The Left has a very strange relationship with language.
On one hand, they can’t take words. Words hurt. Sticks and stones do much more than break bones. Words will melt their faces.
At the same time, they manipulate language in order to accomplish their goals (here).
Guns aren’t guns; they’re assault weapons. They’re semi-automatics.
Terrorism is a workplace incident.
Conservative proponents are right-wing extremists; liberal proponents are socially conscious.
There’s no greater example of the Left’s manipulation of language than in the area of illegal immigration.
Ladies and gentlemen, a highlight: a recent article posted by Yahoo News.
The piece, titled, “Stop Saying ‘Migrant Caravan’: They’re Asylum Seekers Escaping a Conflict That the US Created,” is an absurd exhibit of multisyllabic manipulation.
Sample the goods:
On Monday evening, journalist and author Steve Silberman tweeted a video interview clip of three white, middle-aged Trump supporters waiting to hear the president speak at a rally in Houston.
Note: for the race-obsessed, it’s important to note that these are whiteys.
When asked what they were looking forward to hearing the president address, one woman mentioned the so-called “migrant caravan” as a point of concern. “That’s an invasion of our country,” she said of the travelers, and she was eager to see what the president had to say about it. “But,” she added, “I love everything that comes out of his mouth.”
Everything! Even before it happens:
“It doesn’t really matter what he says,” chimed another woman, this one clad in a red MAGA cap and sweatshirt. “We’ll support it.” She then explained, beaming, that she’s a “Trumpette” who will support anything the president says or does.
It doesn’t even matter! Does that sound like a typical attitude among…anyone???? Yet, it seems that’s the implication — these are Trump Folk.
Silberman expressed requisite horror at the interviewees’ flagrantly uncritical support of President Trump, whose fandom seemed to him more cult-like than political. But partisan politics are often cult-like in nature, and where it comes to the years-long plight of Central American asylum seekers, a population’s unchecked support of presidential decision-making is loyal to no party.
Huh??
And unchecked!
This is the characterization by the Left: When Democrats speak, it’s from the heart; when Republicans babble, they’re solely pandering. They don’t really believe what they’re saying; they’re just “energizing the base.” At the same, GOP supporters are merely blindly following the leadership.
Got it? No one actually believes in conservative principles; the entirety of the Right is just an endless loop of dysfunctional iron sharpening iron. Except, of course, for the part that’s simply evil incarnate.
And, to be clear, the roughly 5,000 men, women, and children making the northward trek, by foot, from the Central American isthmus upward through Mexico and into the US are asylum seekers, not “migrants.” The difference is meaningful, and there are grave human rights implications in the repeated misuse of language to describe their predicament.
Okay…
For the sake of everyone following along at home, a quick vocab refresher. Migrants are temporary, itinerant travelers who move between countries for (usually) work. The term “migrant workers” is actually kind of redundant; when correctly using “migrant” to describe a person regularly crossing back and forth over borders, it’s implicit that they’re a “worker.”
For the sake of everyone not following, a quick refresher: the term “migrant” is, of late, a mechanism of the Left, used in place of the accurate (conventional) term “illegal alien” or (more fashionably) “illegal immigrant.” According to those across the political aisle, someone who sneaks across the border is a migrant. Or, at the very least, an immigrant.
Lesson for the new millennium: real “immigrants” no longer exist. Everything has shifted to the left, and immigrants fell off the flat earth. Illegal immigrants are now just immigrants, and, therefore, regular immigrants are now…nothing. Hence, endless political speeches and debates and media coverage, whereby “immigrant” is constantly used, not at any time actually referring to immigrants. A new trendy alternative to “immigrant”: migrant. Like a duck (here).
So that’s two layers covering the actual reality: “illegal immigrant” became “immigrant,” and “immigrant” shifted to “migrant.” “Migrant,” in the case of the caravan, is, in fact, correct, in the sense that they’re a group moving.
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
migrate: Move from one part of something to another.
The caravan is moving, and it’s likely to conform to even the writer’s definition: with barbed wire being laid (here) and the military being employed (here), the caravan will likely have to turn around and go back home.
In the meantime, to say tens of thousands set to penetrate the U.S. border are merely “asylum seekers” is to designate their intended method by which to attempt entry. It does not, however, mean they’re content to turn around if (and when) the answer is “No.” The U.S. is not going to just let in multitudes because they don’t like where they’re from. Other countries are worse than America; that’s what makes America America. Being from some place worse doesn’t guarantee a ticket to U.S. residence. We have a provision for that very thing called immigration, which needn’t involve political asylum or illegal border crossing.
No one can help where they’re born, and immigration and assimilation are beautiful things. I wish success for those who dream of a better life. If they attain it as immigrated Americans, wonderful. But forming a human battering ram isn’t posed as a key to the gates of opportunity. And despite what Yahoo News wants to promote, the migrant caravan isn’t likely to find asylum. Perhaps Yahoo should look into its definition of “news.”
Relevant RedState links in this article: here, here, here, and here.
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