Front Page NYT Article

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

The Boston Tea Party was illegal. The Declaration of Independence was illegal. Freeing slaves before the Emancipation Proclamation was illegal. Having de-segregated public areas used to be illegal. Rosa Parks broke the law. Thomas Jefferson broke the law. George Washington broke the law. Although they committed illegal activities, they greatly altered our society for the better. There is quite a difference between civil disobedience and lawlessness anarchy.

Are you saying Amadous' actions were civil disobediance? I dont believe that. I believe that Amadou (and his guardians) made poor decisions (not applying for a student visa) because of fear (of being deported by the INS).

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Our world is changing, and silly lines drawn on a map are beginning to mean less and less. Isolationism is yielding to globalism. We will still have separate countries, but a peaceful future lies not in drawing chalk lines and apportioning up the world, but in everyone opening our borders. Just look at recent trends - the United States, the European Union, and United Nations - all separate sovereign entities joining together for the betterment of everyone.

And on the day that we all can cross those chalk lines without fear and predjudice I will celebrate. But until the laws are changed, we must obey them for they are the root of our civilization.


Let me put Amadous story in a FIRST setting:
We all know that the robots have a 130 LB weight limit. Now lets assume that 1 team arrived with a 250 LB robot and was allowed to play. That would be very unfair to all the other teams.
Now think of all the immigration applicants. How do you think they feel if the rules were not enforced in reguards to Amadou but are enforced for them. Again unfair. This is what breaking the law does (whether intentional or not).

Originally Posted by Robyn Needel

For anyone that hasn't checked CBS yet, our FIRST community came through - Amadou's story will be reported on Friday's news.

I voted for seeing his story (I'm not as Draconian as it seems )
It is my hope that someday this discussion would not need to take place, but until the world is a safer place and we can cross those 'chalk lines', stories like Amadous will happen.