal weapon, smuggling illegal drugs, with an illegal driver’s license?

[Bryanw92]

Yeah, and “rapist” dehumanizes men who rape, just as “thief” dehumanizes those who have steal things. Words mean things, and if you are illegally invading my country to steal our wealth and jobs, then it is stupid to invent a nice euphemism to avoid hurting your feelings.

But, it would be easier to call them what they are: invader, and take appropriate action.

[LibWhacker]

OMG, that is EXACTLY what I was going to say, to the letter.

Whatever word we chose to replace it with, even if that word were a completely made-up word that has no meaning whatsoever today, would soon be recognized by everyone and would necessarily also identify the group of people we are talking about. Then I suppose they would want to outlaw that word, too. And so on, ad infinitum.

So what's their game plan?

Simple: to prevent anyone from ever even talking about the problem.

[Feckless]

The only thing "broken" about our immigration system is the Marxists currently in charge let it allow invaders in, feeds them, pays them, and doesn't deport them.

"Illegal" would not be my preferred term. "Invaders in the open, x hundered meters, load WP, fire for effect" would make me much happier.....

[married21]

If they wanted human dignity, they should have knocked on the front door, rather than sneaking in through the back door. “Illegal” aliens ARE “less than”, and the politicians and Church officials are doing them no favors when they pat them on the head and say that the backdoor is ok. They are reinforcing their neediness and short-term, survival mode thinking, instead of their dignity.

1, Close the back door!

2. Open the front door to the correct size to accommodate a reasonably generous number of future good citizens.

3. Invite people who care about downtrodden people in other countries to consider helping them over there, with long term improvements in their own country, rather than encouraging them to do the desperate and demeaning act of trying to sneak into our back door.

[cripplecreek]

The only thing "broken" about our immigration system is the Marxists currently in charge let it allow invaders in, feeds them, pays them, and doesn't deport them.

So basically the same things the republicans did.

[Wuli]

“The I-word, short for “illegal alien,” “illegal immigrant” and like harmful terms, is a racially charged slur used to strip immigrants of their humanity.”

Nonsense - accepting, excusing and forgiving ILLEGAL immigration is a moral insult to LEGAL immigrants coming from anywhere in the world, and it “dehumaizes” and trivializes the moral, legal effort they made in legally coming to this country and legally obtaining its benefits for their children.

To put illegal immigrants in the same pride of place as legal immigrants is an insult; it says to the legal immigrant “screw you”, your efforts were a waste of time; all you needed to do was to get into Mexico and walk across the border and then declare, with the rest, your ‘right’ to be here.”

[cripplecreek]

Whatever word we chose to replace it with, even if that word were a completely made-up word that has no meaning whatsoever today,

You should read The Language of the 3rd Reich. It talks about how the nazis changed the language to manipulate German society.

Look at the success the left has been in changing the language in America. The word "militia" used to conjure up images of patriotism and honor among the American people but now even among many on the right it conjures of images of racism, conspiracy theorists, or islamic savages.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-Third-Reich-Imprerii/dp/0826457770

[svcw]

Great minds think alike. ;-)

[SeminoleCounty]

Better yet....they are CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS since everyone, by their presence illegally in the US, is breakign the law

I am so tired of these Hispano-Racists calling me “Racist” because I do not want to give Criminal Illegal Aliens “Amnesty”. Illegals need to be rounded up and sent home

Illegal Alien Amnesty is Anti-American Bigotry. There is the real racism

[MCH]

Nothing new here. Just some Demoncrat statists hard at work on the 2012 revision of the 1984 Newspeak dictionary.

The word "murderer" is hateful as well. Maybe we should call murderers "population control engineers" instead.

Same for a "thief," which should probably be changed to "capital redistributionist" or something similarly inane.

Liberal is progressive. Abortionist is pro-choice. Negro is Black is African-American. Homosexual is gay. Taxes are investments. Global warming is now climate change. The list goes on forever.

[muawiyah]

All they gotta’ do is go home and away goes the shame.

[publius911]

'Illegal’ dehumanizes

Illegals dehumanize themselves, and go to great pains and hardship to do so.

Who are we to argue with or oppose their sincere intent?

[G Larry]

I sent this to the Times:

Words mean things! “Illegal defines the process by which the person immigrated to this country.

“Illegal” defines the extent to which those individuals contribute to the slave wages of those who have LEGALLY immigrated to America.

There is an established process for LEGALLY IMMIGRATING to this country. Those who evade that process and SNEAK into this country anyway, are here ILLEGALLY!!

Those who are here ILLEGALLY exacerbate this country’s UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM.
In fact, they have driven a high volume of LEGAL IMMIGRANTS to flee America and return to their country, due to lack of work here.