Via SF Gate:
Unless it’s a reference to interplanetary travelers, the term “alien” will no longer be part of the state Capitol lexicon, or at least the California Labor Code, as Gov. Jerry Brown effectively banned the word with the stroke of his pen Monday.
The newly enacted law, originally sponsored by state Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia (Los Angeles County), will go into effect Jan. 1, 2016, and is intended to modernize California law by removing the term as a legal definition of an undocumented immigrant worker.
“My bill modernizes the Labor Code and removes the term ‘alien’ to describe a person who is not born in or a fully naturalized citizen of the United States,” Mendoza said in a statement. “Alien is now commonly considered a derogatory term for a foreign-born person and has very negative connotations.”
Nonsense. “Alien” is not a slur; it’s a noun. And in California, it was a neutral legal term — the way it was in, say, The Federalist Papers, or federal law.
This is not an effort to be more “sensitive.” It goes deeper. As Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, told SF Gate:
There are two words we are opposed to: illegal and alien. There is no such thing as an illegal person, and there is no such thing as an illegal alien. All workers in this country, whether documented or undocumented, pay their taxes and do their fair share. We are a nation of immigrants, and anything that connotes a negative implication of being an immigrant is antithetical to the idea of the American dream.
This is a contemptible program. By refusing to draw any distinction between legal and illegal immigration, Paulson makes obvious that he is not trying merely trying to eliminate a disagreeable word, but to eliminate a concept — the concept of illegal immigration. And the quickest way to eliminate the offensive concept is to eliminate any language in which to express the idea.
The Left’s manipulation of language is never about language as such. It’s about thought. Make it impossible to talk about a subject — that is, make it unavailable to public discourse, to public reason — and you will ensure that the subject vanishes. “Illegal aliens,” then “undocumented workers,” then “aspiring citizens” — and, uh, what were we debating again?