WHAT'S WORSE FOR OUR NATION, PROFILING OR PC & AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?

CLEGG/NRO:

... it is poison to the American body politic and quite at odds with the principle of “E pluribus unum” for the government to stop people, or treat them differently after they have been stopped, because they share the ethnic appearance of other people who live in a country that sends us a lot of illegal immigrants, and that defending such discrimination makes it much harder to take conservatives seriously when we oppose politically correct discrimination.

It is not true that I don’t think illegal immigration is a big problem, but I don’t think that the way to fight it is through institutionalized racial and ethnic discrimination — and apparently the elected representatives of the folks in Arizona have decided they agree with me, not you [Jnah Goldberg].

Clegg is deliberately mis-characterizing the pro-profiling position as one that must "institutionalize racial and ethnic discrimination".

Isn't it true that police routinely use appearance to determine their course of action all the time?

YES.

Aren't they trained to do this?

YES.

Are police limited to assessing the movements and/or actions of suspects under surveillance?

NO.

Aren't police allowed to consider the physical appearance of suspects, what they say, and how they say it?

YES.

If the appearance of a suspect shares several characteristics with known criminals, wouldn't the police be stupid not to consider these characteristics, too?

YES.

Isn't it illegal to enter the country illegally and/or over stay one's visa, and/or work here without proper papers?

YES.

Aren't the risks to our society and nation posed by illegal immigrants greater than the costs to innocent suspects who are asked to produce documents?

YES.

Profiling makes sense in airline passenger screening.

And profiling makes sense in counties where illegal immigration is a problem. And it makes sense for local police forces to enforce these laws.

That's why every state should follow Arizona's example.

I think affirmative action and political correctness are more harmful to our society and nation than profiling.

The values in our nation are upside down: if you think that consideration of race should not effect hiring, then these days you are considered a racist; if you think a person's race should be taken into account then you're PC.

In my opinion, this nation needs less PC and more common sense. AND: We need profiling.

UPDATE: MORE ON HOW PC IS ANTI-FREE SPEECH HERE.