Reply #120: You're "expand(ing) the analysis" to the point of absurdity

[MajorChode]

If someone calls a person an "illegal alien" because they have brown skin and speak only Spanish, then you might have something. If someone speaks about the problem with illegal aliens, they are not speaking about anyone in particular but rather the obvious problem that millions of aliens are indeed in this country illegally. Any implication that all those people need to be rounded up, tried, convicted, and receive their dispositions before anyone can refer to them in the generic sense is absurd, but really no more so than trying to claim the term "illegal alien" is inherently pejorative in the first place.