June 20, 2019

"But what is exhausting about the current debate over the use of the words concentration camp goes beyond Trump and his made-up reality."

"At its heart, the question is: Should we call these camps, where a distinct group of people is being detained by the government, by their proper scholarly name? Or should we avoid it because it invokes* the Holocaust and might somehow diminish from the attendant suffering of those who perished there? Again, the question turns on emotion, on individualized reactions to the specific words, rather than on accuracy and precision; as many have pointed out, the term 'concentration camp' predates the Holocaust and does not require an intention toward genocide.... Are we now spending more time on the labels than on the actual harms? In a time of information overload and outrage fatigue, is fighting over what we call things coming at the cost of fighting against the things themselves? The sometimes threadbare political axiom 'if you’re explaining, you’re losing' comes to mind.... But we must question whether battles over who is most affronted by references to the Holocaust come under the category of explaining, or trying to find shared meanings, or reaching for truth.... What matters is that words still have the capacity to move, inspire, and terrify us. If they can still do that, perhaps they can still push us to act, even if we don’t always agree."

I'm reading "The AOC–Liz Cheney 'Concentration Camp' Fight Might Just Be a Distraction" by Dahlia Lithwick and Susan Matthews (Slate).

______________

* In an essay about words, it's a good idea to use the right words yourself. It should be evokes, not invokes.

238 comments:

1 – 200 of 238   Newer›   Newest»
MikeR said...

I call baloney. The only reason the phrase is being used is because it recalls the Holocaust.
It's like arguing that you're allowed to call something racist even though the connection is invisible, and then claiming that you have the right to pin on it all the emotional power of the word racist.

M Jordan said...

I too am sick of outrage but the finger of blame points to the Democratic Party. This has been their biggest tool in the tool shed of late. Kavanaugh hearings, anyone?

Ray - SoCal said...

Never again was also used in the conversation, which is a direct Holocaust reference.

iowan2 said...

Not a single person is being detained. So why do we allow the lie?

Walking out and going home is a very simple process. Every person there chooses to be there
Let's agree on the facts, then debate.

MayBee said...

If they can still do that, perhaps they can still push us to act, even if we don’t always agree."

Push us to act....how? By deporting people faster? Building a wall? Arresting as human traffickers the people encouraging immigrants to come illegally or send their children alone?
No. They want to use the word to encourage us to feel like Nazis so we are encouraged to act to let people come freely in to this country with no limits. Right?

Leland said...

Concentration camp is a scholarly name. The term "Detention Facility" has been used for many more decades than "concentration camp". Further, one can avoid ther detention facilities by not walking to the United States border and crossing it illegally. Prisoners at concentration camps were sought out, loaded on trains, and shipped to camps by their own country or the country that just defeated theirs.

Don't suggest scholarship when you seem ignorant of history.

h said...

Didn't " these camps, where a distinct group of people is being detained by the government, " exist during the Obama administration? When Lithwick, et al, begin calling Obama (and his sidekicks) war criminals, I'll start to take their moaning more seriously. Until then it's just OMB.

Charlie said...

It's a stupid debate, prompted by stupid people. Peak 2019, in other words.

Gahrie said...

Wait...so now the side that has insisted that words matter and have meaning (sexist language, gay marriage, invented pronouns, men demanding be addressed as women, People of color V colored people) is saying that words don't matter?

Dave Begley said...

What do these Libs propose to do with these illegal aliens? Do they have a better name?

This is all about language. Of a piece as “climate change deniers.”

CJinPA said...

Should we call these camps, where a distinct group of people is being detained by the government, by their proper scholarly name?

That means you want to call undocumented immigrants by their proper name, "aliens"?

Are we now spending more time on the labels than on the actual harms?

If anyone really gave a damn about "actual harms" we would be "spending more time" on reducing the number of people rushing our border. We'd spend time solving the problem. The only harms the writers care about are political.

Temujin said...

It's important to name things properly. A thing is what it is. A is A. You can call it something else, but that does not change the nature of what it is. She says "the term 'concentration camp' predates the Holocaust.". Well yes. All words predate the Holocaust. The Swastika also predated the Holocaust. But things change in time. There are still Holocaust survivors living among us. We act as if this happened around 5 BC. The words Concentration Camp do have meaning today. Relevant, current historic meaning.

US Border Detention Centers are not Nazi concentration camps. This should not even be a discussion and is so only because the Left is working 24/7 to change the meaning of word and phrases, exactly as totalitarian regimes have done throughout history.

To call this Orwellian doesn't do it justice.

Dalia is wrong on this. It is important to make clear the meaning of these phrases and words. Not to mention that Jews were not rushing the borders of Germany to get in illegally. They were torn from their homes, shot or sent to these 'camps'. Mexicans storming our border to get in illegally are being detained until we can figure out what do to about this. And it's only taking 50 years, but what the hell...it's not the same and words do have meaning. To call these concentration camps is to lower the power of what that phrase has meant for half a century, while raising the level of fear of what our government is doing to make it seem like we're the totalitarians. The language usurpers are the totalitarians.

MayBee said...

For me, the exhausting thing about this problem is
a) the left refusing to admit there is a problem
b) those who don't want limits on Mexican immigration not just admitting it

Henry said...

If "Concentration Camp" is to be de-Hitlerized, it should only refer to camps where white supremacists of Dutch ancestry are detained by the British empire.

Is Trump locking up Boers?

h said...

And this comparison is a kind of holocaust denial because it makes it sound like the 6 million Jews voluntarily marched long distances through difficult terrains in order to present themselves to the Nazis at the camp gates.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Did we round them up in order to kill them?

NO.

They came here willingly and knowingly illegally.

Gahrie said...

The first time I am aware of the term concentration camp being used was by the Spanish in Cuba just before the Spanish-American War. They were places where the population was concentrated so they could not help the rebels. Lots of death and suffering, but not intentionally designed to kill people. The main difference between concentration camps and border detention centers is that people can voluntarily leave the detention centers and go home any time they want to.

buwaya said...

Manufactured controversy about manufactured propaganda.

Intended to enhance the reach of that propaganda.

You can never be sufficiently cynical.

traditionalguy said...

Horrors. This time the governments massive expenditure is on holding facilities for captured invaders of the USA and not for re-education and killing camps to eliminate the Americans who resist Socialism that Obama had built.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The left know illegal entrants are a problem. They do not care. They see future voters for their crime syndicate.

wendybar said...

They can always go home. They came here KNOWING what is happening. They get 3 meals a day, and a place to sleep. They get free medical care. Way better than we treat our own citizens who are homeless, and poor.

MayBee said...

I don't know how we stop people from coming and especially how you stop people from just sending their kids.

wendybar said...

Instead of crying about Nazism, and concentration camps...WHERE are the new bill that actually would STOP this without giving everybody in the world amnesty??? THIS is CONGRESSES fault. They haven't done their jobs in years. There are laws on the books that they refuse to follow. WHY?? Why have laws if the left can decide which ones they want to follow and which ones they don't??

Xmas said...

Even the pre-Hitler meaning of concentration camp has a negative connotation. The British used concentration camps in their campaign against the Boer. They would burn farms and fields, and put the families of Boer men into camps so to remove the support of the Boer fighters.

The camps were a tactic in a war. To call our detention centers concentration camps is to say that, yes, this is an invasion on our Southern border.

rhhardin said...

What matters is that words still have the capacity to move, inspire, and terrify us.

Instead of swordplay, wordplay.

That's what peace looks like. Violence domesticated. You can't hope for better.

MayBee said...

People are encouraging this and then calling Trump a Nazi all in hopes that there is some critical mass and we just give up trying to enforce immigration, right?
Is there another explanation?

I remember this happening with Obama too. It happens too often for it not to be organized by someone.

hawkeyedjb said...

Not a problem. The camps will become detention centers, or welcome centers, the day after a Democratic administration is sworn in. The reality won't change.

Swede said...

It's been a laugh riot watching all of the white knighting going on in the press and punditry for the stupid things that AOC says.

Guys, she's not going to sleep with you.

Or maybe she will, who knows?

The point is that what she said was stupid, deliberate, and she's painted herself into a corner and that corner is pretty crowded right now.

This all makes me think that Nancy Pelosi must sit in a dark room sometimes and just cry and wonder what the hell is happening.

Wince said...

What's wrong with the term "dormitory"?

Many colleges require students to live in dormitories, if they wish to enroll.

Same here. If you wish to enter the US as an asylum seeker, you must reside in the dormitory pending your hearing, or you can return home. Your choice.

And it's free.

Freshman residency rules sometimes force students to pay prohibitive costs (WaPo)

Housing and meal plans at many colleges and universities now cost more than tuition, and the dozens of colleges that require students to live in a campus dorm and eat in dining halls for at least a year are adding a sometimes-prohibitive cost for those who struggle to pay for higher education.

Tommy Duncan said...

Am I out of the mainstream if I understand the phrase "concentration camp" to imply:

Death from forced labor?
Death from starvation?
Death from beatings?
Death from poison gas?
Death by firing squad?
Mass graves?
Secrecy?

If the conditions above exist in the border detention facilities then AOC is justified in her statements.

buwaya said...

My ancestress (a Cubana, from Cienfuegos) was lady in waiting to Valeriano Weyler when he was Governor General of Cuba. Her brother, a Spanish Army Staff officer, was his ADC in Cuba and the Philippines. There were lots of native Cubans staffing the Spanish empire, and before them lots of Mexicans.

Spain was extraordinarily well experienced in counterinsurgency, as its armed forces were almost constantly in action in such wars throughout the 19th century. Weyler did not invent concentration camps, but the army itself understood the concept.

William said...

The very first concentration camps were those set up by the British in their campaign against the Boers. The Boers were moved off their farms and detained in these camps. Conditions there were primitive, and the camps had a high mortality rate, especially with children. People who opposed British Imperialism sided with the Boers and condemned the concentration camps.. I'm not sure about this, but I believe the British treated the native population a bit better than the Boers. In any event, the interests of the native black population did not figure in any way as to how the Boers and British conducted their war and negotiated their peace.

readering said...

Growing up in UK I associate term concentration camp with Boer War. But those were horrible in their own way. No doubt AOC using freighted word deliberately and but Cheney's reaction seems uppity. No one needs to be lectured on holocaust through Twitter.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Diminishing the horror of the Nazi concentration camps is what hive-mind leftwingers do.

Illegal entrants are being detained. DETAINED. Barely.

OAC prefers we let them go, give them voter status, drivers licenses, get them on public assistance STAT. If OAC can get them hooked on opioids, even better.
*Never mind any infectious diseases.

Fernandinande said...

Concentration camp is a scholarly name. The term "Detention Facility" has been used for many more decades than "concentration camp".

It's actually the opposite.

dbp said...

This post need a bullshit tag:

"Should we call these camps, where a distinct group of people is being detained by the government, by their proper scholarly name?"

AOC is not calling detention centers, "concentration camps" to be using proper scholarly names and everybody knows this. She was using it to compare what we are doing with what the NAZIs did.

J. Farmer said...

Who gives a crap? Argue why AOC’s position on the southern border (the original topic at hand) is wrong rather than this stupid language policing.

Fernandinande said...

Taco Bowl macht frei.

rhhardin said...

Mallarme called the changing leaves in autumn a holocaust of red and gold.

buwaya said...

The Spanish policy in Cuba antedated the British one of the Boer war by about three years.

The Spanish system however was more akin to the US-Vietnamese system of strategic hamlets. The British had the problem that the Boer population was extremely dispersed, they did not live in villages.

Sebastian said...

Small difference between AOC's concentration camps and the real deal: hers, people can avoid by not crossing the border, and hers, we can get rid of by sending all residents back where they came from.

Surely, if those concentration camps are a supreme evil, we should do everything possible to empty them out: send all illegals back to Mexico or their home countries tout de suite, and build the wall to keep others away.

Gahrie said...

Who gives a crap? Argue why AOC’s position on the southern border (the original topic at hand) is wrong rather than this stupid language policing.

Language matters, why is why the Left is so obsessed by it. They're not legal immigrants, they're undocumented migrants. I'm not pro-abortion, I'm pro-choice. I'm a person of color, not a colored person. We need gay marriages, civil unions aren't good enough.

gilbar said...

Wasn't it just last week people were saying that words meant whatever we wanted them to?

MayBee said...

"their proper scholarly name" says the people who then go on to refuse to say who is in these centers other than "children" and "families".

Jamie said...

Gahrie, way up-thread - exactly. My first thought was, "Oh, THAT'S rich." Are we going to pay more attention to labels than to the meaning and intent, blah blah blah. Good gravy, I haven't seen such a blatant example of the Left's willingness to ignore its own principles -pardon me, I mean "principles" - in service of a short-sighted end, in a long time. Usually they're a little better at the requisite sleight-of-hand.

buwaya said...

Propaganda war is all about words and the ways they are used, and the power and volume of the systems that push them.

Complaining about this is like complaining about artillery shells in outright warfare.

The only way to fight propaganda is equal and opposite propaganda.

MayBee said...

J. Farmer said...
Who gives a crap? Argue why AOC’s position on the southern border (the original topic at hand) is wrong rather than this stupid language policing


Conversely, argue why it's right.

Swede said...

It's not stupid language policing.

If you let your opponent define the terms and/or reinvent what words mean, then you've already lost.

I would think that was obvious.

chickelit said...

AOC is dumb boob with boobs. I'm over her.

Hagar said...

The proper term for these people is "undocumented Democrats."

JAORE said...

"AOC’s position on the southern border"

It seems to be limited to Orange Man BAD!!!!

The issue can be corrected by Congressional action. And, wait for it, AOC is a member of Congress. Perhaps she could fight tirelessly for legislation to end the problem. But no.... Orange Man bad.

And any pass on the holocaust reference = Nazi is disingenuous. She specifically mentioned "Never again". She used a hot button/emotional phrase intended to paint Trump as a Nazi. The lie is transparent.

Hagar said...

The proper term for these people is "undocumented Democrats."

chickelit said...

I mean, you cannot reason with a person like AOC. That's why I resort to ad hominem. It's the only tactic she understands.

Kevin said...

The Dems have spent more time discussing their use of “concentration camp” than they have stopping illegal immigration.

buwaya said...

Propaganda works by manipulating emotions.
There is no point arguing against it, it is not intended to convince through reason (though it might pretend to).
You cannot usefully, even to yourself, argue against propaganda.
If you try, it means they have you. They have disturbed you, they have affected you.
You have ducked down in your trench, put on a gas mask. And all without need.

Keep in mind that anything at all that comes from your enemies is an attack. There is no arguing with it.

chickelit said...

Althouse wrote: * In an essay about words, it's a good idea to use the right words yourself. It should be evokes, not invokes.

What AOC did was to provoke the woke.

Browndog said...

The Liz Cheney aspect to this saga seems eons ago. Not just because she was one of the first to call out AOC, but because it's the most irrelevant chapter in this never ending story.

It became more than "just another stupid thing AOC said" when MSM--Chris Hayes (MSNBC) rushed to her defense.

AOC is like a black hole of stupidity--destroying entire worlds with a tweet. Now, they want Chuck Todd fired for not protecting The Precious..

Mike Cernovich summed it up on day 1:

Everyone knew what concentration camp meant until today. The meaning and context of words must be changed for Queen AOC.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

EVERY detention camp is a concentration camp. They don't make them for single occupants. Unless they start doing that, or spreading these camps out over dozens, or hundreds, of miles, they're necessarily going to CONCENTRATE people in these CAMPS.

Oh well, in for a nickel, in for a dollar. They get to call them concentration camps, and by inference, killing fields.

buwaya said...

AOC is a mouthpiece for her handlers. Occasionally she speaks for herself, but usually the line is scripted. This was well documented several months ago, about who her backers and handlers are.

She is not an entity one can debate, that is not the point. You can abuse her intelligence, if you like, but this is irrelevant. You can abuse a battery of artillery all you like, but its going to keep shooting at you.

You havent got a civil argument here, but a conflict, conducted by hard people.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

AOC is the leader of the mindless youth project.

Nonapod said...

The American Heritage dictionary defines concentration camp as "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable."

So since apparently we're being technical about the definitions, the facilities at the border do not meet that definition since

1). The people in them aren't being "confined", they can choose to go back to Mexico and/or their country of origin at any time.

2). Beyond that, they technically do get "hearings" for their asylum claims.

Michael K said...

AOC is a mouthpiece for her handlers

I understand she was recruited along with a large number of others in a sort of audition process.

Jamie said...

Why AOC's position on the southern border is wrong, then, although the point of this post must certainly have been the bending of words to a purpose: she's wrong because whenever - WHENEVER AND WHEREVER - so many people attempt to enter a country for the sake of the benefits available in that country, the country is not only within its rights but obliged on behalf of its citizens to try to ensure, at minimum, that entrants will not cause harm (purposeful or inadvertent) to the citizens. This process can't be carried out instantly. So entrants must be stopped at the border while the process plays out, and because it may take longer than a day, especially when entrants may arrive without identity documents or trustworthy medical records, they have to sleep, eat, and have hygienic facilities. These facilities are going to be basic.

The aftermath of a natural disaster that causes people to flee their homes has the same result. People here in Houston after Harvey were housed in church halls and schools that were CERTAINLY not hotels - but they had a place to lie down, a bathroom, and food. They all came for one reason: their homes were uninhabitable and they couldn't afford better. The community offered them basic facilities during the crisis. Because they were largely citizens, they could come and go anywhere (except their homes) as they wished, more or less - whereas border entrants are free to go home but not free to enter the US any farther until their status is resolved. That's the biggest difference, and it comes from the government's responsibility to its citizens.

Neither set of facilities is a "concentration camp." You could make a stronger case for "refugee center" if you object to the accurate "detention center."

Seeing Red said...

AOC is vile.

With all this ignorance by credentialed people on display 24/7, it’s time to rethink and reconfigure schooling.

rhhardin said...

ADHD? Send your kid to concentration camp.

jaydub said...

"Concentration camp" is a dishonest term and "detention center" is a misnomer. In truth, these facilities should be called something on the order of "Prevention Centers" because their only purpose is to prevent aliens from proceeding North into the US illegally. No one is being detained and no one is being prevented from leaving, only from leaving other than to the north. If they are seeking asylum, they should apply in Mexico IAW international law as Mexico is the first country entered which capable of addressing their humanitarian issue.

On the other hand, there is no point in debating leftists over this issue because they are being disingenuous and are not looking for truth or solutions, only political leverage. Moreover, debating AOC is an exercise in futility because her profound ignorance of history and dishonest political posturing precludes her grasping the arguments or admitting valid points. Ridicule is the best approach.

buwaya said...

Pretty much everyone you hear from in politics or public policy or corporate public relations is just a face, a tool, reciting lines decided on by someone else, intended to create an emotional effect on the audience. They are actors reciting scripts.

That these people are taken seriously as individuals is itself the intention of propaganda, part of the packaged message. Its like athletes "sponsoring" some shoes or breakfast cereal. They are not invested in the product, they have nothing to do with it. You do not go to Michael Jordan to complain about the quality of the shoes he allowed someone to put his name on.

You cannot argue with them. You cannot argue back. There is nothing to argue about, or anyone to argue with.

Michael K said...

The only way to fight propaganda is equal and opposite propaganda.

Trump understands this and uses comments about "not sending us their best," which enrages the left. The trouble is that he does not have the MSM loud speakers.

Hence his use of these huge rallies. I wonder if the TV networks can bring themselves to stop showing them? CNN cut the rally off the other night but what happens to their ratings ?

Browndog said...

Blogger Seeing Red said...

AOC is vile.

With all this ignorance by credentialed people on display 24/7, it’s time to rethink and reconfigure schooling.


Well, she's got many commenters on Althouse parsing out the definition of concentration camps.

Michael K said...

these facilities should be called something on the order of "Prevention Centers" because their only purpose is to prevent aliens from proceeding North into the US illegally.<

Call them "wall extensions." Temporary extensions, maybe

bagoh20 said...

I got a joke for all:

"AOC just wants to accurately describe a problem, so we can solve it."

I'm here 7 days a week. Two drink minimum.

Leland said...

It's actually the opposite

According to your graph, the use of "Concentration Camps" as a term spiked in the 1940's. As others noted, they existed even before then. But the fact they existed doesn't mean the term does or has been applied for facilities in which people voluntarily travel to and receive food, shelter, and healthcare until they can be sent home. Such facilities have been called detention centers over the past few decades.

To assist, here is Google's definition of Concentration Camp; "a place where large numbers of people especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provid forced labor or await mass execution. " The US detention facilities may be small and inadequate as Congress refuses to fund then, but they don't hold political prisoners and to the extent since are minorities, they left countries in which they were the majority. The US doesn't force labor from these people nor executes them.

Again, if you are going to insist on claiming scholarship, then you better have obtained that high level of education. Just linking to Google is not enough. You need to show what the two phrases you used actually mean and then explain how one is more appropriate then the other. Otherwise, you fail.

rightguy said...

Evoke and invoke have remarkably similar meanings.

Caligula said...

AOC is just doing Humpty Dumpty: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

Since 1945, no one has used the phrase "concentration camp" without the intent of conjuring up images from the liberation of Auschwitz.

It's not as if Alice (in Wonderland) couldn't get Humpty to admit what the game was about:

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

bagoh20 said...

An accurate description could be "Obama policy holdover".

gerry said...

Don't suggest scholarship when you seem ignorant of history.

Don't suggest scholarship when you mention anything having to do with AOC.

Don't suggest scholarship when you mention anything having to do with Progressives.

Paul Zrimsek said...

Has anyone thought of asking the camps themselves what they identify as?

gerry said...

AOC is a mouthpiece for her handlers

She does have a large-capacity mouth. It has many uses.

Hagar said...

This is not a bottom up revolution.
It is an attempt by the already well-to-do and privileged academic left to create another underclass to exploit - for their own good, of course.

rhhardin said...

There are concentration camps in Florida shipping orange juice.

J. Farmer said...

@Swede:

It's not stupid language policing.

If you let your opponent define the terms and/or reinvent what words mean, then you've already lost.

I would think that was obvious.


Call them concentration camps for all I care. Instead of parsing definitions and invoking the Boer War, let's talk about the crisis on the border and what Trump needs to do about it. This tweet from Matt Sussis of the Center for Immigration Studies is salient:

"The biggest lie of this Trump speech so far is that he stopped the caravans, and the crowd unsurprisingly ate it up.

The caravans all got in--they just split up into smaller groups, presented themselves at ports of entry, and made (mostly) bogus asylum claims."

rhhardin said...

An eccentricity camp is the opposite of a concentration camp.

Laslo Spatula said...

The Holocaust is being deadnamed.

I am Laslo.

gilbar said...

Paul Zrimsek made a great point when he said...
Has anyone thought of asking the camps themselves what they identify as?

Maybe they self identify as summer camps?
Maybe they self identify as church camps?

Who are WE to judge?

J. Farmer said...

OT, but I also just read this tweet from Matt that I think he gets exactly write:

"The best way to grasp conservative reactions to Trump is to plot it on two axes: Whether they support Trumpism the ideology, + whether they critique Trump the person.

E.g. Tucker is "Trumpist" but critiques Trump, while Graham defends Trump but is still ideologically like Bush."

buwaya said...

Browndog,

Well, there you are. AOC, her handlers, more specifically, got to Althouse and the commenters.

None of it has anything to do with AOC the person. She is an actress, no less so than someone playing a role in an HBO drama.

Trump too is an actor, though he is also his own scriptwriter.

A bit more sophistication and realism, and cynicism, is required.

Before one reacts to anything said in politics, one has to question the source, the circumstances and the purpose of the message. The most productive reaction is not to react. Defense is pointless, attack is decisive.

The problem we have, as the targets of political attack, is that we ourselves,the vast majority, are unarmed and unable to attack.

bagoh20 said...

The first concentration camps in history designed to collect you and care for before your are released so you can break the law and live a much better life on the taxpayers.

gerry said...

Kasie Hunt - one of MSNBC's many allegedly-educated mouths - introduced a report by asserting that that Joe Biden had unfortunately cooperated with segregationist Republicans way back when the solidly Democratic Jim-Crow-certified South dominated the U.S. Senate. Of course, due to her superb indoctrination -er, education - she was was wrong:

"Earlier today, I inaccurately said Sens. James Eastland & Herman Talmadge were Republicans. They were, of course, both Democrats. We regret the error. We’ll make sure to correct it on the show tomorrow, but wanted to correct the record here in the meantime."

Remember: Don't suggest scholarship when you mention anything having to do with Progressives. Especially when they are on MSNBC.

n.n said...

Emigration reform. I wonder if that would have been sufficient to curb the proliferation of social justice during WWII, and its progress since with the diversity racket, in abortion chambers, and recycling clinics. Yeah, immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises, mass migration) is just like that. There is an anti-nativist sentiment behind this effort to spread political myths and sow divisions.

gilbar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
buwaya said...

Ref, "Blackadder", Series 3, Episode 4, "Sense and Senility"
Go watch it.
In re politics most people are Prince George.

n.n said...

segregationist Republicans

At best, Republicans were anti-slavery, anti-redistributive change, and anti-diversity. At worst, they would go along to get along, which in the context could be perceived as segregationist.

Nonapod said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nonapod said...

Well, she's got many commenters on Althouse parsing out the definition of concentration camps.

Just like Trump, the one thing AOC has in spades is the ability to steer conversations and debate among political junkies, the chattering class in the media, blogs, and other social media. Being a bit of provocateur is one element of persuasion. But unfortunately for her and her handlers, persuasion is more than just saying something provocative that's sparks debate. Such a statement has to have a feel of truth to it that resonates emotionally with a lot of people for it to be effective.

So the question here really is: does calling these facilities "concentration camps" feel true, whether or not it technically is true? This is beyond proper definitions and semantics. To answer that you have to ask yourself 1) What does the term concerntration camp evoke for a typical person, and 2) is there an equivalency with those border facilities. I imagine that the answer to 1) is "The Holocaust". And the answer to 2) is "Absolutely not".

bagoh20 said...

I don't see Trumpism as an ideology. Trumpism is "you hired me to lead the United States to protect and further the interests of its citizens and laws, so that's what I do."

If Trump was French, and they elected him President there, he'd do the same for France. He simply understands what works and what doesn't, so he supports free markets, tough negotiations, and strength.

buwaya said...

The strategic landscape shows that the powers that be are determined to keep the public, the audience, disarmed (see above). Thats what all the suppressive actions such as deplatforming are all about.

The real war is not about messages, but messaging.

Eleanor said...

It's not a concentration camp if parents are sending their children there expecting food, shelter, medical care, education, and entertainment. That's a summer camp.

Kevin said...

Concentration camp acquires meaning through use. Never forget, nobody owns the words.

— AOC

J. Farmer said...

@bagoh20:

"Trumpism" is what distinguished Trump from the field of Republican contenders. Among them, he advocated a tougher stance on immigration, skepticism towards "free" trade, and less enthusiasm for foreign interventionism. He succeeded through triangulation and by adopting some platforms traditionally associated with the Democrats (e.g. promising to protect Social Security and Medicare from Ryanesque voucherization schemes).

n.n said...

concentration (n.)

1630s, "action of bringing to a center, act of collecting or combining into or about a central point,"

- - -
camp (n.)

1520s, "place where an army lodges temporarily," from French camp, in this sense from Italian campo, from Latin campus "open field, level space," especially "open space for military exercise" (see campus).

The direct descendant of Latin campus in French is champ "a field." The Latin word had been taken up in early West Germanic as *kampo-z and appeared originally in Old English as camp "contest, battle, fight, war." This word was obsolete by mid-15c.


Technically, she's correct; but, the inference she hopes people will draw is incomplete. Baby steps, I suppose.


- - -
camp (adj.)

"tasteless," 1909, homosexual slang

h/t Anderson Cooper and his "tea bags"

Michael said...

The camps on the border are not concentration camps and wouldn’t be even if the Holocaust had not happened. The residents can go home when they like. The sooner the better.

Sebastian said...

"The caravans all got in"

Which defines our current predicament: even the one powerful politician who sorta cares, and has tried to do something about it, has not succeeded thus far.

What now? Reelecting Trump seems the least we can do, but even that is unlikely to solve the problem. Or will illegal immigration become like the national debt--something only a handful of deplorables cares about? We'll pretend to have an immigration law, we'll pretend to expel people, we'll have elaborate rituals at airports and crossings, but in fact the borders will be open.

Kevin said...

AOC is culturally-appropriating the term concentration camps.

Unfortunately the Jews have most of the good Nazi references locked up.

It’s just not fair more Latin Americans weren’t gassed.

It’s racist, that’s what it is.

Hagar said...

OT
From the annals of "That's not funny!"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7162735/Brick-design-showing-guns-pointed-cowboy-Montana-school.html

J. Farmer said...

Sebastian:

Which defines our current predicament: even the one powerful politician who sorta cares, and has tried to do something about it, has not succeeded thus far.

Has not tried nearly as hard as he could, which is why so many immigration restrictionists are annoyed with Trump. See this critique by James Kirkpatrick in VDare.

traditionalguy said...

We should rename them Trick or Treat Camps. That is why they came a thousand miles sent by Globalists to demand Treats for Life or until the USA collapses, whichever comes first. And AOC wants to trick us if we don't give them what they demand...right now!

Brian said...

I get what AOC was trying to do here, and her persuasion is masterful that she was able to get media to re-frame an issue on a dime. The problem is that she re-framed in the wrong direction.

One of Trump's biggest weaknesses? He didn't build the Wall. He said he was going to. And he didn't. At least enough wall that he can go stand next to it and say, "see I built it".

Instead of hitting on that issue, they literally call him Hitler and equate detention facilities with concentration camps. They're defending his right flank for him! They also highlight how immigration is a big problem that needs a solution.

All the concentration camp argument persuades is people that are already on your side.

hombre said...

“Proper scholarly name?” Seriously? Have Lithwick and Matthews ever looked up a definition of “concentration camp?”

Regardless of whether the term “concentration camps predated the Nazi death camps, it is absurd to argue that AOC did not intend to conjure up the Holocaust image. It is also absurd to argue that detention facilities for illegal entrants are concentration camps.

It is becoming obvious from the fatuousness of the output of today’s leftmediaswine that they believe, probably correctly, that they are pandering to an audience of birdbrains.

404 Page Not Found said...

"made up reality"? These Democrats are hilarious. Would that be the made up reality where socialism doesn't work, and men can't be women just by wishing it? Jesus Effing Christ. Liberalism is a mental illness.

roesch/voltaire said...

From the accounts at the time, The Japanese Americans were forced to relocate and incarcerated in concentration camps. It seems the relcations of the migrants from Central America echoes this action. But the fake news supporters want to deflect from the reality and called them "wall extensions" etc-- however, a rose by another names still smells and this behavior by the current administration stinks.

Gahrie said...

and this behavior by the current administration stinks.

So how should Trump be handling the border? Simply let everyone in?

Laslo Spatula said...

Obviously we need something that will prevent these people from captivity.

Like maybe we could build a wall between them and the camps.

Then they'd be safe.

I am Laslo.

rhhardin said...

If Trump was French, and they elected him President there, he'd do the same for France.

arc de trumpfe

Hagar said...

This is crap, R/V.
The Democrats are simultaneously inviting this invasion by illegal aliens and waging lawfare on their own Government to prevent it from being able to handle the influx as required by the laws the Democrats themselves enacted in more normal times.

buwaya said...

There is no debate because there is no-one to debate with.
This is not an argument in any sense.

Civilized, or civil, instincts are of no use, or really weaknesses, as they are deliberately used against you. Among these civil delusions is that you have some honorable interlocutor.

Althouse's idea of insect politics is the correct one.

hombre said...

J. Farmer said...
“Who gives a crap? Argue why AOC’s position on the southern border (the original topic at hand) is wrong rather than this stupid language policing.”

It’s gone beyond that, hasn’t it. Her position on the southern border and that of the Democrat Party have moved past rationality - certainly past honest debate. That’s the point of calling her out on her hyperbolic, misleading language.

It’s pointless and demeaning to argue with liars and lunatics.

madAsHell said...

Dahlia Lithwick

Sounds like the scorned woman character from an Emily Bronte novel.

Leland said...

Good point nonapod, but I agree with Gilbar we should ask the camps. Summer camp might be the answer since parents seem to be sending their children there. Maybe Ferdniwhatever can do a Google graph on Summer Camp vs Concentration Camp, except this time, set the filter to 1700 to 1900.

rhhardin said...

It’s pointless and demeaning to argue with liars and lunatics.

Varium et mutabile semper femina

Francisco D said...

From the accounts at the time, The Japanese Americans were forced to relocate and incarcerated in concentration camps. It seems the relcations of the migrants from Central America echoes this action.

If all you hear is an echo, r/v, you might want to check your hearing. Your tone deaf analogy is something I would expect from a HS sophomore.

Swede said...

Farmer,

You can fight on many fronts. This is just one of them.

What's happening on the Southern border isn't a secret.

There have been many discussions on what Trump should do, Congress should do, what they can do, and what they haven't done.

Those will be ongoing. But that doesn't make this particular discussion unimportant.

The fact that AOC supports wide open borders and then comes out with these ridiculous tweets about rounding people up and putting them in concentration camps is part and parcel of her strategy.

She got called on it, and rightly so. It needed confronting.

Matt said...

"the term 'concentration camp' predates the Holocaust and does not require an intention toward genocide."

The term "reich" predates the Holocaust and does not have anything to do with Nazis. What's wrong with calling countries "reichs"? The Chinese Reich, the Cuban Reich, the Venezuelan Reich, the Iranian Reich. "SS" just means "protection squadron." We should be able to call famous people's security "SS." The Ocasio-Cortez SS, the Pelosi SS, the Beyonce SS. Kristallnacht just means "night of broken glass." Every time there is a riot and they break some glass, we should call it kristallnacht. Remember the Ferguson, Missouri Kristallnacht?

Seriously, they need to stop being disingenuous. AOC compared ICE camps to the Nazi camps to argue that jailing illegals is bad. She got called on it.

J. Farmer said...

@Hombre:

It’s gone beyond that, hasn’t it. Her position on the southern border and that of the Democrat Party have moved past rationality - certainly past honest debate. That’s the point of calling her out on her hyperbolic, misleading language.

It’s pointless and demeaning to argue with liars and lunatics.


The debate isn't to be had with the Democratic Party; it's to be had with the American public.

hombre said...

“... fake news supporters ....”

Good lord, RV, do you lefties ever have an original thought? No wonder your leading contender for POTUS is a known plagiarist.

cubanbob said...

If you are going to do the time you might as well commit the crime. Trump should send the detainees to Guantanamo and then offer them transportation home for those who decide Guantanamo is not for them. Or he could rub AOC the Newyorkrican face in it by sending them to detention facilities in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico could use the jobs.

Chuck said...

Althouse I generally adore your insightful and incisive posts on language and usage. This post is no exception.

We might well remind Dahlia Lithwick that another correctly-applied term in the field of immigration law is “illegal alien.” It is a term that is codified in several relevant places in federal statute and regulatory law. It has also been employed in relevant, precedent-setting federal case law. If she can’t use the term it is all about feelings and mushy thinking; not about law and language precision.

But you’ve chosen a rather nit-picky example upon which to call out Dahlia Lithwick; the distinction between “evoke” and “ invoke.” You are right of course on the details. As you so often are.

My question is why, when you are on the subject of mangled language, didn’t you mention Donald Trump’s bizarre claim that Hillary Clinton “acid washed” her emails? Trump has repeated the claim in numerous speeches over many months and now years. Coincidentally with this post, a Slate article lampooned Trump for his inexplicable choice of words, here:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/10/donald-trump-seems-to-believe-hillary-clinton-literally-acid-washed-her-emails.html

Trump seems to be unaware of his being ridiculed on this usage. He keeps saying it. And he included it in his Orlando rally this week. The layers of stupidity are almost hard to count. There’s Trump’s laughable invention of the usage. And the Trump cultists’ acceptance of it. And the White House communications staff’s apparent fear of correcting Trump on it.

J. Farmer said...

@Swede:

She got called on it, and rightly so. It needed confronting.

If anything, AOC's statements have been a boon to restrictionists as it has returned focused to the crisis on the border. But again, let's talk about the crisis and what should be done about it as opposed to some faux outrage over Holocaust comparisons. People have been making stupid Nazi references since before Trump was elected. The people who believe in them are not likely t be swayed by being "called on it" or "confronted." They will simply double down.

n.n said...

State Closes Midtown Miami School Tied to NXIVM "Sex Cult" Leader

"Rainbow Cultural Garden Miami is a multicultural tutoring center that has nothing to do with any cult," Pietra said through a spokesperson.
...
Frank Parlato Jr., a former NXIVM spokesperson-turned-whistleblower credited with first raising concerns about NXIVM, says he believes the schools were a tool to help Raniere and NXIVM members "indoctrinate children" into the cult


There is a tie-in between immigration reform, methods, tactics, and purpose, including the refugee crises, mass migration, sexual exploitation, and human trafficking, and the sex cult. Separating women and children from predators is the first step. Emigration and ethical reform to mitigate the collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout.

Nonapod said...

One of Trump's biggest weaknesses? He didn't build the Wall. He said he was going to. And he didn't. At least enough wall that he can go stand next to it and say, "see I built it".

To be fair, people on the Left hitting Trump for not getting the wall built is like termites who are infesting a home criticizing the home owner for insufficient pest control.

Has Trump done all he could to get the wall built? Depends who you ask. Many maintain that rather than going for the tax cut, he should've pushed hard for the wall when he still had both houses. The argument goes that perhaps he would have gotten at least something built, assuming he could've corraled and threatened enough open borders Republican reps (who, if we're being honest, have always been the real obstacles anyway). Under that set of circumstances, even if he ultimately failed it could fairly be said that he honestly tried his best. But he might not have achieved the tax cut too. It's hard to know for sure.

Instead he waited until he lost the House and decided to try to make the Democrats and the Media the big villians, using them to amplify the issue. In the meantime though, the border has become a legitimate crisis.

Obviously he's not going to get the wall built before the election. The best hope, the best case scenario is that he wins re-election, wins back the House, holds the Senate, and at that point, riding high on a strong re-affirmation from the voters, he might have enough political capital to finally get the wall built.

J. Farmer said...

@Gahrie:

So how should Trump be handling the border?

He should actually be much more forceful and aggressive. Trump's actions at the border have actually been relatively feeble.

buwaya said...

All sorts of necessary acts in the real world "stink".
The problem is one of priority.

The political utility of any given "stink" is not determined by its pungency relative to any other, or any context of means and tradeoffs, but of just that, political utility, full stop.

Thats why the history of WWII as taught in US schools for many decades has consisted almost entirely of the Japanese internment and the atomic bomb. I was very surprised to find this out, in the 1990s (it is educational to investigate what your children will be taught). The Japanese internment was a peccadillo even in the context of Americans actual war crimes of that time, and not even rating even a footnote among all the horrors of the actual war. But it was politically useful as anti-American propaganda by the educational hierarchy that were fellow-travellers with Soviet interests of the time. It has persisted as a zombie meme from those days.

Michael K said...

Thats why the history of WWII as taught in US schools for many decades has consisted almost entirely of the Japanese internment and the atomic bomb.

My older daughter, who is now 52, was in sixth grade when the class held a war crimes trial of Truman for the atomic bomb and convicted him. That's how far this goes back.

buwaya said...

R/V is one with whom there is no point in arguing.
I have tried several times. I don't know why I bothered this time.

Silly me.

gilbar said...

Eleanor said...
It's not a concentration camp if parents are sending their children there expecting food, shelter, medical care, education, and entertainment. That's a summer camp.


See? let these camps be themselves; don't be campist

Michael K said...

Trump's actions at the border have actually been relatively feeble.

Facts not in evidence. He has been opposed by the left and also by the corporate donor right, assisted by every judge Obama appointed. Most of what he has accomplished has been on his own with zero help but it is changing minds, which is worth doing.

Michael K said...

Chuck is now opining his hate Trump comments with obsequious boot licking of the hostess.

Maybe she scolded him.

Brian said...

Trump seems to be unaware of his being ridiculed on this usage. He keeps saying it. And he included it in his Orlando rally this week. The layers of stupidity are almost hard to count.

It's effective though! It paints a picture. And that's why he does it. There's no Roberts Rules of Order for political speeches. And you and others highlighting it after the fact just paint the picture even more.

Brian said...

The layers of stupidity are almost hard to count.

Note also that there is some truth underneath the "acid wash". Her team used a software program called "BleachBit". What do you use to acid wash clothing? Oh yes. Bleach.

He says acid wash and we all know what he means.

Michael K said...

It seems the relcations of the migrants from Central America echoes this action. But the fake news supporters want to deflect from the reality and called them "wall extensions" etc--

So Trump is going to Guatemala and bringing the illegal immigrants up here to put them in "concentration camps?"

This is even stupider than your usual offerings R/V

Michael K said...

Chuck is now opining his hate Trump

Opening...

hombre said...

Farmer: “The debate isn't to be had with the Democratic Party; it's to be had with the American public.”

So opponents of an apparently insane Democrat open border policy should be debating that “WITH the American public,” most of whom don’t share the Democrats views?

I don’t quite get that, but is you say so.

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

Facts not in evidence.

Trump Can’t Defend Our Border, So He Should Attack Iran! Wait—What?

3-D Chess—It Only LOOKS Like Trump Is Throwing Away His Presidency!

Trump's 'chain migration' plan could take years to kick in

Resubmit your nominees, Mr. President

Ken Cuccinelli: Another Trump Opponent In At DHS

Trump Should Accept Government Shutdown If Necessary to ‘Build that Wall’

Negotiate From Strength, President Trump! Some Ways To Change The Equation On Border Showdown

Five Years Later: Murrieta Residents That Blocked DHS Buses With Illegals Prepare For Round Two

All of these articles are by immigration restrictionists.

Francisco D said...

Chuck is now opining his hate Trump comments with obsequious boot licking of the hostess.

Chuckles is completely irrelevant. Notice that no one ever engages on the points he tries to make.

This is just drunken masturbation for him.

J. Farmer said...

@hombre:

So opponents of an apparently insane Democrat open border policy should be debating that “WITH the American public,” most of whom don’t share the Democrats views?

I don’t quite get that, but is you say so.


No, the opponents should be pointing out to the America public the crisis at the border, how US immigration policies are feeding it and what should be done about it instead of squabbling over "what is a concentration camp."

Ray - SoCal said...

In LAUSD there is a major push on the Holocaust, Japanese Internment, and the atomic bomb.

And often a showing of saving Private Ryan, depends on the history class. And perhaps Schindlers List. Lots of history is taught using Video.

Ray - SoCal said...

Chamber of Commerce is a major money supporter of the GOP, and is very pro immigration. They have been very anti Trump. This limits what Trump can do on the immigration mess, when his supporters/allies of convenience, are against him on immigration. Not to mention the Democrats have gone totally anything Trump does, we need to be against.

Chamber of Commerce's goals, do not usually match the regular GOP Voter, much less the Trump voter.

gilbar said...

completely irrelevant. Notice that no one ever engages on the points he tries to make.

yes, and if we'd ignore him (and comments about him (AND comments about those)); he'd go away

Amadeus 48 said...

Dahlia Lithwick.
(Sigh)
Not a critical thinker. More like an oral hysteric.

Why shouldn't we gloss over the cynical gaming of our immigration laws and regulations by people (or folks) who want to come here and the merchants of human lives that bring them to the border.

Let's call it a "concentration camp" because that's what history's bad guys do. Let's round up those Boers (wait, what?), and those Armenians, and those Nisai, and don't forget the kulaks, the political opponents of Stalin, and the Jews, Roma, Poles and Russians, and put them all away.

There is an easy way to avoid detention centers at the US southern border: don't try to come here illegally. The fact that so many try means that the consequences of failure aren't that bad. Also, many of the "families" at the border wouldn't pass a laugh test.

The system is being gamed. The nasty names like "concentration camps" are just part of the game.

tim in vermont said...

As has been pointed out, she also said “never again” so that kind of moots the whole not Godwin argument, doesn’t it?

Earnest Prole said...

I'll take Dahlia Lithwick seriously on this and other subjects when she shows me where she called Obama's immigrant detention centers "concentration camps."

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

“Chamber of Commerce is a major money supporter of the GOP, and is very pro immigration.”

My brother is retired from running factories that usually had a couple three hundred workers. He was very pro working man when he did it though. He liked his workers a lot, but he said at the end that he couldn’t get American kids to take jobs, with benefits, reasonable pay, steady work without layoffs. The obvious answer is to raise the pay, but you can only do that if you protect the factories from foreign competition.

There are two options, fight it out for labor, the way Trump is doing, or write off a generation of American workers, which is what the Democrats advocate. This isn’t socialism yet, liberals, so you don’t get to line these unwanted workers up next to a ditch, mow them down, cover them with lime, and bury them, which has been the traditional socialist technique for unwanted populations.

Anthony said...

Such profoundly stupid people.

tim in vermont said...

“Concentration camp” implies a racial aspect and that the government is deliberately selecting and concentrating certain populations. Which is of course what they want to imply, because implying is way easier than declaring with convincing arguments.

Yancey Ward said...

I think probably "evokes" was the word the author wanted, but I am not convinced "invokes" is necessarily wrong. Calling them concentration camps does appeal, for argumentative support, all the other aspects of the Holocaust, which would make "invokes" correct.

tim in vermont said...

We could, of course, be very precise in the language if she likes

"Illegal Alien Detention Centers” would achieve the level of precision that she purports to desire. But wait! Those words don’t imply that Trump is a Nazi, they don’t erase the line between “immigrant,” which has always meant until recently “legal immigrant.”

I guess now we need to have a name for legal immigrants, so I suggest “cis-immigrants."

Michael K said...

Farmer posts lots of links to Pat Buchanan wannabes who value virtue over accomplishment. You completely ignored my point.

You do a lot of that.

tim in vermont said...

Remember when we had “resident aliens,” like my mother was for many years before she was naturalized? She lived her be she wasn’t an “immigrant” until she became a citizen.

But let’s take a snowplow to the language and change the denotative meaning, but let’s keep the connotative meaning, right? Wear the old words like a suit! "I am wearing a wolf skin! Fear me, I am a wolf!”

What the lefties really want is to be shamans, which is why the took over the pope’s job. " People do what shamans say! We want people to do what we say! Give me the funny hat!"

David53 said...

I like Peter Calvocoressi's description of concentration camps, he was a member of the British prosecution team at Nuremberg. "Concentration camps were divided into two main categories. Most of them were labor camps, in which people from all over Europe toiled for Germany for a certain number of months until they dropped dead or were killed off because they were useless...In a different category were the death camps, whose business was extermination."

Pookie Number 2 said...

A couple of thoughts:

1) Before some Germans did something, the word "holocaust" actually referred to a Temple sacrifice that was entirely burned, as opposed to being partly consumed by the Temple priesthood.

2) One hesitates to give Chuck any attention at all, but in case there are people mistakenly reading his comments as if they contain any good faith at all: Trump's imprecise language (like "acid-washing" and "wire-tapping") effectively communicate truths about his political opponents' behavior; AOC's "concentration camp" analogy is intended solely to mislead people about the conditions faced by illegal immigrants.

narciso said...

Also concentration camps are about residents in the country, not migrants from without.

Ambrose said...

Debates become "exhausting" to the left when they are losing.

Rick said...

No, the opponents should be pointing out to the America public the crisis at the border, how US immigration policies are feeding it and what should be done about it instead of squabbling over "what is a concentration camp."

Not challenging the characterization of detention centers as concentration camps would prevent any discussion of policy from having any impact since repeating this charge would be the only message in the media.

Beasts of England said...

'Trump seems to be unaware of his being ridiculed on this usage...'

I'm sure he's willing to trade the alleged ridicule for the renewed attention to the subject.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Apropos nothing* the news from Del Rio, TX is that the Migra has been daily catching groups of Hatians. Well, they speak French and maybe there are translators in San Antonio now.
- HXG

http://www.fox5ny.com/news/surge-of-haitians-arrested-at-southern-border

*...except the immigration non-crisis, yesterday's news that San Antonio is desperately seeking French translators to work with a flood of undocumenteds from the Congo, and that we lived many years in Del Rio, a stone's throw from the Rio Grande, until the Feds surprised us with notice of a suit, ex parte hearing, and court order that we no longer owned our 3 acre country lot because the Feds wanted to expand the border check station.

Sigivald said...

Or maybe we should not call them that because it's a deliberate attempt to make people think of death camps, and there is no farkin' genocide going on here, and everyone knows and admits it.

They're gonna get More Trump at this rate, and be utterly unable to comprehend why.

(Disclosure: I don't particularly want More Trump. I didn't even want this much Trump, though I'm kinda glad it wasn't More Clinton instead.

But what I want doesn't matter - and if they keep this !@#! up, we're gonna get More Trump, and frankly they're gonna deserve having to live with it.)

Drago said...

Michael K: "Chuck is now opining his hate Trump comments with obsequious boot licking of the hostess.
Maybe she scolded him."

It comes as no surprise whatsoever that LLR "Eddie Haskell"-commenter Chuck is combining his deep affection and respect for democrats/leftists allies like AOC with his clearly insincere and treacly fake obsequiesnous to Althouse.

I do think its very instructive and helpful that Eric Swalwell-cuckholster Chuck has given up all pretext in his faux conservatism to fully embrace his comrades on the far far left in support of the far left agenda across the board, including infanticide, open borders, anti-semitic and racist proclivities.

Not that it hadnt already been made abundantly clear.

Anonymous said...

The problem with 'concentration camp' is that it has been used so many times as a euphemism for 'death camp' or 'extermination camp' that it has lost its etymological meaning and acquired the meaning it was used as a euphemism for.

The same thing happened to the word 'molest', which originally meant 'annoy', as its cognates in Latin did, and as its cognates in Spanish still do. However, starting less than 60 years ago (so dictionary.com) it began to be used in English as a euphemism for 'fondle, grope, sexually assault, act like a perv, Bidenize'. If someone was being annoyed by (e.g.) a whining child in a restaurant, and complained that the child was "molesting" him, the child's parents would have every right to be grossly offended by the charge, and quoting the earlier dictionary definitions ("I just mean 'annoy'!") would not get him off the hook. For better or worse, the word has changed its meaning, and only an idiot or someone trying to use words dishonestly to make someone else look bad would use "molest" in its earlier root sense today. The same goes for "concentration camp" and AOC.

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

Farmer posts lots of links to Pat Buchanan wannabes who value virtue over accomplishment.

Michael K thinks calling people "Pat Buchanan wannabes" is an argument. He was absent the day they taught logic at school.

You completely ignored my point.

No, I quoted your point, "facts not in evidence," and then gave you links with lots of facts, all of which acknowledge the opposition Trump faces, provide critiques of how he has handled it, and makes suggestions for a better strategy. But of course, instead of reading the critiques, you just dismissed them as "Pat Buchanan wannabes."

You do a lot of that.

narciso said...

True, the consequences of said language are provocations against ice personnel and administration personnel

Michael K said...

Rush was just talking about Hunter Biden fathering a child in Arkansas as showing how the media has given up on him.

Next !?

Michael K said...

all of which acknowledge the opposition Trump faces, provide critiques of how he has handled it, and makes suggestions for a better strategy.

None of which means shit.

You're welcome. Sorry I even engaged you,.

tim in vermont said...

“Chuck is now opining his hate Trump comments with obsequious boot licking of the hostess.
Maybe she scolded him.”

Yeah, humiliation and cuck go together like pistachio and cherries! I just watched “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf” on Netflix and it was all there, not to mention the living in a fantasy land aspect. Reminded me a lot of the pre-Trump Republican Party.

n.n said...

Hmm, a wall or a "concentration camp". And emigration reform to curb immigration reform, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and a progressive violation of civil and human rights. To moderate the need for the former, and end the appearance of the latter. AOC and Slate seem to be arguing to sustain the latter and collateral damage that occurred during the Obama administration and every administration since immigration reform was prosecuted in denial of emigration reform. Hopefully, an alliance with Mexico will aid its resolution closer to the source.

Bill Crawford said...

Buwaya (or anyone else) have you read "Propaganda" by the French thinker Jacques Ellul?

Big Mike said...

Do we still know how to make Zyklon-B?

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

None of which means shit.

I just love when people have strong opinions on material they haven't read.

You're welcome. Sorry I even engaged you,.

You didn't engage me. You've refused to engage me. You disagreed with a point I made, I gave you numerous links to information (which themselves contain numerous links) backing up my point, and your response was to say the people who wrote it are "Pat Buchanan wannabes." As if that were a response. You are so childish. And I guarantee I'm not the first person in your life to tell you that.

J. Farmer said...

@Big Mike:

Do we still know how to make Zyklon-B?

Hydrogen cyanide is still produced by a number of companies in the US and is produced in numerous other countries. "Zyklon B" was just a trade name.

Gahrie said...

In LAUSD there is a major push on the Holocaust, Japanese Internment, and the atomic bomb.

The state frameworks mandate it.

n.n said...

The word "invoke" is correct in its context, if Slate is endorsing immigration reform and forcing the crises.

Greg P said...

Should we call these camps, where a distinct group of people is being detained by the government, by their proper scholarly name?

Well, they're a bunch of criminals, so shall we just call it a jail?

No one is forcing them to go to those camps. They can leave them, and leave America, and time they want.

So no, "concentration camp", 'internment camp", they're all bullshit. They are courtesy camps for lying criminals trying to sleazy their way into the US.

And the proper response to the criticism should be "fine: we now reject all asylum claims made at any US land border, and all asylum claims made by anyone who is a citizen of any other country in the Americas. You show up here, you get sent back."

Done, problem solved

Michael K said...

You are so childish. And I guarantee I'm not the first person in your life to tell you that.

Yes, Inga and Ritmo. Nice company.

You are another for whom the perfect is far preferable to the possible. No matter that it won't happen.

It's called virtue signaling and it is not limited to the left.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

It's not a term I use much but this is such blatant gaslighting I'm not sure what else to call it.
Within her remarks AOC used the phrase "never again." You can't discuss concentration camps and use that phrase and then credibly claim to NOT be trying to call up memories and associations of the Holocaust.

But step back and take a look at the macro situation: once again we have a group (the Left & Media) that goes to incredible lengths to make any possible association when speech, symbols, or actions of people they dislike can be in any way tied to a racist/sexist/homophobic/bigoted thought or idea. Innocuous things are cast as "dog whistles." Normal hand gestures or facial expressions are called coded hate symbols. We've all seen it!
Suddenly, though, those same people insist on only the strictest, finest, most academic, most precise definition and interpretation! Suddenly the speaker must be given every possible benefit of the doubt (and several flatly impossible ones)!

It'd be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic.

[The shifting standards problem even infects otherwise sound people, as yesterday's example of our own Professor seeing nothing but non-offensive "mocking of an idea" in the depiction of poor low-class whites who "hate gays"--no stereotypes, no ugly caricatures, no unfair indictment of a group as a whole, just mockery of an idea, nothing wrong with that.]

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

You are another for whom the perfect is far preferable to the possible. No matter that it won't happen.

It's called virtue signaling and it is not limited to the left.


So please identify some of the things in the links I provided that you consider pie-in-the-sky impossibilities that "won't happen" and are mere "virtue signaling." I'll wait...

Michael K said...

Here's one of Farmer's "experts"

Remember, President Trump has the authority to solve this problem without Congress. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the president can impose a travel ban on certain countries. Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz argues the president has inherent powers under Article II to exclude asylum applicants from entering the country, authority that has been reaffirmed by Congress and repeatedly sanctioned by the Supreme Court. [No judge has jurisdiction to erase our border, ConservativeReview...

Has anyone informed the Obama judges ? I'm sure once Farmer's expert informs them, they will stop the obstruction.

narciso said...

detention facility like krome in south florida, is the most neutral definition, of course gitmo was such a facility till 2002, then it became a gulag, et al,

Horowitz's is on solid ground, but at any one time, they find a species hawaiias justis to determine otherwise,

buwaya said...

Re Japanese concentration camps, etc.

"The state frameworks mandate it."

Yes they do, from the very beginning of California "standards".
It was local district practice long before this.

This sort of thing comes from the top, effectively from the professional core of the history profession in the Ivy League.

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

Has anyone informed the Obama judges ? I'm sure once Farmer's expert informs them, they will stop the obstruction.

Uhh...the article,No judge has jurisdiction to erase our border, was written in direct response to East Bay Covenant vs. Trump. Immigration restrictionist are well aware of the oppositional role the courts play on the issue.

Michael K said...

More virtue signaling and ignoring reality.

narciso said...

Particularly you have the Flores settlement, which misread the law 20 years ago, and was revised by Stephen Reinhardt ignoring the key statutes like the anti trafficking act, as his last Bronx cheer,

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

More virtue signaling and ignoring reality.

So criticizing a court ruling is "virtue signaling" and "ignoring reality." Interesting. I had no idea all those critics of Roe v. Wade were merely virtue signaling and ignoring reality.

J. Farmer said...

While everyone sleeps, the courts are abolishing all immigration enforcement

I don't know why Mr. Horowitz wrote this critique, since it's nothing more than "virtue signaling" and "ignoring reality." Psst...it's actually possible to criticize both the courts' and Trump's handling of the immigration crisis.

roesch/voltaire said...

The Central American Reform And Enforcement act laid out by some democrats offers a reasonable approach and seems to be more than the Republicans offered in their two year control of both houses and the White House. This is a complex issue that needs more than separating families at the border or reducing the number of judges who over see the cases involving immigration status.

narciso said...

in so far as there apparatchiks in robes, we won't get very far, they are also on that border commission, as we found out re the privately built wall,

buwaya said...

"This is a complex issue"

Not really. It is people in a poor country seeing greener pastures.
Most of the world has the same "complex issue". Central America is not a special case. They aren't even that badly off in global terms.

If most of the worlds population had a land route into the US with a loophole to use, they would do the same, or be prone to the same.

narciso said...

well this route, is being used from migrants as far as china and Bangladesh, of course the fellow who tried to blow up a church in Pennsylvania was admitted from Syria in 2016,

buwaya said...

Heck, if Brazil, much better off on average than Central America, was that close you would see a flood of Brazilians.

Rusty said...

roesch/voltaire said...
"From the accounts at the time, The Japanese Americans were forced to relocate and incarcerated in concentration camps. It seems the relcations of the migrants from Central America echoes this action. But the fake news supporters want to deflect from the reality and called them "wall extensions" etc-- however, a rose by another names still smells and this behavior by the current administration stinks."

See if you can spot the difference. In the Japanese internment camps the internees had no choice but to be there. It would have been illegal for them not to go. The illegal immigrants at the boarder have a choice. The can turn around and go home or they can press their luck with the boarder patrol and Immigration. None of their choices have a long tern deleterious effect.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

R/V, the Democrats will do nothing about the border unless 1) they can get as many illegals in as possible for future voting, or 2) the voters start blaming the Dems for the problem, which is going to happen too late for them during the election if they let it.

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