Zedillo, education, & prop 187

Topics: Rights, Education
05 Dec 1994

From: "DG Ervan Darnell"


Last week before his inauguration, Zedillo was interviewed on
MacNeil/Lehrer. Among other questions, they asked him about prop 187. His
first response was to sweep it aside and remark that he would not let it
derail U.S./Mexico relations. The interviewer persisted and asked what he
thought of the essential reasoning that Americans should not have to pay for
the education of illegal immigrants. His reponse was (paraphrased from
memory) 'We must look beyond such issues and recognize that people have a
fundamental human right to education, as recognized by almost all of the
countries of the world.' I am sure he used the word "right".

I thought this was interesting because it goes to the core of what is wrong
with the notion positive rights (i.e. an entitlement) versus negative rights
(i.e. the government cannot do X). The problem is there is no such thing as
a positive right. It is a fiction created as an excuse to justify a policy.
I say it does not exist because it begs the question of who must pay and
leaves it unanswered. It cannot answer and maintain any sensible notion of
a "right". It also begs the question of how much money? Why does someone
have a right to $5K/year but not $6K? Is it a "right" to a fixed amount of
education? Where does this "right" go when that amount cannot be provided
at any cost?

If someone has a "right" to education, that means they have a "right" to
take the money from someone else. In this instance, why doesn't Zedillo
offer up Mexico's money to support this "right"? It's a "right" only so
long as someone else pays for it, how convenient. So his reasoning is that
Mexicans who come to the U.S. illegally have a "right" to take American's
money. But why is that? Just because they live here? Well, the live in
North America too and Mexico is in North America. But that doesn't count.
Okay, flip it over, they live in California which happens to be part of the
U.S., so by analogy the U.S. government can skip paying (it does pay part)
but California must? Well, in that case why not just the counties around
L.A.? Indeed, why not pursue the logic to its end and have the individual
himself pay? Such is the logical conclusion from Zedillo's premise and the
paradox of a positive "right". In this case, I agree with the conclusion,
but I think we can rest assured he has no intention of being consistent.


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