Bruin Democrats and Bruin Republicans met Tuesday night to discuss national and state issues in their quarterly debate, focusing on immigration, wiretapping, minimum wage and the war in Iraq.
Both Democrats and Republicans said they felt the debate was a success.
“Though the Bruin Democrats have such a big presence on campus, and they were hosting the event, I thought the debate was very well-balanced,” said Katerina Borghi, a first-year English student and Democrat.
Romi Mouhibian, a Republican and second-year communication studies student said she thought the debaters presented their sides well.
“It was a good debate. A lot of Republicans who spoke at the beginning of the debate were first-time debaters, so I think they did not have enough time to develop and articulate their ideas. But as the debate went on the Republican debaters were much stronger. There was some information the Democrats just could not refute,” she said.
But Mouhibian said she felt the debate was more heated than previous debates.
“There was more tension between debaters than in past debates,” she said.
Alec Mouhibian, the editor in chief of the Bruin Standard and a former Daily Bruin columnist, moderated the event. He said he thought the debate went well overall, but some topics were debated more successfully than others.
“When the debaters stuck to the facts instead of the stories, they did much better,” he said. “When they talked about immigration and Iraq, both sides were too ill-defined since both issues are very murky. I thought the Democrats did better on the wiretapping issue because they were more logical with their arguments, but I thought the Republicans did better with minimum wage because they used many studies and factual evidence.”
The first topic discussed in the debate was immigration.
Gabe Rose, president of the Bruin Democrats spoke first and said pragmatic steps need to be taken to lessen illegal immigration.
“Steps that need to be taken include cracking down on big companies who hire illegal immigrants, strengthening border security, and making Mexico a more economically viable country,” he said.
Ben Eisenberg of the Bruin Republicans gave the Republicans’ opening statement, stressing that it is most important to focus on securing the border between Mexico and the United States before addressing the problems of illegal immigrants inside the United States.
The debaters then spoke about wiretapping. The Democrats argued against illegal wiretapping, while the Republicans stressed that the Patriot Act and wiretapping save civilians’ lives.
“Taking safety for granted is a very dangerous mind-set,” said Jimmy Dunn, secretary of the Bruin Republicans.
Democrats argued that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enacted in 1978 allows legal wiretapping and said warrantless wiretapping disregards the judicial process unnecessarily. The debaters went on to discuss minimum wage, a topic some students said they felt had more impact on them.
“Compared to issues like Iraq, minimum wage is a current issue that I feel most directly impacts me,” Borghi said.
Tristan Reed, a debater for the Bruin Democrats and a Daily Bruin columnist tried to add humor to his point by holding up a supply and demand graph that he said he knew the Republicans would use to argue that minimum wage should not be increased. The Democrats argued theory is not practical in real life.
Republicans focused on evidence from studies and the opinions of economists who believe minimum wage hurts the people it tries to help.
The debate ended with the issue of the war in Iraq. Democrats argued that a surge of troops in Iraq has proved futile, and a new plan should be enacted.
Kyle Kleckner, the issues director of the Bruin Democrats said the troops cannot be effective in Iraq.
“The troops can’t solve political problems,” he said.
Republicans stressed the importance of not giving up with the war.
“The only way to lose is to give up and go home,” said Gregory Moeck, chairman of the Bruin Republicans.