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A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That All Immigration Should Be Drastically Reduced (1995-06-06)
About this film
Mr. Kinsley starts out by drawing attention to the text of the resolution: "Note that word 'all.' This debate is not just about securing America's borders against illegal aliens. It's about cutting the total number of immigrants, both illegal and legal." Mr. Buckley points out the Scylla and Charybdis on immigration: "The great shadow that looms menacingly over one side is rank nativism, to stumble into saying, 'That man who wants to get into the United States is black, brown, or yellow, and we have enough of them' On the other side,... there are the libertarians who say, 'Anybody who wants to do anything should be permitted to do so, and if one of the things people want to do is to come live in the United States, why not?' That is one of the great disabling rhetorical limbs that get in the way of clear thought." Mr. Botstein, rebutting, says, "Today's debate is an experience in deja vu. We've heard the same refrains before: too many bad, different, new immigrants, as opposed to few good, old-style immigrants." But Mr. Brimelow does add something new: the information-publicly available but not widely noticed until he started writing about it-that our current patterns of immigration…
Directors & creators
Southern Educational Communications Association
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, William F. Buckley Jr., Michael Kinsley, Leon Botstein, Peter Brimelow, Stanford University, Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, immigration policy, illegal immigration, nativism, libertarianism, demographic change, US border security
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