Fox’s Megyn Kelly: Calling Immigrants “Undocumented” Like Calling Rape “Non-Consensual Sex”
I honestly never really expect much in the way of serious commentary from the people at Fox News, but the latest utterances by afternoon anchor Megyn Kelly descend to an entirely new level of, well, just stupidity:
Plenty of conservatives are pretty upset over a campaign by the Society of Professional Journalists to convince reporters to stop using the terms “illegal aliens” and “illegal immigrants” in favor of “undocumented immigrant.” But none are as livid as perpetually outraged Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who on Wednesday afternoon asked if journalists were going to start calling rapists “non-consensual sex partners” next.
“You could say that a burglar is an unauthorized visitor. You know, you could say that a rapist is a non-consensual sex partner which, obviously, would be considered offensive to the victims of those crimes,” Kelly said. “So how far could you take this?”
“What if there was a push by the criminal defense… bar to re-brand the use of the word rapist to nonconsensual sex partner?” Kelly asks her guest. Jehmu Greene, the former president of the Women’s Media Center, said that was like comparing “apples and oranges.”
Here’s the video:
Kelly does have a point that political correctness does tend to get out of control sometimes, but, really comparing someone who is on in the country without the right paperwork to a rapist? Really?
I said it on Twitter and I’ll say it here. No matter how you parse the transcript, “comparing someone who is on the country without the right paperwork to a rapist” is a wrong conclusion, Doug.
“…comparing someone who is on in the country without the right paperwork to a rapist? Really?”
Uh…no!
Well, they are both criminals. If they catch you peeing in the bushes, you’re liable to be put on the sex offender registry along with the baby rapists, so matters of degree are obviously of no regard. Heck, a non-negligible portion of illegal aliens in fact are rapists.
I don’t think we should use any PC terminology anyway; it dilutes the meaning of language, and too often serves a particular ideology. I can see a little sensitivity, not calling people crippled or retarded for example, but these are criminals, and I have no sympathy if they feel insulted by us calling them that.
The illegals that come here are in a sense, rapists. They have no paperwork to show their status of immigration. They rape the system of our hard earned dollars, so they can live here. Where else in the world does this system work? Definitely not in Mexico, where illegal aliens are instantly deported when they are found out. This has been a liberal scam for years and when someone speaks up about it, he/she is the bad guy.
really … without the right paperwork ? That is NOT what they are guilty of … they are criminal trespassers …
and she was talking about illegal immigrants, not immigrants …
otherwise this post is up to the normal stands of OTB …
So someone comes to my house, uninvited and forces his or her way into my house without my consent. That person is in violation of laws against trespassing at the very least. Further that trespasser insists that I prepare him or her endless meals and consumes them, leaving nothing for my family to consume. The intruder sleeps in my bed, uses my hot water and shampoo and soap and generally just makes his or her self at home in the home on which I make the payments. And I’m not supposed to OBJECT to this nonsense? I will object with a loaded .357 Magnum, thank you very much. Pointed in the appropriate direction and at the appropriate body parts until that lawbreaker has vacated my premises. And that is how I expect intruders in MY country to be treated as well. My grandparents came here in the early 1900s the right way, the legal way. They went through the whole immigration process to come here from Hungary and were a credit to this country throughout their short lives. I am NOT anti immigrant. I am, however, anti LAWBREAKING immigrant! Big time. Seriously Big Time.
Doug misses the point of the quote. Yet in a way he is vindicated in the comments.
I prefer the metaphor of bank robbers making “undocumented withdrawals,” myself, but I think the comparison is OK.
There is a “right” way and a “wrong” way to enter or stay in this country. It is defined by law. If you do not obey the law, then you are acting illegally. And “illegal immigrant” is a fair way to differentiate between those who have chosen to honor our laws, and those who have chosen to flout them.
I understand that the pro-illegal-alien lobby wants to conflate legal immigrants with illegal ones, but I find that grossly insulting to those who should be our honored guests — lump them in with those who should be shown the door, and told to not return.
J.
Well, she didn’t compare illegal aliens with rapists. She compared newspeaking illegal aliens as undocumented aliens with newspeaking rapists as non-consensual sex partners.
Illegal aliens are in the country in violation of the law, they are undocumented but that just glosses over their unlawful presence as a paperwork glitch. A rapist has forceable or unlawful sex, the sex is non-consensual but that just glosses over the violence as a simple failure to reach agreement.
Gayle — Your metaphor is a little confused. This intruder actually breaks into your house so he can prepare meals for you to eat, makesyour bed so you can sleep in it, clean your toilets, mow your lawn and watch your kids in return for much less than you’d pay someone who had papers. I do have no doubt that you’d threaten them with a gun — say, if they demanded minimum wage and minimum benefits.
Hey, I bet you call yourself a Christian, too!
wr, what if Gayle doesn’t want those services? What if she prefers to do them herself, or already has someone she has chosen to employ? Someone she could pay a living wage to, a legal wage to, and file all the paperwork and pay all the taxes?
I’m no lawyer, but I know one of the most fundamental aspects of contracts is acceptance. It cannot be enforced unless agreed to by both parties.
WE NEVER AGREED.
My truck is currently filthy. If I were to go out and see some guy I’d never seen before washing it, I would not say “why, thank you, my good fellow! Here’s twenty bucks for your trouble!” I’d tell him to get the hell away from my truck.
And if I’d come home to find out he’d broken in to vacuum up and wash my dishes, I’d call the cops — if I didn’t kill him myself.
My patronage, my courtesy, my support is mine to offer, not anyone else’s to presume or just take.
And the same holds true for my country.
J.
“wr, what if Gayle doesn’t want those services?”
If businesses and people didn’t want these services, which allow them to pay out less money in terms of wages, benefits, and taxes, then the incentive for people from Mexico and other Latin American countries to come here would shrink considerably…
It ain’t just those incentives, IP. It’s also all the social services they can pick up as well. Free health care, education, even welfare and public housing — Barack Obama’s aunt was an illegal alien living in public housing in Boston. (She still is, also getting welfare, but her immigration case is, for some reason, in serious limbo for the past couple of years.)
Why not get rid of those incentives, too? Why not require that public housing and assistance recipients provide the same kind of documentation employers and employees have to? With similar legal penalties for falsifying or ignoring those laws?
I’ll go for both. How about you?
J.
Heck, IP, we’ll even call it “comprehensive immigration reform” because it has a little something for both sides. Couldn’t get much fairer than that…
J.
I would prefer to see a complete breakdown of how much in goods and services that these people actually get from the various state and local governments rather than a simple anecdote about the president’s aunt…by the way, I doubt your little plan would ever gain much traction…seems like a lot of people really, really like paying on the cheap for food, daycare, cleaning services, etc….
So, then, IP, the answer is no? You’re not interested in compromise, in genuine comprehensive immigration reform? You don’t think that Americans and America’s invited guests should have first dibs on America’s generosity to those in need?
But your demand… that’s just reasonable and fair and common-sense? So that should just go through immediately, no questions asked?
I happen to agree with you, but I think my proposal is the same. I think that whatever standard we apply when private individuals giving money to people should be the MINIMAL standard when we give government — public — OUR money to people. The government should be held to the same standard as an employer, because there really isn’t that much difference between the two.
It’s a very simple parallel, and the principle is the same. And I’ll worry about selling “my” side — the unions oughta be on board for it, as they’re getting totally screwed by illegal aliens taking what could be good-paying union jobs, in a lot of cases — but they seem so blinded by the thought of these illegals becoming legal and then dues-paying union members, they don’t mind their current members getting screwed.
You’ve presented a pragmatic challenge to my proposal. Can you give a principled one?
J.
Since when did you care so much about unions?
I’ll take my allies where I can find them, IP. You gonna bother answering my question, or what?
J.
A poor choice of words, no doubt carefully chosen for maximum sensationalist impact. Suddenly, the argument is over Ms. Kelly’s inapt comparison between rape and illegal immigration (was Genocide on vacation that day?) instead of over the proposal to neutralize an (rightfully, IMO) emotional issue in the name of Political Correctness. Nothing like verbal shell games to keep your audience poorly informed and mis-focused
Alternately, MarkT, it could be seen as an attempt to downplay and minimize a very serious issue by blandifying a very precise, very accurate term because it makes some people feel bad to be told the truth. And an assault on language and truth by insisting that words that have become imbued with meaning be replaced with mild euphemisms.
In most arguments, the side that sets the terms has a tremendous advantage. Look at the abortion issue — to one side, it’s “pro-life” and “pro-abortion;” to the other, “pro-choice” and “anti-choice.” Or “baby-killers” vs. “anti-woman.” They’re not arguing the merits of their position, but jockeying for leverage — because they know that setting the definitions gives them a huge advantage in the fight.
Are they aliens? Legally, yes. The law has a very clear defintion of “alien” — a non-citizen within a nation. Its usage predates little green men, and was extended to encompass them.
Are they illegal? Yes. Every nation has the right to decide who can enter and who cannot — it’s one of the fundamental definitions of a nation. They are different from those who do come here under our rules, and “legal” and “illegal” are handy ways to differentiate the two.
What does “undocumented” mean? In some contexts, it means someone never bothered to write down how they did what they did, or how someone else should do something. I lost points on math tests because my answers were “undocumented.”
Or it could mean that one didn’t properly cite one’s sources. Other students were punished for plagiarism for their “undocumented” reports.
At my job, it’s a bad thing. It means that I messed up something, and didn’t show the paper trail showing that I fixed it — and how.
In the context of illegal aliens, the word has been reduced to its literal meaning — “without documents.” Documents that show that the person is here legally, that they have followed the rules and the laws and are a welcome guest within our borders. But it’s not something that can be rectified with an “oops, my bad.”
Words matter, MarkT. Words shape how people think and feel. That’s why they fight over them.
J.