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Volume 70, Issue 89,
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Opinion UNT stunt misses point of issue Jason Orne
It seems that our Young Conservative friends have been busy in Denton lately. Word of a campus prank -- they called it an attempt to "bring illegal immigration to the forefront of campus debate" -- pulled last week at University of North Texas has spread from the little-known campus to the national stage. The UNT Young Conservatives' "Capture an Illegal Immigrant Day" certainly has drawn attention, as I can only assume was the purpose of the event. As much as I hate to blow even more wind into this tempest, there's still plenty of room in the teapot, so I'll jump right in. If the Young Conservatives' purpose was truly to foster intelligent debate about immigration policy, they surely picked a silly way to do it. As far as I can tell, the fallout -- and the media attention -- from the event has focused on the sophomoric medium at the expense of the message. Even neo-conservative flack Michelle Malkin, in her column on the UNT farce, got the point when she chastised the group for beating up on the little guy instead of questioning an economic system dependent on cheap, imported labor. At the end of the day, the stunt says more about the Young Conservatives' racial animosity than about their political philosophy. If the Young Conservatives want to open up a real dialogue about immigration, economics and national policy, I'm all for it. Sign me up for the panel discussion and I'll bring the danish. Ultimately, though, ill-conceived attention stunts like Capture an Illegal Immigrant Day work against the purpose of intelligent discussion by turning each side into a caricature of itself. The Young Conservatives -- looking for all the world in their pictures like a gaggle of smirking frat boys -- versus the immigrant gardeners, nannys and busboys -- on the run and one step ahead of the law, dragging their American dreams behind them. Even though the tenor of campus politics often hovers somewhere around the sandbox, we are capable of raising the level of debate when the subject so warrants -- as this one does. All this is not to say that the Young Conservatives
should not have the right to express themselves and their views in whatever
manner they choose. Although the medium is odious and I disagree with the
message, free speech is still legal in this country, and the group is guilty
of no crime other than extraordinarily bad taste. I am prepared to defend
their right to bad taste: even if they're wrong, even if I have to wear
clothespins on my nose while I do it. I can only hope that when the time
comes, that they will do the same for me.
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