Affirmative action and racial profiling are both race based legislation...(topic continued)

Greetings to my opponent and thanks for the opportunity to debate. I think it's pretty clear what the two terms in the resolution refer to but for clarification and for any readers who may not be sure, I provide these links. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com... http://www.google.co.uk... http://en.wikipedia.org... ----- It would be a very cheap tactic of me to attack the resolution on a semantic level and exploit my opponent's use of the word "must". Clearly this does not make much sense as people are free to hold whatever political opinions they see fit. I assume that what my opponent means is that: "Affirmative action and racial profiling are both race based legislation, therefore one < [should] > support either both or neither [or one is being illogical and hypocritical]." ----- My opponent makes just one argument in his opening round and I will address this before presenting my own arguments: PRO: "It is reasonable to believe that one is a hypocrite for supporting affirmative action without supporting racial profiling, or vice versa." Since I don't have much else to go on I'll have to take these words at face value. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu... Hypocrite:a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives. Pro seems to be suggesting that someone who claims to support one of these policies and not the other is probably lying and doesn't really hold the opinion they profess. This would mean that myself, the following DDO users (tribefan011, Tatarize, InquireTruth, rougeagent21, threelittlebirds, Puck, s0m31john, JustCallMeTarzan, Mangani, PoeJoe, studentathletechristian8 and Nags) and many millions more people worldwide are all presenting untrue opinions that we do not actually hold. While this is possible it would be very difficult to prove. Presumably, the point my opponent is trying to make is that these opinions do not make sense or are somehow lacking in logic but with no clear argument I have nothing to rebut. ------ The initial premise in the resolution ("Affirmative action and racial profiling are both race based legislation") is almost true but not quite. Affirmative action is concerned with gender as well as with ethnicity. I will however be focusing on the racial issues in this debate. It is worth pointing out also that while some people may see these as intrinsically connected because of the racial element, these are actually completely separate issues. One involves opportunities in employment and education, while the other affects the way police investigate crimes and target suspects. There are many reasons why supporting one of these concepts and not the other makes sound logical and/or moral sense. In this round I will present two hypothetical examples of individuals for whom such opinions make perfect sense. In the next round I may also choose to present further examples which may also include my own reasons for the opinions I hold on the two subjects. ---- Example 1: Lionel is an unemployed black guy from a ghetto neighborhood. He is a qualified and experienced bricklayer but keeps getting turned down for work. He believes (and it may be true or not) that his colour has had a detrimental impact on his chances and that he has been discriminated against. Obviously it makes sense for him to support affirmative action as this would prevent employers turning him down for work if he was better qualified than a white candidate. Drug dealers operate in Lionel's neighbourhood and although he never touches drugs and doesn't associate with the pushers, he has been stopped by the police and searched at gunpoint many times and once was even late for a job interview after an encounter with them. Lionel wants the police to get the dealers off his block but he knows for a fact that the worst dealers are a trio of older white guys, yet the police are mostly targeting young back men. Therefore he is logically anti racial profiling. ---- Example 2: Steve is a white factory worker who has worked hard all his life. He is also a racist who thinks black people are intellectually inferior and criminally inclined. He despises his black boss who has a college degree that Steve believes (correctly or not) that he obtained because of special treatment due to his minority status. Meanwhile Steve's son's grades are not quite good enough to get in to his first choice college. Steve would of course be against affirmative action on grounds of race. Steve has had his car broken into a number of times and he's certain it's the black drug addicts who hang around on his block. He is convinced that the majority of black youths on the street are up to no good, so naturally he is in favour of racial profiling by the police. ---- Separate opinions on these two separate issues are in no way contradictory. I'll leave it there for now. Thank you.