ILLEGALS
Here's one of my late Father's favorite riddles;
"What's the difference between 'unlawful' and 'illegal?' "
Unlawful means 'against the law', and illegal is a sick bird."
They're actually both adjectives, and as such, they are meaningless when not referencing a noun. Without a noun, the adjective just hangs there like a wet paintbrush with nothing at the business end to describe or modify.
This is more than bad grammar or poor English -- though it very much is these. It can also be intentional, with the intent of diminishing or hurting another.
Using a bare adjective to describe a human being is intended to dehumanize them. When a person is identified only by an adjective--particularly one with a demeaning connotation--it makes it easy to ignore our sin when we treat them as less than human. It is not the husband, father, hard worker, or desperate refugee who is being kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp; it is an 'illegal', and by ridding our streets of them, we become more, for want of a better term ... 'legal'. Viewing them in this way helps us feel like we are righteous, and we feel no shame when we then sit in a pew the next Sunday, praying to a God who very explicitly condemns treating humans this way.
Though this kind of reductionist language is intended to diminish the target of our grammatical omission, it is we who are reduced.
So, to borrow from my Father's old riddle, what's the difference between a sick bird, and a cruel, not-too-intelligent redneck?
