The Porcupine: Battle for Southern Chamber

[OneJ]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen!

The Porcupine Est. 2010

I, OneJ_, reporter of The Porcupine for regional affairs and elections, as well as Representative (and Congressional Whip), am proud to host the debate out of the request from Jbrase.

It's such an honor to represent the voice of liberty!

Tonight, we'll have JustinTimeCuber and ClassicConservative answering various questions on what he would do in the Chamber.

The election for the Chamber will be held on March 10, 2017-March 13, 2017 along with the Governor's race.

[OneJ]

Candidates, you may now greet yourselves.

[JustinTimeCuber]

I'm JustinTimeCuber, and I'd like to thank Classic Conservative for being here and also Representative OneJ for moderating.

[Classic Conservative]

I'd like to thank this fine institution, The Southern Porcupine, for hosting this civil debate this evening. I would also like to thank OneJ for hosting and I am hoping for both tough but fair questions as we should all hope for. I'd also like to thank Justin for coming this evening, and I find it very sad that my fellow candidates cannot talk to the people this evening. As you may know, my name is Classic, I started in politics around the time of the TNF Revolution and I valiantly served my nation in the Pacific and was appointed and elected Pacific Speaker. I also began the movement for the constitutional convention along with Fmr. Senator Cris. I then served as our nation's, Secretary of State, and represented our values across the world under a Labor Administration. I then served one term in the Atlasian House. As you may know, I am very conservative, both socially and economically. I believe that we should both praise God with one hand and do his work with the other. I support freedom, jobs and security. I will protect our region against Radical Islamic Terrorism, fight for a good refugee and immigration policy and fight for life and low taxes. I humbly ask for your vote, so that we can, Make Atlasia Rad Again!

[OneJ]

Thank you gentlemen!

This first question goes to both of you.

Citizens of the Southern region, as we all know, want to be safe. What would you propose to help keep crime as low as possible?

[JustinTimeCuber]

Citizens of the Southern region, as we all know, want to be safe. What would you propose to help keep crime as low as possible?

What research shows us is that better educated people with more income are less likely to commit violent crime, as one would expect - what reason would they have to do so? I think that the most effective way to reduce crime is to reduce poverty, which we can do by supporting strong social safety programs designed to get people back on their feet. Our food stamp program is weaker than it could be, and expanding that would help millions of poor kids do better in school and have a better chance to go to college. We need to end the cycle of poverty in order to effectively decrease crime.

I'd also like to mention that I believe mandatory minimum sentences and other "tough-on-crime" measures do not address the root of the problem and in some cases cause worse, unintended consequences. These laws come from special interests such as private prisons, which are a ridiculous idea at face value.

[JustinTimeCuber]

So is this still going to continue?

[OneJ]

Okay. We'll continue I suppose.

Q2: Are you in favor of having open or closed borders? Why or why not?

[Classic Conservative]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

We all believe that we must protect our citizens from crime. In different areas of our region, we have different roots of the problem, in our rural areas we have crime that is caused by drug addiction and in our inner cities, we have gangs that are causing a large portion of crime. In regards to drug addiction, we must follow the lead of many in the North including the Gloucester, Massachusetts Police Department, they have taken good steps to solve crime and help those who are addicted. In regards to inner city crime, I believe that we should help our police officers do their jobs. We must institute a regional stop and frisk policy and arrest violent offenders. We should also not legalize any drugs in our region.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I believe that we should have a closed border. We should construct a wall on our southern border, my wall plan currently has one large eighty foot concrete wall with barbed wire on top. Then we would have two electric fences on both sides of the war and surveillance systems to stop all illegal entries into our region. We then must increase our border patrol and we must stop the flow of illegal drugs into our region. We should also defund all sanctuary cities in the south and pull all funds including education till they revoke their status.


(I'm going to bed for the night)

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Well, that was short. Can I take over for Bannon? I'm not from the South, but his ideas are generally mine.

[OneJ]

Well, that was short. Can I take over for Bannon? I'm not from the South, but his ideas are generally mine.

Sure why not? I have room for one more question.

[JustinTimeCuber]

Q2: Are you in favor of having open or closed borders? Why or why not?

I believe that this is a false dichotomy. Do we need to have control of our borders? Sure. Some people are to the left of me on this issue, but I think we do need borders, otherwise there are too many ways for people to theoretically cheat the system. If someone is caught crossing our border without going through any legal process, I'm fine with deporting them. However, I also believe that it's immoral to deport people who have been here for years, especially if they have a family here. Contrary to popular belief on the right, undocumented immigrants pay significant amounts of taxes without nearly as much in return as a citizen. Undocumented immigrants actually commit less crime than citizens, so let's end this weird conception that most undocumented people here are "bad hombres" (or bad mujeres). I would support amnesty for people who have been here for a long time, but again, if someone is caught crossing our border, they should be sent back until they come in legally.

Another issue this ties into is another controversial one, Syrian refugees. I think that the South should accept at least 50,000 refugees (which for the record is less than 0.1% of the Southern population). There is an extensive vetting process in place to handle these people already, I don't believe we need to expand that. Besides, that's a federal system anyway. Point is, although terrorism is a major world problem, helping people escape, with proper precautions that are already in place, would save countless lives and it would show that Atlasia and the Southern region are willing to help those in need.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Well, that was short. Can I take over for Bannon? I'm not from the South, but his ideas are generally mine.

Sure why not? I have room for one more question.

-I accept.

[JustinTimeCuber]

I'm going to post my responses to Classic's answers in my campaign thread by tomorrow afternoon. I don't want to start a fight here.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

What's the final question? Bannon's Brigade has capably answered the first 2.

[OneJ]

We're close to calling this a night.

Q3: Euthanasia has recently become a hot topic in the Southern region. Is the ban on euthanasia a good decision or not? Elaborate.

[JustinTimeCuber]

Q3: Euthanasia has recently become a "popular" issue in the Southern region. Federalists have successfully banned the right to euthanasia. Is the ban on euthanasia a good decision or not? Elaborate.

I disagree strongly with the premise that the government should force people who are terminally ill to fight to the end. I've explained my reasoning thoroughly on my campaign thread. Is it "liberty" to tell someone that "Yes, you are going to die anyway, but we're going to prolong your life as long as you can, so that you can experience every last miserable moment of it."? That's completely wrong. Although I strongly support the right to death with dignity, I believe that any doctor found intentionally euthanizing a patient who did not give consent, was not mentally capable, was under 18 years old, or had a significant chance of survival should be severely punished, especially for the first three. ("Significant chance of survival" is hard to pinpoint, that's why I'm less sure about that one, but if the patient has the flu they shouldn't be able to be euthanized.)

[JustinTimeCuber]

CLOSING STATEMENTS

I'd like to thank Classic Conservative for participating in this debate and again thank OneJ for moderating. I stand strongly for progressive principles: equality, civil rights, justice, and democracy. Our Labor candidates for the Chamber all show encouraging positions regarding these principles. I hope you'll take a few minutes to go vote, not just for me, although that would be greatly appreciated , but also for fhtagn and Jacobin American, both of whom, again, I believe would be the great leaders the South deserves in the Chamber.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

This is one of the few issues I disagree with Bannon's Brigade on. I view one's life as a matter of self-ownership, and I recognize men's freeedom to die as they desire. However, Bannon's Brigade strongly supports the Euthanasia ban. Since I'm subbing for him, I cannot afford here to espouse my position at the expense of his own, so I shall try here to explain it in a way men can understand.

Bannon's Brigade is a friend of the right to preserve one's life. He is not a friend of the right to take it. Bannon's Brigade understands one's right to life is one, inalienable, and finite. He does not desire men to make poor decisions with it. And the worst decision one can make with one's life is to end it prematurely. For how does a man know what wonders he might experience, or what purpose he may be called for, even if he lays in bed in pain?

The legalization of euthanasia also presents severe ethical dillemas. Becoming an acessory to the taking of a man's life is not that far from being a murderer oneself. Indeed, given the below, there might not be a distinction between thse, even in the presence of supposedly obvious marks of consent. And how can one discern unambiguous consent in a man's desire to take one's life? Expressing the desire for taking one's life is not like expressing the desire for relationships -for men, in general, desire relationships. They do not generally desire death. It is, thus, extremely difficult to tell whether a man genuinely desires to take one's life, or merely suffers from a curable mental illness, after the cure of which the will to suicide vanishes. Such uncertainty is precisely why we should not trust men who express desire to take their life. What if they change their mind? Well, if one is dead, one cannot express that will, and one's life thus perishes forever in the grave without the chance to continue the expression of man's most fundamental right.

Just as a man in this region cannot sell oneself into perpetrual slavery without means of escape, so can a man in this region not ask another to take their own life. Such behavior is not the expression of one's liberties; it is those liberties' negation. And such behavior cannot be justified in the free region of the South.

[OneJ]

I will like to thank everyone who participated and wish 'em all good luck on the upcoming elections (in Eharding's case, the one in the Northern region where he's running for Northern Assembly).

Good night everybody!

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

CLOSING STATEMENTS:

Thank you, OneJ, for moderating, and thank you, TimeCuber, for participating. As a foremost champion for the state's role in its preservation of men's life, liberty, and property on this forum, I am pleased to be part of this fine and civil debate. Vote for Bannon's Brigade in the southern elections and for me, E. Harding in the northern.