I don't like the idea of "positive rights" at least as applied to human rights. I don't think it makes sense to consider something a "right" when it requires the active participation of others to provide.
Education is good, but it should be as cheap and simple as possible. Putting it in universities that cost more than the per-capita GDP to attend is about as far from that as it gets. If we take that system and call it a "human right" and get the Government directly involved in paying for it, we're only making it worse by institutionalizing all of the bad practices that make it so insanely expensive, making it even more difficult to ever change and effectively extracting even more money from the people who don't use it.
Education is also not for everyone, and not at every time. People should pursue it because they actually want it, not because they perceive or are told they need it to succeed in life. We shouldn't tell kids they're destined for failure if they don't go to college, shouldn't shame people for being interested in jobs that don't need college, and shouldn't require college degrees for jobs that don't actually need it.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with positive rights. The right to physical safety involves active participation of others, and you'd be bonkers to say it isn't a valid right. No society functions without police.
What we do with positive rights is bundle them up into government provided services, so the load gets distributed evenly through society. These tend to work well, at least in Europe. I really can't understand the US view that anything that is state-provided is inefficient.
> I don't like the idea of "positive rights" at least as applied to human rights. I don't think it makes sense to consider something a "right" when it requires the active participation of others to provide.
All rights require active participation of others to provide. Negative rights such as the right to live and the right to have property don't exist by default. They only become real if the society spends sufficient effort to prevent people from killing and stealing.
Human rights are aspirational. They are not rights people already have but rights people should have. They are the desired outcomes in an ideal society.
Education is good, but it should be as cheap and simple as possible. Putting it in universities that cost more than the per-capita GDP to attend is about as far from that as it gets. If we take that system and call it a "human right" and get the Government directly involved in paying for it, we're only making it worse by institutionalizing all of the bad practices that make it so insanely expensive, making it even more difficult to ever change and effectively extracting even more money from the people who don't use it.
Education is also not for everyone, and not at every time. People should pursue it because they actually want it, not because they perceive or are told they need it to succeed in life. We shouldn't tell kids they're destined for failure if they don't go to college, shouldn't shame people for being interested in jobs that don't need college, and shouldn't require college degrees for jobs that don't actually need it.