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by Free Market Duck

O’Conner Reaffirms Step ‘n Fetch it In Public Schools

   The result of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling is less about affirmative action than about The Individual v. The State.  The high court ruled 5-4 in Grutter v. Bollinger that the use of race in the U. of Michigan’s admissions policy was permissible.

   Several problems exist.

   First, the real problem is that the U. of Michigan is a public school.  The establishment of public education rests squarely upon the oxymoronic notion of “Rights to Receive.”   But there is no such animal as “Rights to Receive.”  It is an oxymoron, like “dry water” or “the lively dead horse.”  Your alleged “Rights to Receive” a service or commodity from me – whether Education, Health Care, or Potato Chips – presupposes my subordination to you, the recipient.

   Implied in the notion of establishing a free public school system is the contradictory notion that everybody somehow has the ‘right to receive’ an Education.  The question is:  from whom?  If everybody has the ‘right to receive’ from everybody else, then logically nobody has any rights at all.  The idea is a non sequitur.  If I have the right to receive a commodity or service from you, and you have the right to receive a commodity or service from me, then neither of us has any rights except involuntary servitude to the other party.  Involuntary servitude, however, is a violation of the anti-slavery Amendment XIII in the U.S. Constitution.

   The real problem is governmental intervention into the free market of education.  Only “Rights to Give” or freely exchange exist, not “Rights to Receive.”

   Notice that once the government intervenes into an exchange of commodities between individuals in a market, it brings about a host of other problems.  Public education brings about constitutional arguments regarding whether one should say, “One Nation, Under God,” whether schools should pass out ‘free’ condoms, and demeaning Pigmentation Programs.  Free market schools do not have diversity problems.  Free market capitalism is colorblind.

   Second, it is not the function of the U.S. Supreme Court to re-write the U.S. Constitution for social or any other goals.  It is the function of the Supreme Court to interpret and uphold whatever the existing U.S. Constitution happens to be at the current moment.  While the Constitution was written to be a changing document, it is the function of the Congress or the People to re-write the U.S. Constitution, not the Supreme Court.

   Justice O’Connor belies her unconstitutional actions by stating, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”  In other words, O’Connor is claiming that her interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is not consistent but varies with the times.  While that may be a Constitutional Right of the People or Congress, it certainly is not a Right of the Supreme Court to treat the Constitution as nutty putty.  As Mrs. FM Duck remarked, "If racial preferences are not constitutional 25 years from now under the same Constitution, they are not constitutional today."

   The real issue is not the constitutionality of public school Pigmentation Programs.  The real issue is – as usual – the precursor argument:  Should the State be intervening in the free market in the first place?  It’s a basic rights issue:  the State v. the Individual; Socialism based upon the oxymoronic notion of “Rights to Receive” v. Free Market Capitalism based upon “Rights to Give or Freely Exchange.”

   As stated earlier, once the government intervenes with one oxymoron, more oxymorons are sure to follow.  Last I heard, the Lakers are required to play a 4’10” blind, pregnant, white grandma as point guard.  You know, to equalize the commodity we call Basketball in the NBA.  25 years from now, that probably won’t be necessary.

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