lokisnow Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 When people refer to illegal immigrants slash undocumented immigrants slash illegal alien as "illegals" they are doing precisely what someone does when they call someone a rapist - they are using "illegal" as a descriptor of what the person did - ie: that they immigrated illegally to the United States. It is very clear based on usage that illegal is being used as a noun. When you say "as far as I know, there is no similar noun for immigrants" what you are actually saying is "I reject the use of illegals as a noun to refer to immigrants who are here in violation of immigration law." There is a term. Even if you disagree with the term, it is clearly in widespread enough use that you know exactly what people are talking about when they use it. A number of dictionaries have recognized this use, although in all fairness, they recognize it as a derogatory term, which it is by design. The i word is used against peoples of Latino heritage and is used in the way the n word is used, that's the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrackerNeil Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Last Hobbit i checked documented his woek. It's really fun to do the hobbit game with "Jackie Brown", substituting "hobbit" for "n*gg*r." Samuel L. Jackson is about 90% of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All-for-Joffrey Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 The folks supporting Trump, hell the vast majority of the country, have no idea who the Quds Force are. How this works is, you call Trump dumb for not knowing the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard what folks hear is you're calling them dumb for not knowing it. "The folks supporting Trump" are not the ones running for public office. So no, I'm not calling them dumbasses for not knowing that. I'm calling Trump a dumbass for not knowing that AND running for public office. Scott Walker, for instance, obviously has/had no clue about foreign policy basics but he at least has the grace to bone up on them and prepare for questions about them so he can offer the basic neocon talking points. And if you read the rest of the article and the full interview, it goes well beyond merely not knowing who Sulemani is or what the Quds force is (not that that's not bad enough). Not knowing who these people and organizations are indicates his lack of understanding of the region and corresponding lack of policy details or nuance. (Remember, outside of immigration, he's released precious few policy specifics. His only Middle East policy so far is "we should have forcibly siezed a sovreign coutnry's oil reserves after we occupied them"). The optics are terrible and it's really not the right way to take him on. Yes. The optics here are terrible. For Trump. After being pressed on policy specifics it was clear he didn't even know who some of the major players in the region are, meaning he can't really have policy specifics on the Middle East, can he? And it's no unreasonable to infer that he also doesn't know major leaders and organiations in the region outside of terrorist networks and Iran. Trump is not a dumbass, I keep hearing people trying to paint him as one, but he's not. He's a vain loudmouth and an ignoramous but he's not stupid. There are different types of intelligence. Ben Carson is obviously a brilliant nureosugreon. He's also an idiotic, inept politicain. Likewise, Trump is very good at building his brand. He's also an idotic, inept politican who's clearly unfit to shape Mideast policy as this interview indicates. His rationale as to why he didn't know who any of these people were was also idiotic. Pretty sure Hassan Nasrallah and Ayman al-Zwahiri are unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon. I'm coming at this from a Republican angle, and I'm thinking you're not, so what I want to see is a Republican candidate who'll take Trump on by changing the narrative not by trying to imitate him (which is impossible) or by defaming him which is counterproductive. What the hell does it matter what "angle" you're coming at it from? Hugh Hewitt is a conservative radio host so pretty sure he was coming at the interview from Republican angle. Hewitt found it worrisome found it worrisome that Trump can't even name major actors and organiztions in the region even though he's running to be commander in chief. Pretty sure I woudn't agree with any of Hewitt's perfered policy perscriptions, but you can't even begin talking about and forming policy if you don't know who the hell these people and netowrks are. In this I agree with Hewitt. Calling out Trump's ignorance after he fails to comptently answer an important question is not a "gotcha question" nor is it a malicious conspriacy to make him look like a dumbass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IamMe90 Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Anyway back to Trump Take away: Priebus arrives as supplicant to the Donald and magnanimous gesture is announced. I imagine the deal will be that the RNC won't actively look to destroy his campaign as long as he doesn't run as a 3rd party candidate. The only way I can see Trump losing is if the establishment contenders drop out and transfer their support and money to one main candidate. The RNC still seem fixated on Jeb, even though he's demonstably a terrible campaigner. If there are actual adults in the Repub leadership then someone needs to invite Jeb over for a long heartfelt sit down. I still think Walker is our go to guy here but clearly he's not exactly been a bright shining light either, and he has no idea on how to deal with the Trump phenomena besides spewing out stupid shit he thinks the base might like. So maybe Rubio? Whatever they decide they better hurry up. Trump is utterly unique in that he doesn't need money, or Super PACs or white knighting media to get oxygen, he just needs to open his big fat mouth and every TV station, newspaper and website in the country reports it. He won't be stopped by squeezing his donors so at best we'll end up with a long war of attrition. Walker has proven himself incapable of running a competent campaign that isn't saturated in shameful local and state media coverage. Having lived in Wisconsin for 6 years, it's been pretty clear to me that he'd utterly flounder at the national level. And, lo and behold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frog Eater Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 The folks supporting Trump, hell the vast majority of the country, have no idea who the Quds Force are. How this works is, you call Trump dumb for not knowing the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard what folks hear is you're calling them dumb for not knowing it. The optics are terrible and it's really not the right way to take him on. Trump is not a dumbass, I keep hearing people trying to paint him as one, but he's not. He's a vain loudmouth and an ignoramous but he's not stupid. I'm coming at this from a Republican angle, and I'm thinking you're not, so what I want to see is a Republican candidate who'll take Trump on by changing the narrative not by trying to imitate him (which is impossible) or by defaming him which is counterproductive. see, the only candidate who does know who or what the Quds force is is probably Hillary Clinton, and that is only because of her time as Sec of State. Right now, ask Bernie Sanders the same question, he wont know what the hell you are talking about. And neither will 95% or more of the country. Its not a gotcha question. If he didnt know what a Shiite or Sunni Muslim was, that would be a gotcha question. But the head of Iran's paramilitary force? no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All-for-Joffrey Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 see, the only candidate who does know who or what the Quds force is is probably Hillary Clinton, and that is only because of her time as Sec of State. Right now, ask Bernie Sanders the same question, he wont know what the hell you are talking about. And neither will 95% or more of the country. I'm pretty sure this isn't true. Anyone who follows Middle Eastern affairs at least semi-casually has probably come across it in news reports. I'm sure Sanders, Bush, and Rubio -- to name a few -- at the very least know what the Quds force is. Actually, a lot of the neocon candidates have pointed to Soulemani travelling to Russia to complete a weapons deal as evidence of why the Iran deal is bad, blah blah blah. So they at the very least know who he is as well. And for how much they love to go on and on about destalbizing Iranian proxies, then they damn well better know what the Quds force is. And again, it's not just the Quds force. He owned up to his ignorance of other Mid-east actors as well throughout the course of the interview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 see, the only candidate who does know who or what the Quds force is is probably Hillary Clinton, and that is only because of her time as Sec of State. Right now, ask Bernie Sanders the same question, he wont know what the hell you are talking about. And neither will 95% or more of the country. Its not a gotcha question. If he didnt know what a Shiite or Sunni Muslim was, that would be a gotcha question. But the head of Iran's paramilitary force? no. A number of the presidential candidates, on both sides, are sitting Senators who have no doubt expressed opinions on Iran and other Middle Eastern issues. They better know who the Quds force is, or at least be able to tell them apart from Kurds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelli Fury Posted September 4, 2015 Author Share Posted September 4, 2015 I assume we are also going to stop referring to people as rapists, murderers, extortionists, thieves, sexists, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, etc. and so on since all of these, when used as nouns, reduce people merely to particular acts that they've done. The real difference between calling someone a "rapist" to mean "one who has engaged in rape" and an "illegal" to mean "one who has immigrated to the country illegally" is the political judgment that some people don't like the latter and only rapists and falsely accused rapists don't like the former. Similarly, the only real difference between a "slur" and a "descriptor" is that a slur is a type of descriptor that you don't like. Now I have no problem taking the position that I think it's unkind to call people "illegals." I don't use the term myself and find it to be in incredibly poor taste. I think people can acknowledge that and object to that on those grounds. But I think it's pretty foolish to present it as an objective 'stylistic' issue when you are not bound, say, to the ethical strictures of a particular field - say journalism. As apparently you are unaware, this is not private, personal discourse we are having. We are on a public forum with particular rules which my op was meant to clarify for everyone to avoid thread closure. Nobody has to like it, but if we want to post here, we have to abide by it. Such is the cost of running our mouths on Ran's bandwidth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Let's start over, shall we? This time, please - just talk about the topic, not the terminology. That discussion is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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