Thursday, February 28, 2008

DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: "Should We Deport All the Illegal Aliens?"

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With William F. Buckley now dead, Bush unpopular, and McCain’s conservative credentials contested, there’s a lot of debate over how to define “conservative” (indeed, I’ll be blogging about that question throughout March, in my “Month Without Buckley,” after my atheism-promoting “Month Without God” ends tomorrow) — and one of the most divisive issues among conservatives, as McCain has noticed, is what to do about illegal immigrants (McCain, working with his fellow senator Ted Kennedy, tried to grant them de facto amnesty, but now he’s sounding a lot more like his border-enforcing conservative constituents on the issue).

Well, we’ll get to the bottom of the question “Should We Deport All the Illegal Aliens?” this coming Wednesday, March 5, at 8pm, in the basement of Lolita Bar (266 Broome St. at Allen St. on the Lower East Side, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. subway stop). Our original “no” debater, libertarian Greg Rehmke, had to drop out, but our stellar combatants will be:

•YES: Gerard Perry of NY ICE (New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement)

•NO: Koli Mitra, lawyer, blogger (at ThoughtOven and CitizenJoe), and daughter of (legal!) immigrants

•Moderator: Michel Evanchik

•Host: Todd Seavey

Here’s a glimpse of last time’s debate between John Derbyshire and Seth Colter Walls, by the way, seen in fine photos by the very talented J.D. Weiner.

P.S. Speaking of liberty and movement across national borders — not to mention anti-faith messages — I recall libertarian travel writer Christina Valhouli mentioning that the quasi-rap-quasi-grunge band Faith No More transformed into some quasi-goth-quasi-German band with sci-fi and comic book themes, and indeed here is the Wikipedia entry on Fantomas, the band sort of formerly known as Faith No More and itself named after a French crime novel character who influenced comic book characters Batman and Phantom Stranger. Knowing about Fantomas allows you to immigrate to France without a visa, I’m pretty sure.

P.P.S. Of course, no earthly immigration dispute can compare to the problems on the planet Rakhat when the Jesuits arrive, as I noted earlier this week.

2 comments:

Donunt said...

Hmmmm….maybe you can define one part of conservatism as the willingness to follow the law. I view myself as conservative, and I believe that a nation ruled by laws is a better deal than nation ruled by the whims of the people in charge. Illegal aliens are illegal because what they are doing is against the law.

If you want to fix this problem, you have two options: Change the law or enforce the law. I am upset because we are doing neither. That proves that those responsible for enforcing the laws are picking and choosing which laws they are actually going to enforce, and this becomes the rule of men (or women), and not the rule of law.

Seems pretty clear to me. “The Road To Serfdom” can still happen.

Todd Seavey said...

I’m only the host and so will say no more about my own opinion until after the debate — except that not all laws are just and deserving of obedience, remember.