The admirable Byron York has an amusing item about the Treason Lobby`s desperate efforts to find words sugar-coat the Amnesty (streng verboten!) that they`re trying to force down America`s throat: Tough talk: Why immigration reformers say `get right with the law`, Washington Examiner, February 1, 2014.
Supporters of immigration reform have carefully poll-tested the words they use to advocate an overhaul of the nation`s immigration system. “The language on this stuff is really important,” says one expert who`s been intimately involved in the work.
In general, advocates of far-reaching reform have found that the toughest-sounding words work best. Words and phrases that sound as if the government might confer some sort of benefit on illegal immigrants don`t test well. “Legalization,” for example, is open to all sorts of interpretation and could suggest a gift from the government. [Link in original] [Emphases added].
Of course, “immigration reform” itself is the supreme example of this manipulative mendacity—but maybe York is forced to use it by the Examiner`s style book.
York gives a string of examples of Treason Lobby operatives who have suddenly and simultaneously started using the weasel words “get right with the law” instead “legalization”—and notes that, not surprisingly, it also turned up in the House GOP`s recent surrender proposal.
Reading York`s piece, you have to be impressed by the enormous amounts of money that the Treason Lobby is spending on this drive—and by the intense opposition it must be meeting from grassroots Americans. If “immigration reform” is as popular as the Treason Lobby claims, why not go back to acknowledging that it`s amnesty?
Of course, I agree that language does matter. The obvious riposte to “getting right with the law” is: are these invaders going to get right with the historic American nation—by, for example, not establishing colonies, insisting on speaking their own languages etc.
In general, I believe that shrinking from the patriotic and nationalist dimension of opposition to immigration is one of the greatest mistakes of the Beltway immigration reform groups—and that`s a hot competion, alas.