[Vision2020] "spawn" (was "Sali Seeks")

[keely emerinemix]

Dear Chas,

Please help me!  I'm in a dilemma here -- am I "playful," "intellectually dishonest" or "morally elite"?  I'm getting ready for my day and it's hard to know which shoes to wear . . . Keds?  Black stilettoes?  Vegan Birkenstocks?

Anyway.

I do object to "spawn," precisely because while it means "that which is begotten," "offspring," or "biologically reproduced," it doesn't, to me, reflect the honor that human beings are due.  I think of "spawn" in two ways:  One, as in "salmon spawning," which indicates instinctive, wild, massive populating, or "spawn of Satan" -- baby Beelzebubs, or the New York Yankees.  I will charitably assume that Gary meant neither, but I wish he had been more careful, given the too-common derision directed at Mexican immigrants because (I'm quoting one correspondent who responded to an article I'd written on another venue) "they breed like cockroaches."  I think Gary gives his point away when he says he has no problem with young Mexican immigrants, as long as they don't become "gang members" or "felons,"  or "a burden" to this great nation.

Well, that's a standard I'd like to hold everyone to, and I think it's revealing, perhaps unintentionally so, of a less-than-charitable way of thinking.

Keely








> Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 21:58:55 -0700
> From: chasuk at gmail.com
> To: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Sali Seeks to Delay Mexican Consulate
> CC: kjajmix1 at msn.com; jampot at roadrunner.com; ophite at gmail.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
> 
> On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Donovan Arnold
> <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > Why do liberals call them children when they are illegal immigrants but an
> > aborted fetus when they are an economic inconvenience?
> 
> This thread has grown puzzling.  First, because I am mystified by
> Keey's objection to the use of the word "spawn."  I consider it nearly
> synonymous with the word "offspring," both of  which I have used to
> refer to my own children, with no derogatory intent.  I also refer to
> my brothers and sisters as "siblings," and to my wife, occasionally,
> as "spouse."
> 
> Donovan, I THINK this diversion occurred because of your fractured sentence:
> 
> "If someone born here is born here in the commission of a crime
> against the country, I don't think you can argue that always
> necessarily entitles automatic citizenship."
> 
> Keely playfully pointed out the infants cannot be guilty of committing
> any crime.  I think that this should be uncontroversial.
> 
> So why the abortion hijack?  The obvious answer  to your question --
> obvious to this liberal, anyway -- is that I call children "children"
> and fetuses "fetuses."  Setting the semantic squabble aside, how is
> your question a logical response to anything that has come before?
> 
> Chas

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