I’m sure people could add their own examples of this happening, but this one just jumped out at me, from here:
What’s next?
Who here gets it in the “Ow! My Balls!”? The legislator, or the Noose-paper? :smack:
How strangely…Lovecraftian.
What are we supposed to call them - Pre-Immigrants? Future Deportees? Unlawful Visitors? Uninsured Motorists?
Politicians pander to their base. In other news, this just in from Memphis, Elvis is still dead. Film at 11.
E.T. phone INS… oooouuuuuchhhh…
cue Sting’s Englishman in New York
The thing is, illegal aliens shouldn’t be anyone’s base; why and how can a politician pander to them, if in fact that is what is going on?
But besides that, I posit Clue #1 of Bad Government: When semantics are of greater concern than deeds.
Illegal aliens may not be anyone’s base. But their relatives, and people who had been in the country illegally can form a voting base.
Re the quote by Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami:
Wasn’t she trying (but failing) to say “outer space”?
It doesn’t make sense, otherwise. (Not that I’m claiming it actually makes sense in the larger sense of the word).
Well, for all intensive purposes, and all that—
Ah, but immigrants who come here because they no longer want to live in overcrowded conditions are indeed here because they are out of space.
Does anyone else remember those horribly animated commercials they used to run at the beginning of the year – “Aliens Must register in January of Each Year!”
It didn’t help that the drawing style was so loose and cheap that the aliens really DID look as if they were from outer space. Confused the heck out of me as a kid.
I agree that “alien” seems to be more commonly applied in the SF sense, but what else would you use? “Alien” is still a legit and not yet obsolete word that succinctly deescribes this situation. So use it. Develop people’s vocabulary skills.
As a legal alien from out of Australia, I for one welcome our alien overlords from out of space.
Alan Arkin starred in a cool little movie called Simon, about a man who became convinced he was an extraterrestrial. A running gag was his wife talking about him being ‘from out of space.’ “It’s OUTER space!”
Out of space, out of time, the dread Alien claws its way from the nebulous region of Ah’Rhsuhd to claim his dominion over Man. His prophets, though deemed mad by the unbelieving blind, preached the day when he would come with his gibbering tentacles; the coruscating energy of his scintillating Death Rays; the unspoken horrors and sensual delights that he taught the Carib tribe long ago; the unbelievable spectacle and gourmandizing treasure of his Mofongo.
Ai! Ai! C’nt’L Carib Blarney!
Guys, guys. If she feels that it means someone “from out of space,” who are we to argue against her feelings?
I’m all for it. In fact, I’ll go farther and demand that property liens be banned as well.
That way no one can complain that they “have a lien on their property”, and frighten us into thinking that they are housing extra-terrestrials.
But wouldn’t that be a legal lien?
Do legal liens have green cards?
From out of space? I should of known.
And don’t anybody tell me that “should of” is okay now just because a lot of people say it.
But it is okay. As in “You will do what you should, of course.”